Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

PCHR condemns the killing of its lawyer, and her family by an Israeli airstrike on Rafah

PCHR | February 21, 2024

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) condemns in the strongest terms the killing of our dear colleague, Nour Naser Abu Al-Nour and seven of her family members, including her two-years-old daughter, by an Israeli airstrike on her family house in Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip. The killing of Nour along with seven of her family members, comes as the latest example of the genocide that Israel is committing against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and a reminder that all Palestinians, including human rights defenders, are a target for the Israeli government and army. This heinous crime also constitutes further evidence of the lack of safe space for Palestinians in the Strip and an example of what the Palestinians in the Strip have been subjected to for the last 137 days of ongoing Israeli aggression. Nour and her family are among of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians, the majority of whom are women and children, unjustly, illegally and cruelly killed as result of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip since 7 October 2023, which members of the international community have not only failed to bring to an end, but have been complicit by providing Israel with the necessary political, diplomatic and military support.

Our dear colleague Nour worked in the Women’s Rights Unit at PCHR since 2019. She holds a master’s degree in law and worked with distinction, perseverance and dedication until the last days, documenting the violations committed by the Israeli occupation, particularly against women and children, providing legal consultations, and trying to provide self-care to the women victims in shelters despite the difficult conditions. Several weeks ago, Nour was forced to move to her family’s house after Israeli war planes targeted a neighboring house, causing significant damage to her house.

According to information collected by PCHR, last night, 20 February 2024, at approximately 10:00 pm, Israeli war planes directly targeted without any prior warning the house of Nour’s Father, Professor Nasser Abu Al-Nour, Dean of the Faculty of Nursing at the Islamic University in Gaza, located in Al-Jeneina neighborhood in Rafah, on top of its residents. The targeting resulted in the killing of our dear colleague Nour Abu Al-Nour (30), who works as a lawyer in the Women’s Rights Unit, her child, Kenzi Jumaa (2), her father, Professor Nasser Abu Al-Nour (60), her mother, Mjida Farid Abu Al-Noor (55), three of her sisters, Amal Nasser Abu Al Nour (35), Mona Nasser Abu Al Nour (24), and Ayat Naser Abu Al-Nour (19), and her brother, Abdulrahman Nasser Abu Al Nour (23), and the wounding of dozens others.

The crimes committed by the Israeli occupation have not spared anyone, including human rights defenders, who have become themselves, along with their families, actual victims of the aggression by being subjected to targeting, starvation, torture and forced displacement as part of the ongoing genocide against the Palestinians in the Strip.

PCHR extends its deepest condolences to the remaining members of Nour’s family and to the Palestinian human rights community and calls upon the international community to abide by their moral and legal obligations and act promptly to end the Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people. With every day that passes, more civilians are targeted and killed. Despite this heinous crime and the challenging working environment, PCHR reiterates its commitment and dedication to documenting and exposing the crimes committed by the Israeli occupation against Palestinian civilians to ensure justice and dignity for the victims.

Our thoughts and prayers are with her loved ones. May the soul of our beloved Nour and her family rest in peace.

February 23, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Gaza victims sue German government for ‘aiding genocide against Palestinians’

MEMO | February 23, 2024

Victims of months of Israel’s attacks on Gaza are filing a criminal complaint against top German government officials for supporting Israel’s war crimes and “genocide” against Palestinians, Anadolu Agency reports.

“We’re filing a criminal complaint against German government officials for the crime of aiding and abetting genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza by providing Israel with weapons and issuing related export permissions,” lawyers for the Gaza victims told a press conference in Berlin on Friday.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, and Economy Minister Robert Habeck all stand accused of “complicity in the genocide in Gaza” by supporting Israel’s military offensive, and authorising the export of €326 million ($350 million) worth of weapons to Israel.

Nadija Samour, one of the lawyers who filed the criminal complaint with federal prosecutors in Karlsruhe, south-western Germany, said: “Our governments in Europe have a legal obligation not to provide Israel any support in perpetrating the current genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza. This has to stop and this is what we hope to achieve by going to court. This lawsuit sends a clear message to German officials: you cannot continue to remain accomplices of such crime without consequences. We want accountability.”

Samour said German law requires a ground for initial suspicion to start investigations on a potential crime being committed.

“The International Court of Justice’s interim ruling clearly showed that there is such ground for initial suspicion when it comes to the crime of genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza,” she stressed, referring to a 26 January ruling ordering Israel’s government to stop genocidal acts and take steps to ensure that civilians in Gaza get humanitarian assistance.

February 23, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel’s skin bank raises ethical concerns on organ consent

Jordan News – November 17, 2023

GAZA – Israel possesses the world’s largest skin bank, a medical facility that stores human skin for later use in treating burns and skin cancers. This bank was established in 1986 under the supervision of the military medical sector of the occupying army, which provides its services internationally, especially to requests from Western countries.

Israeli occupation authorities been stealing organs from the bodies of dead Palestinian, a heinous criminal practice that has been revealed in several reports and through testimonies of Israeli doctors who participated in this gruesome practice, violating professional ethics and constituting a crime against humanity, Al-Ghad reported.

In contrast, this Israeli bank differs from other banks worldwide in that its supply of these vital organs does not come solely from voluntary donors. Instead, documented cases of stealing skin from the bodies of Palestinians have been recorded, individuals whose organs are also stolen.

There is compelling evidence of Israelis engaging in trafficking these stolen organs, making the entity the largest market for organs in the Middle East.

Where did Israel get this inventory from?

Expert in Israeli affairs Anas Abu Arqoub says, “The Israeli skin bank is the largest in the world, surpassing the American skin bank that was established 40 years before it, noting that Israel’s population is much smaller than the United States.”

Arqoub emphasizes that the theft of organs from Palestinian bodies is not just suspicions, stating, “Even the Israeli media acknowledges that it is an extraction process without the knowledge of the dead’s families.”

The reserve of human skin held by the Israeli occupation state, equivalent to 170 square meters, stored within the Israeli skin bank, confirms Arqoub’s account. The number is considered unreasonable since Israel ranks third in its population’s refusal to donate organs, attributed to Jewish religious beliefs.

Handing over Palestinian bodies to their families without organs!

The details of the story date back to 2001 when Swedish investigative journalist Donald Boström published an investigation exposing the theft of organs from the bodies of Palestinian martyrs and their trafficking by Israeli entities. This was the first time this crime was revealed to the international public.

Boström did not stop at this point but published another investigation on the same subject in 2009 in the pages of the Swedish magazine Aftonbladet. The investigation mentions that the Israeli Ministry of Health launched a national campaign to encourage organ donation in 1992. However, despite that, a significant gap persisted between the demand and the supply of donations.

Coinciding with that campaign, cases of the disappearance of several Palestinian youth began, only to return afterward in closed coffins. The Israeli authorities imposed on their families to bury them at night without funerals.

Boström says, “I was in the region at that time, and on several occasions, UN employees contacted me concerned about the developments. The individuals who contacted me said that organ theft certainly happened, but they were prevented from doing anything about it.”

These contacts prompted the journalist to delve further into the issue, so he went to interview the families of the dead who confirmed the theft of their sons’ organs before their killing. Among them was the son of the martyr Bilal Ahmed Ghannan, who was 19 years old when the Israeli army arrested him in the village of Um al-Tut in the West Bank in 1992. He returned with a body without internal organs, from the neck to below the abdomen.

The Israeli medical authorities did not deny the torture and theft of Bilal’s organs. At that time, the director of the Israeli Institute of Forensic Medicine, Chen Kugel, said that Bilal’s family could be right because they “took everything that could be taken from all the bodies that came to the Institute of Forensic Medicine,” without the family’s consent. His family did not receive any explanation, apology, or compensation for what happened.

Israeli confessions of organ theft from Palestinians

In a 2009 documentary on the issue, there are admissions from the former director of the Israeli Institute of Forensic Medicine, Yehuda Hiss, confirming the theft of organs from the bodies of Palestinian in the institute. Hiss stated, “We took corneas, skin, heart valves, and bones … Almost everything was done unofficially to a large extent… and permission was not sought from the families.”

In her study on dealing with the bodies of Palestinians at the Abu Kabir Forensic Medicine Center in Tel Aviv, published in a book titled “On Their Bodies,” anthropologist Meirav Feis stated that she witnessed “how they take organs from the bodies of Palestinians. In return, they leave the bodies of soldiers intact.”

The researcher added, “They take corneas, skin, and heart valves in a way that makes the absence of those organs unnoticed by non-specialists. They replace corneas with plastic bodies and remove the skin from the back so that the family does not see it. In addition, the bodies of the dead are used in medical schools in Israeli universities for research purposes.”

Feis said, “In the first intifada, the army effectively allowed the institute to extract organs from Palestinians under a military procedure that required dissecting the bodies of Palestinian prisoners. The autopsy procedure was accompanied by the removal of organs used by the Israeli skin bank, established in 1985 to treat burns suffered by Israeli soldiers.”

Trafficking in the organs of Palestinian casualties

Israel is one of the largest markets for trafficking in human organs in the world, and the largest in the Middle East. Media reports revealed that the Israeli entity is involved in killing Palestinians to steal their internal organs illegally and trade them within an illegal international network.

In 2009, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested an Israeli settler named Levy Izhak Rosenbaum. After investigating him, it was revealed that he played the role of a broker in organ-selling operations in the United States for the benefit of a criminal cell led by rabbis, politicians, and government officials in Israel.

Journalist Donald Boström, in his mentioned investigation, suggests a connection between this network and the theft of organs from Palestinian martyrs taking place in “Israel.” Boström said, “Half of the kidneys transplanted to Israelis since the beginning of the first decade of the 21st century were illegally purchased. The Israeli health authorities have full knowledge of this activity but do nothing to stop it.”

In a report published by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz in 2016, Israel admitted to losing dozens of bodies of Palestinians. The newspaper quoted statements from sources in the Israeli judicial and security apparatuses about the loss of 121 bodies of Palestinians held by the occupation authorities since the 1990s.

Continued organ theft

Following the explosion of the organ theft scandal in 2009, the Israeli government tried to evade the proven charges against it. The spokesperson for the Israeli Ministry of Health at that time, Einav Shimron Greenboim, issued a statement saying, “The practice mentioned in the investigation is an old story that ended years ago.”

Doubts persist about the continuation of these unethical practices that violate human rights, as indicated by the Israeli authorities’ continued detention of dozens of bodies of Palestinian dead, justifying it as a punitive measure.

According to Abdel Nasser Farwana, the head of the Studies and Documentation Unit at the Palestinian Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners Affairs Commission, Israel still holds more than 370 bodies of Palestinian and Arab bodies who died in different circumstances and years apart. He added, “The list of these detained martyrs includes individuals who died from the 1970s until around 2023.”

February 23, 2024 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

China backs Palestinians’ right to ‘armed struggle’ against Israeli occupation

The Cradle | February 22, 2024

China expressed support for the right of Palestinians to engage in “armed struggle” against Israel, stressing this is not “terrorism” during the fourth day of hearings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in a case against Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territories.

“In pursuit of the right to self-determination [the Palestinian people have the right to the] use of force to resist foreign oppression and to complete the establishment of the Palestinian state,” Ma Xinmin, a Chinese Foreign Ministry legal adviser, told the World Court on 22 February.

Citing examples of “various people [who] freed themselves from colonial rule” through armed resistance, Xinmin argued that acts of resistance against the Israeli occupation are “not terrorism” but a legitimate armed struggle and an “inalienable right.”

“Numerous other resolutions recognize the legitimacy of struggle by all available means, including armed struggle by people under colonial domination or foreign occupation to realize the right of self-determination,” the Chinese official said.

“Chinese President Xi Jinping has stressed on multiple occasions that China calls for a comprehensive ceasefire and the early solution to the question of Palestine on the basis of a two-state solution through negotiation,” he added.

Xinmin took to the podium ahead of Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs, Reza Najafi, who highlighted Israel’s historic violations of Palestinians’ right to self-determination.

“The establishment of the Israeli regime was done through a violent process which involved the forcible displacement of native Palestinian people to create a majority Jewish colony in line with the Zionist movement,” Najafi said.

He also listed a series of ongoing violations by Tel Aviv, which include the prolonged occupation and manipulation of the demographic composition in the occupied Palestinian territories, the alteration of the character and status of Jerusalem, and the discriminatory measures and violations of the rights of Palestinian people to permanent sovereignty over their natural resources.

“The expansion of settlements, segregated roads and barriers as well as checkpoints has created a system of apartheid which is isolating Palestinian communities,” Najafi added before addressing the UN Security Council (UNSC) for their “inaction or insufficient action,” saying this was one of the “main causes of prolonged occupation of the Palestinians” and highlighting that the top UN body is “paralyzed due to the stalemate” caused by a “certain permanent member.”

“All the atrocities and crimes committed by the Israeli regime in the past almost eight years are a consequence of such inaction,” the Iranian official concluded.

The Iraqi representative to the ICJ, Hayder Shiya al-Barrak, took to the podium next and called on the ICJ to respect previous court orders against Israel, such as the provisions made after South Africa’s case to “stop the systematic killing machine against the Palestinian people.”

“We hope that the court’s commitment to justice will lead to additional decisions … affirming its dedication to ending the campaign of mass murder and preventing acts of genocide as well as policies of harassment, blockade, and starvation against the Palestinian people,” he said.

Barrak concluded his intervention by calling on the World Court to take decisions “that safeguard the lives of the Palestinian man, women, children, and elders, allowing them to enjoy a dignified and secure life where all human rights are achieved.”

February 22, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Buffer zone in Sinai: Is Sisi preparing to displace the Palestinians?

By Osama Gaweesh | MEMO | February 22, 2024

Over the past days, the Sinai Foundation for Human Rights has published three reports accompanied by videos and photos from the buffer zone in North Sinai, a few kilometres from the Egyptian border with the Gaza Strip and the Occupied Territories.

The issue began on 4 February, when the Egyptian army, accompanied by engineers from engineering companies contracted by the Abnaa Sinai Company, owned by the head of the Sinai Tribes Union, Ibrahim Al-Organi, moved loaders and vehicles to begin bulldozing and construction operations in a 13 kilometre-area inside the buffer zone, at an unusually rapid pace. The pictures also showed the construction of a huge seven-metre-high wall.

A day later, several Western websites, such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Reuters and AP published reports accompanied by satellite images, all confirming what the Sinai Foundation had stated. Everyone was looking for an answer to one question: Is Egypt preparing to receive the displaced Palestinians from the Gaza Strip in Sinai after Israel begins the military operation in the Palestinian Rafah?

The Egyptian regime did not wait long before issuing its response quickly, not once, but four times, with four different official narratives, and you can choose whichever you want from them.

The first narrative came from Major-General Mohamed Abdel Fadil Shousha, the Governor of North Sinai, on 15 February, when he spoke to the Saudi Al Arabiya website, saying that there is no intention to displace Palestinians to Sinai, and that the ongoing works in the buffer zone are nothing but committees from the governorate that are counting the numbers of homes that were demolished in this area during the war on terrorism to determine the appropriate compensation from the State to the people of Sinai who were displaced from their homes years ago.

The problem with this story is that the people of Rafah and Sheikh Zuweid have already been demonstrating for months to demand their return to their homes and land, which the Egyptian authorities have been refusing and even dealing with by using a strong security fist. The Egyptian authorities have been arresting the most prominent figures from the Sinai tribes who are demanding the right of return. So why did the Egyptian authorities suddenly and without warning decide to allow them to return and even compensate them?

The second narrative came from Diaa Rashwan, head of the State Information Service, who said in two phone interviews that Egypt has no intention of receiving the Palestinians and that the buffer zone has existed for years and there is nothing new about it, so why should Egypt establish a new buffer zone?

It is strange that Rashwan denied something that the Sinai Foundation did not mention, nor did Western press reports mention. No one claimed that Egypt was establishing a new buffer zone, and no one denied the existence of a buffer zone in the first place. Rather, they were talking about the strange construction that suddenly appeared in this area in coincidence with the Israeli military operation in Palestinian Rafah.

The third narrative came from Major-General Shousha, again, on 17 February, when he said in statements, also reported by the Saudi Al Arabiya website, that the Egyptian army is establishing a logistical area in that place to organise the waiting aid trucks and provide comfortable accommodation for the drivers of these trucks who have been waiting for months.

Major-General Shousha contradicted his first story with this second one, refuting and denying the first narrative. He also cast doubts on his credibility as an official source when he gave two different narratives, on two different days, to the same site. The question is why is the army establishing a logistical area after these trucks have been waiting for four months in front of the Rafah Crossing? What has changed?

What is more, the army put up a flimsy sign in front of that area reading “Logistical Area”, which Egyptian media outlets close to the regime were quick to broadcast this footage immediately to confirm the news and deny any talk or speculation about Egypt’s preparations to receive the Palestinians.

The fourth narrative came from Egyptian Foreign Minister, Sameh Shoukry, on the sidelines of his participation in the Munich Security Conference, where he said that Egypt has no intention of receiving the Palestinians and cannot allow the displacement of the Palestinian people from the Gaza Strip. He added that what is happening in the buffer border zone is nothing but maintenance work.

Honestly, I do not know what kind of maintenance work is needed for the desert sands in the buffer zone and why the army is building a wall that is 7 metres high, if the goal is maintenance work. Is it a logistical area, an inventory of the homes of the displaced or maintenance for something we do not know about on the Egyptian border?

The conflicting Egyptian narratives all prove what the Sinai Human Rights Foundation and Western press reports have said: Egypt is preparing to receive the Palestinians in the buffer zone in a place similar to cantons.

What are cantons?

A canton is a security and military-governed space subject to strict measures that can be imagined as an open-air prison for a group of people and is considered self-governed by its residents under a larger regional authority.

These cantons depend on external communication channels to obtain aid and do not have sufficient resources to rely on themselves for living, as they are established as alternative plans that provide security control and are subject to a strict siege from the higher regional authorities.

The cantons are considered an easy way to get rid of ethnic groups indirectly, as the Israeli Occupation implemented them on some people in the West Bank who were trapped in the middle of the settlements. The displaced Syrians also suffered from remaining inside these cantons that belong to different ethnic forces.

Historically, there has been the Cantonal rebellion in Spain, the canton system in Switzerland and the apartheid regime imposed in South Africa to continually disperse and weaken the population.

If Egypt adopts the same policy and places the Palestinians in these cantons, this will raise a set of important questions. For example, who would be responsible for them: the Egyptian armed forces or the militias of the Sinai Tribes Union and its head, Ibrahim Al-Organi?

When will these Palestinians return to their land again, and who decides how, when and where they will return? Will it be the Egyptian regime or Israel?

The Egyptian regime possesses the power cards that enable it to stop the entire Israeli war on the Gaza Strip and prevent the displacement plan once and for all, but it has chosen a policy of statements and declarations that Israel disregards, and a policy that will not stop the flow of Palestinians into the cantons of the buffer zone in North Sinai.

February 22, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Fresh aggression: US, UK launch five strikes on Yemen’s Hudaydah

Press TV – February 22, 2024

The United States and Britain have conducted fresh aerial assaults on Yemen’s strategic western province of Hudaydah.

The al-Masirah television network reported three airstrikes on Ras Issa area in Hudaydah’s a-Salif district late on Wednesday.

Earlier in the day, it added, four similar air raids also targeted al-Jabana and al-Arj areas in Hudaydah.

Meanwhile, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement that its forces had carried out four strikes on areas in Yemen, targeting “seven mobile anti-ship cruise missiles and one anti-ship ballistic missile launcher” in the act of aggression.

It claimed that the targets “presented an imminent threat to merchant vessels and to the US Navy ships in the region.”

CENTCOM also said that its forces had shot down a “one-way attack unmanned aircraft system.”

In recent months, the US and its allies have launched illegal attacks on Yemen amid their frustration in the face of an anti-Israel maritime campaign by the Yemeni armed forces.

Israel waged a US-backed genocidal war on the besieged Gaza Strip on October 7 following a historic operation by the Palestinian Hamas resistance group against the occupying regime.

In support of Gaza, Yemeni armed forces have targeted ships going to and from ports in the occupied territories, or whose owners are linked to Israel, in the southern Red Sea, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the Gulf of Aden, and even in the Arabian Sea.

The US-led attacks on Yemen prompted the country’s military to declare American and British vessels to be legitimate targets.

February 22, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

London high court rejects legal challenge against UK arms sales to Israel

Press TV – February 21,2024

The High Court in London has rejected a legal challenge against UK weapons exports to Israel, despite growing concerns over human rights violations in war-torn Gaza Strip.

The court refused the appeal against the UK Department for Business and Trade (DBT) on Tuesday, saying the criteria requiring the DBT to consider whether there is a risk the weapons might be used in a violation of international law must be “clear” and has to be “of a serious violation”.

The court refusal said there was a “high hurdle” to overcome to establish the government’s conclusion was “irrational,” adding that “There is no realistic prospect of that hurdle being surmounted here.”

Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq and UK-based Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) applied for a judicial review of the government’s export licenses for the sale of British weapons capable of being used in Israel’s war on Gaza.

They warned that the UK government is ignoring its own rules in the Israeli war on Gaza, saying they are seeking to overturn the court’s decision.

The legal challenge stated that the government has granted licenses for the sale of British weapons to Israel under a wide range of categories in recent years.

Existing UK arms export criteria say that if there is a “clear risk” that a weapon might be used in a serious violation of international humanitarian law (IHL) then an arms export should not be licensed.

Shawan Jabarin, general director of al-Haq, said the UK government’s decision to continue supplying Israel with weapons for offensive against men, women, and children in Gaza is effectively arming the occupying regime to “completely decimate” the Gaza Strip, reducing the besieged enclave’s vital civilian infrastructure to rubble.

GLAN also said the high court’s decision is out of step with the growing international consensus that Israel’s actions in Gaza amount to genocide.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has issued a preliminary ruling on a genocide case brought by South Africa against the Israeli regime, ordering Tel Aviv to take all measures necessary to prevent genocide in the Gaza Strip

Last week, a Dutch court ordered the government of the Netherlands to stop supplying F35 fighter jet parts to Israel within seven days, citing violations of international and humanitarian law. Italy and Spain also blocked all arms exports to Israel as soon as the attacks in Gaza started.

Israel waged the devastating war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas carried out a surprise retaliatory attack, dubbed Operation Al-Aqsa Storm, against the occupying entity over its intensified violence against Palestinians.

The Israeli aggression has so far killed more than 29,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, and injured about 70,000 others in Gaza.

The Tel Aviv regime has imposed a “complete siege” on the territory, cutting off fuel, electricity, food, and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.

According to the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), between 2015 and 2022, the UK licensed more than half a billion dollars worth of weapons to Tel Aviv.

February 21, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

US Tells UN Court Israel Must Be Allowed to Continue Occupation of Palestine

By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | February 21, 2024

A State Department official speaking before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) urged the body not to order Israel to end the occupation of Palestine. The court is currently hearing arguments in a case that calls on Israel to end the military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

The ICJ will hear arguments from more than 50 countries over six days. On the third day of the trial, State Department legal adviser Richard Visek argued to the ICJ that Israel needs to continue the occupation of Palestine for security reasons. “The court should not find that Israel is legally obligated to immediately and unconditionally withdraw from occupied territory,” Visek said.

“Any movement towards Israel’s withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza requires consideration of Israel’s very real security needs.” He continued, “We were all reminded of those security needs on October 7, and they persist.”

Visek did not mention the security needs of the Palestinians, who have suffered under decades of occupation and apartheid at the hands of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Since October 7, 29,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli military operations in Gaza. Tel Aviv has prevented aid from reaching the children of Gaza, putting one in six at risk of death due to starvation.

The case moving through the ICJ is separate from the genocide charges brought by South Africa in December. Last month, the court issued a primary ruling that Israel was plausibly committing genocide in Gaza fueled by the rhetoric of the country’s leadership. The ICJ ordered Israel to end military operations in Gaza that endanger civilians. Tel Aviv and Washington have said they will ignore the court’s decision.

The second ICJ trial is examining the Israeli military occupation of Palestine, which has been ongoing since 1967. Several international and Israeli human rights organizations have concluded that the occupation amounts to apartheid.

For decades, Washington has underwritten the Israeli occupation of the West Bank by preventing the UN Security Council from condemning Tel Aviv’s oppression of the Palestinians and giving Israel over $250 billion in aid. On Tuesday, the US vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that called for a ceasefire in Gaza.

The US claims that by giving Israel billions of dollars in weapons every year, it was establishing the conditions for a two-state solution. Visek told the ICJ that ruling Israel to end the occupation of Palestine will prevent the creation of a Palestinian state. “It is important that the court keeps in mind the balance the [UN] Security Council and the General Assembly have determined is necessary to provide the best chance for durable peace,” he told the ICJ on Wednesday.

However, Tel Aviv has deliberately worked to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state. Earlier this week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasted he has been able to thwart the emergence of a sovereign nation for the Palestinians during these past decades. “Everyone knows that I am the one who for decades blocked the establishment of a Palestinian state that would endanger our existence,” Netanyahu said, according to The Times of Israel.

February 21, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

Yemen says in talks with EU over Red Sea shipping safety

Press TV – February 21, 2024

Yemeni authorities have held “constructive talks” with the representatives of the European Union (EU) to ensure the safety of shipping in the Red Sea, Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein al-Ezzi says.

The Yemeni minister said on Wednesday that his country had ensured EU authorities during bilateral talks that the Red Sea is safe for international transit.

“We once again reiterate that the Red Sea is absolutely safe. Only passage to ships linked to three parties, namely the US, Israel and Britain, are blocked,” al-Ezzi was quoted as saying by Yemen’s al-Masirah TV channel.

Yemeni forces started carrying out attacks on Israeli-linked ships weeks after the regime launched the bloody hostilities in the besieged Gaza Strip in early October.

The strikes later expanded to target ships linked to the United States and Britain. The two countries have carried out airstrikes and naval attacks on Yemen’s territory in the recent past.

Yemen’s Ansarullah movement says attacks on ships will continue until Israel ends the campaign in Gaza, which has killed more than 29,000 people since early October.

The Yemenis have sought to ensure international shipping companies that their vessels can safely sail in three major regional waterways of the Red Sea, the Bab al-Mandab Strait and the Gulf of Aden if they have no connection to Israel, the US or Britain.

Ezzi said some 283 commercial ships had sailed in the Red Sea with complete safety this week despite claims by Washington that the waterway is not safe for commercial shipping.

“Unfortunately, shipping companies have been deceived by the US propaganda and reduced passage through the Red Sea because of US efforts to militarize the region,” he said.

February 21, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Red lines: Will Iran enter the regional war?

By Farzad Ramezani Bonesh | The Cradle | February 21, 2024

On 14 October 2023, Iran issued a stern public ultimatum to Israel, cautioning that unless it ceases its genocidal assault on Gaza, significant repercussions will ensue, likening them to “a huge earthquake.”

Tehran’s envoy to the UN later clarified that the Islamic Republic would only intervene in the Gaza war if the occupation state were to jeopardize Iranian interests or citizens.

Given the events of the past four months, this raises the question: What are Iran’s red lines, and at what point would Tehran opt for direct confrontation?

The red lines

To grasp Iran’s motivations and reactions, it’s critical to understand its red lines—those non-negotiable boundaries it staunchly defends. At the heart of this lies the survival of the Islamic Republic itself, which recently celebrated its 44th anniversary. Any encroachment on Iran’s territorial integrity or vital interests triggers a defensive response to deter potential threats.

Foremost among these red lines are any broad attacks on Iran’s maritime assets, energy infrastructure, and strategic interests. Assaults on vital economic nodes like oil refineries or shipping lanes will likely prompt swift and resolute reactions from Iran’s leadership, signaling a readiness to safeguard national assets at any cost.

Previously, the Iranian government denied involvement in the Hamas-led resistance Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. While ideologically aligned with Palestinian resistance factions, Tehran insists on their autonomy, wary of direct involvement that could destabilize its domestic front. Nevertheless, support for other allies in the Axis of Resistance like Hezbollah remains unwavering, serving as a deterrent against external aggression targeting Iran’s strategic depth.

‘De-Americanization’

So far, Tehran has moved to influence Israel’s war in Gaza on the level of diplomacy, demanding the immediate cessation of killings, the lifting of the blockade on humanitarian aid, and the withdrawal of the Israeli military from the Gaza Strip. The key aims of the Iranians are to prevent a serious blow to the Palestinian resistance and its military capabilities and to prevent another mass displacement of Palestinians from their lands.

From Iran’s perspective, resistance against Israel and the US represents a cornerstone of the Islamic Republic’s strategic vision – part of its wider anti-imperialist struggle in West Asia, and ambition to force the US out of the region.

Many in Tehran believe the Gaza war is orchestrated in Washington, with the US serving as Israel’s primary advocate in global arenas like the UN Security Council. As such, Iran aims to undermine US influence by exacerbating divisions between Washington and Tel Aviv.

Despite Israel’s resolve to continue its campaign of ethnic cleansing, Iran’s strategy hinges on exploiting this discord, using diplomatic channels to influence US policy without resorting to direct confrontation. In essence, Tehran’s approach is to apply pressure on Washington via non-aggressive methods – without entering the war.

Israel’s covert attacks continue 

Last week, a major attack was carried out on Iran’s national gas transmission pipelines. Iranian Oil Minister Javad Oji called the pipeline explosions in three regions “sabotage and terrorist attacks” and said the enemy’s plan was to disrupt gas supply to several cities and main provinces during the winter to ignite social and political unrest across the country.

While no country has claimed responsibility, a New York Times report names Israel as the culprit, citing several western official sources. Despite the severity of the attacks, Iran’s critical gas transmission capacity was safeguarded, preventing widespread energy crises.

Yet even these attacks didn’t cross Iran’s red lines because this act of vandalism – intent on destroying about 40 percent of the country’s gas transmission capacity and creating an energy crisis – was immediately thwarted.

These incidents mark another chapter in the covert conflict between Iran and Israel, which spans air, land, sea, and cyberspace. While such attacks have become somewhat routine, the frequency, intensity, and scale of destruction in this latest round may signal a material escalation that crosses Tehran’s established red lines.

Iran’s strategic response 

As its support for Palestine is a top Iranian foreign policy priority, President Ebrahim Raisi has stated that the ongoing situation in Gaza raises the possibility of expanding the conflict to other regional fronts.

This is of great concern to the US. Since the beginning of Israel’s aggressions, the US has repeatedly warned Iran and its allies about “opening new fronts” in the war. These warnings have not had the desired impact: more than four months later, it is clear the Resistance Axis has responded proportionately from Lebanon, Syria, Iran, to Yemen with measured retaliations aimed at curbing Israel’s options.

Moreover, if Israel pushes Iran’s Palestinian allies to the limit, it appears that Tehran would pursue a relative, restrictive, short-term, and mid-term response.

In the interim, the assertive military reactions from Iranian allies – including Hezbollah in Lebanon, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, factions operating in Iraq and Syria, and the Ansarallah-aligned armed forces in Yemen – serve as a stick to confront Israel’s aggressive stance autonomously, even in the absence of direct instructions from Iran.

While Washington and Tel Aviv claim they wish to avoid opening new fronts, on the ground, they are gearing up for military confrontation and have already escalated on various fronts.

In response, the Axis of Resistance refuses to remain passive, aiming to disrupt Tel Aviv’s crucial lifelines while refraining from fully engaging its forces in the conflict. The baseline is to keep pressure on the US so that it urges restraint from Israel in Gaza.

Logic is its finest weapon: protracted war in Gaza appears to be at odds with European and western interests, particularly in areas such as energy security, geoeconomics, overall regional stability, and public diplomacy.

As such, Tehran may perceive an opportunity to exploit this misalignment to further drive a wedge between the US and its European allies, potentially leading to increased pressure and sanctions against Israel.

The bigger picture 

Today, Iran’s adversarial stance seems to be more focused on the US rather than Israel. Via regional intermediaries, Tehran hopes to broker agreements with Washington to secure a ceasefire and alleviate Israel’s pressure on Gaza. A common view among Iranians is that the pursuit of “legitimate defense” is preferable to engaging in a wider regional conflict, as prolonged internal crises within Israel could ultimately work in Iran’s favor.

Drawing from past conflicts, particularly the Hezbollah–Israeli battles in south Lebanon, Iran sees potential in eroding both Israel’s internal power and external support. This strategy intends to gradually force the occupation state to retreat from its aggressive posture in the region.

Furthermore, Iran envisions leveraging the war in Gaza to bolster its reputation and influence among Arab states. Tehran hopes to capitalize on the situation to undermine existing peace agreements, such as the Camp David Accords, and halt the normalization process initiated in 2000 between Israel and Arab states. Iran also aims to rally international support against Israel through platforms like the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the Arab League, BRICS, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

Although a “preemptive attack” has already been proposed if Israel continues its assault on Gaza, Iran’s strategic partners in Moscow and Beijing have not declared their full support for direct war. Therefore, Tehran is likely to avoid divergence with Russia and China in the event of major international crises.

Gaza gambit

When considering the possibility of direct intervention in the Gaza conflict, it’s crucial to recognize the formidable challenges Iran would confront. These include the risk of casualties, economic repercussions, and a decrease in oil exports.

The option of direct Iranian military involvement will only be on the table if Israel and the US cross Tehran’s red lines, though any military action against Iran would be a clear violation of international law. As the Commander-in-Chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said in January, although Iran is not seeking war, it will not leave any threat unanswered. 

It must be noted that Iran sees the war in Gaza through a realist, long-term lens and not an ideological point of view. This highlights a critical reality: while Iran makes efforts to maintain a delicate balance of threats without plunging into direct warfare, the potential for direct actions and reactions to spiral out of control remains ever-present.

Iran has thus far calculated that neither Washington nor Israel would risk direct attacks on its territory. However, the mutual risk of miscalculation on both sides could lead to a gradual escalation into direct warfare.

February 21, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

The United States Vetoes Yet Another UN Humanitarian Ceasefire Over Gaza

Is a rival resolution from Washington another trick to protect Israel?

BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • FEBRUARY 20, 2024

There have been several interesting developments relating to Israel’s ongoing destruction of Gaza and its people, but one might well question the motives of at least one of the principal players in the drama, namely Joe Biden’s United States government. Last Tuesday the United States, acting to protect Israel, vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution, arguing that it would “jeopardize” the ongoing negotiations between the two parties to release the Israeli hostages and it wouldn’t be “conducive to a sustainable peace and would instead empower Hamas.” Thirteen of the fifteen members of the Security Council supported the resolution, Britain abstained, and US alone voted against it. It was the third humanitarian resolution incorporating a ceasefire vetoed by Washington over Gaza, each of which was intended by the White House to give Israel a completely free hand to deal with the Palestinians.

The resolution had been proposed by Algeria and it called for an immediate ceasefire and the expediting of emergency humanitarian assistance to the in-peril Gazan population. The UN has been warning that a humanitarian catastrophe that could kill hundreds of thousands is about to take place if nothing is done to reverse what is being called a genocide due to the deliberate employing of famine and disease, not to mention the killing of more than 30,000 Palestinians by the Israeli military aided and abetted by the US. After the UN vote, the Algerian ambassador to the UN said Washington’s lone opposing vote should be understood as “approval of starvation as a means of war against hundreds of thousands of Palestinians” and “ it “implies an endorsement of the brutal violence and collective punishment inflicted upon” those Palestinians in Gaza.” The Algerian resolution also came at a time when the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague is beginning its separate review of whether Israel has used the past month to mitigate or cancel its genocidal acts in Gaza

Opinion polls suggest that most Americans oppose what Israel and Washington are doing, but they have little ability to influence choices made by Congress and the White House, which are overwhelming inclined to defer to Israeli points of view due to the fact that they have been bought by the powerful Zionist Lobby in the US. Nota bene one of the biggest sellouts to Israel of all time, former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi who, with impeccable timing given both the Algerian proposal and the ICJ review, stated last week that Israel has not used any weapons provided by the United States in its military action against Gaza. She said “There’s nothing that we have sent since Oct. 7 that has contributed to this brutality. In the longer run, they are in a dangerous neighborhood.” That is, of course a complete lie, as the Biden Administration has carried out hundreds of airlifts of “emergency” weapons to the Jewish state, to include the 2,000 pound bunker buster bombs whose use against hospitals and other large buildings has been well-attested to by some of the eyewitness journalists, medical doctors and UN officials who have managed to avoid being targeted and assassinated by Israel.

What followed on the Monday announcement by US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield about the impending Algerian veto surprised many who were watching developments. The media were informed that Washington would be presenting its own rival Security Council draft resolution that would call for a temporary ceasefire and which also would advise Israel against launching a ground invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza over Ramadan, which starts on March 10th, due to the fact that more than a million Gazans are trapped in the region with, quite probably, nowhere to go. The resolution calls for a “viable plan” for protecting civilians in Rafah, whatever that is supposed to mean, which Israel will presumably ignore, and it includes no sanctions if Israel refuses to comply. The US indicated that its draft document would be discussed in the UN over the next several weeks or more and might be subject to considerable editing, but it set no time table for initiating the temporary ceasefire apart from “as soon as practicable,” which is where a warning flag went up for me and others.

The resolution gives Israel considerable freedom of action without any bothersome timetable to worry about and “temporary” means it can resume military action when it wishes to do so and there is no threat of possible punishment if Israel does decide to invade Rafah and kills another 30,000 Palestinians while doing so. It is well known in Washington circles that follow foreign policy and Biden’s wars that the US doesn’t make any moves on the Middle East without complete prior consultation with the Israelis. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has even participated in Israeli War Cabinet meetings. Against those weak but positive moves spelled out in the resolution, there is the fact that Netanyahu and his political allies, long opposed to a two-state solution, have recently repeatedly rejected proposals for any Palestinian sovereign entity which means that the intention is to destroy and/or annex Gaza. Israel is in fact using its formidable lobby and international press/narrative control to work assiduously to isolate the Palestinians by blocking any recognition by individual countries or as a full member at the UN. The greatest effort is inevitably being directed at working to keep the United States under control. Both Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan carefully coordinate every step the administration takes with the Israeli Minister for Strategic Affairs and former ambassador to Washington Ron Dermer who reports directly to Netanyahu.

Nor is there any hint in what is included in the upcoming US resolution regarding what Biden and Netanyahu might seek to do afterwards to end the conflict. In fact, Netanyahu has indicated that he is quite willing to expand the fighting as his government has moved to restrict access to Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque during Ramadan on “security grounds,” hardly a conciliatory move, while also widening the conflict with Hezbollah by an airstrike deep into Lebanon. Nevertheless, nearly everyone, except Israel and its US lobby, agrees that both justice and political realities demand that some kind of genuine Palestinian state should be allowed to develop if the ancient land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea is ever to find peace. Predictably, the problem is in the details, not to mention that Israel’s current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly insisted that no such an entity will ever be allowed to exist to challenge Israeli political and military supremacy in the region. And, for the moment, Netanyahu has the force majeure and both the active and passive support from the United States that he needs to enforce his writ over nearly all the occupied and under siege territory that he clearly sees as Eretz or Greater Israel.

Given the reality of who is capable of doing what to whom, the United States is perhaps hesitantly taking the lead on proposing something like a revived two-state solution to the problem, as originally envisioned in the UN partition that created Israel in 1948 as well as in the Oslo Accords of 1993, even though most Middle East experts have long asserted that such a formula can no longer succeed or even be attempted. Given the horrors taking place in Gaza, there is inevitably some interest in resuscitating a political formula that has already failed, largely because the existing Palestinian Authority (PA) has long since lost its legitimacy in the eyes of its most important audience, the Palestinian people. Any suggestion that a unity government for Palestinians combining the PA and Hamas is somehow viable is therefore delusional. Both Washington and Jerusalem know that, so one might consider that talk of some kind of empowered and enabled government for Palestinians is at best notional.

To be sure, the proposals that have been leaked in one form or another appear to be a way for the United States to save face and give some Palestinians a token voice while also funding and supplying weapons to Israel to enable and even advance the crushing of the Gazans and increasingly also of the West Bank Palestinians by the Netanyahu regime. Leading extremists like Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich in the Israeli government have made no attempt to conceal their desire to expel the Palestinians from the historic Palestine, killing them as necessary if they resist or attempt any “intifada” type uprising such as occurred in Gaza in October.

The United States and some Europeans are recognizing that a Palestinian state with what amounts to full sovereignty will not be allowed due to Israeli resistance and willingness to militarily destroy any such entity, but some leaders are nevertheless hoping to create some sort of “semi-sovereign” disarmed Palestinian government that will be entirely subservient to Israel in every way that matters. As a model, it would function similarly to how Israel currently retains and sometimes holds back the excise and other taxes due to the rump Palestinian Authority governing entity in Ramallah, making it a “subcontractor of the Israeli occupation,” that is completely surrounded and dominated by Israel.

Biden’s impending Gaza proposal also has a domestic political aspect. With Israel’s slaughter of Gazans still continuing, a situation that is enabled by Washington’s unflinching support of Israeli behavior, serious problems as the US is an active participant in a genocide are beginning to surface as the war spreads throughout the Middle East. One presumes that Blinken has finally decided that something must be done to salvage the international reputation of the United States while also undoing damage to Joe Biden’s electoral prospects as American voters increasingly are disgusted by the images of dead and tortured Palestinians that flash on national television screens nightly.

Aware that Netanyahu wants the war to continue until total victory to include opposition to the development of any Palestinian government entity, Blinken has reportedly asked the State Department to conduct a review and “present policy options on possible US and international recognition of a Palestinian state after the war in Gaza” if presumably it does end and is not completely annexed by the Jewish state. Netanyahu, for his part is also reading the political tea leaves that show his popularity is sharply declining. He counters that by repeating claims that Israel is winning what will be a long war completely destroying Hamas and, to show that he is serious, he has recently rejected a serious Hamas proposal for a ceasefire followed by prisoner and hostage exchanges and talks to resolve the conflict.

So the United States’ UN security Council resolution to advance some kind of peace process between Israel and the Palestinians might be much ado about nothing, just a way to buy time and to help Biden transform himself and his administration to make it look like they are interested in peace and reconciliation when they are really acting on behalf of Israel. As usual, the reality is in the details and we will soon enough know what the US president and his advisers have been up to and what they expect to achieve beyond the dissemination of the characteristic bipartisan lies and evasions that have constituted US foreign policy since 9/11.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.

February 21, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

How I established anti-Zionist views should be protected under UK law

By David Miller | Press TV | February 20, 2024

In a landmark judgement on February 5, the Bristol Employment Tribunal handed down its decision that I had been wrongfully dismissed from my position as Professor of Political Sociology at the University of Bristol.

In addition, the court found that the reasons given by the university for sacking me – that some Zionist students had been offended or claimed to feel ‘unsafe’ – were untrue.

The court determined instead that I had been dismissed for my anti-Zionist views.

And in the most significant element of the case, the court also ruled  – for the first time in the UK – that anti-Zionist views as set out by me in court filings are protected as a philosophical belief under the Equality Act 2010.

The judgment stated:

The claimant succeeds in claims of direct discrimination because of his philosophical belief contrary to section 13 Equality Act 2010.

It went on:

The claimant’s anti-Zionist beliefs qualified as a philosophical belief and as a protected characteristic pursuant to section 10 Equality Act 2010 at the material times.

What this means is both that anti-Zionist views are declared by the court not to be racist and that they are “worthy of respect in a democratic society”, which is the language used in the Equality Act.

What was the anti-Zionist position I espoused and the court endorsed as protected?

First, I defined Zionism in a neutral way as an ideology that holds that a state for Jewish people ought to be established and maintained in the territory that formerly comprised the British Mandate of Palestine.

Zionists, of course, agree with this ideology. But, as the judgement put it:

[The Claimant’s] belief that Zionism (as he defines it) is inherently racist, imperialistic and colonial is based on the claimant’s analysis that it “necessarily calls for the displacement and disenfranchisement of non-Jews in favor of Jews, and it is therefore ideologically bound to lead to the practices of apartheid, ethnic cleansing and genocide in pursuit of territorial control and expansion.”

The Employment Tribunal accepted that these ideas reached the level of coherence and cogency required of protected philosophical belief.

Among the specific statements made by me, for which I was sacked, were:

“The enemy we face here is Zionism and the imperial policies of the Israeli state”;

“It’s not just a question of being allowed to say, ‘Zionism’s bad’ or ‘Zionism’s racism’ – which, of course, we should be allowed to say because it is. But it’s not just a question of that; it’s a question of how we defeat the ideology of Zionism in practice.”; and

“Zionism is and always has been a racist, violent, imperialist ideology premised on ethnic cleansing. It is an endemically anti-Arab and Islamophobic ideology. It has no place in any society”.

These views are now to be regarded as protected anti-Zionist statements with no connection to anti-Semitism.

As the judgment stated:

“The Claimant explained, in his witness statement, that his opposition to Zionism is not opposition to the idea of Jewish self-determination or of a preponderantly Jewish state existing in the world, but rather, as he defines it, to the exclusive realization of Jewish rights to self-determination within a land that is home to a very substantial non-Jewish population.”

The case therefore establishes a very important precedent that will surely be relied upon and built upon in future employment cases.

And it declares to employers everywhere – that no matter how loudly Zionists scream and shout – it is not permissible to sack anti-Zionists for their views, which are henceforth protected in law.

Furthermore, the judgment drives a coach and horses through the long-promoted Zionist talking point that anti-Zionism is the “new antisemitism”.

This is a view that underpins the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Working Definition of Antisemitism, which must now be put to serious question.

I hope and believe that in the future this will be seen as a turning point in the battle to end the racist and genocidal ideology of Zionism.

But how did I win this case? A key element was that the witnesses provided by the University of Bristol did not support the case the university was making.

Indeed they fatally undermined it.

The concessions made by the University of Bristol witnesses were firstly by Professor George Banting, a retired Dean of the Faculty of Biomedical Sciences.

Under cross-examination, he was shown the university policy on investigations which emphasizes getting to the truth and testing evidence.

He was then taken through example after example where he admitted he had not properly taken into account the evidence that I and my team had submitted and he admitted that he had, in effect, treated the evidence from the Zionist student activists credulously, even though there was plenty of evidence that they had provided contradictory or false evidence.

Banting caused some amusement in court when toward the end of his testimony he disclosed that he was something of an anti-Zionist himself:

“I would be more aligned with the position that Professor Miller puts forward in terms of Zionism being a racist ideology and settler colonialism.”

Similar admissions were made by Professor Jane Norman the Dean of Health Sciences at Bristol. She admitted that she lacked knowledge of the Zionist movement and of sociology, subjects where she acknowledged I was more knowledgeable than she was.

She had claimed in her letter of dismissal that the Union of Jewish Students was simply a faith society and thus by inference not Zionist – a case that stretched credulity, but which also indicated her partiality.

She also reluctantly admitted that she had not properly analyzed the contending evidence in the case in her written decision to sack me. Norman has subsequently been promoted to the second top job at the University of Nottingham.

These concessions were enough to show that I had been wrongly dismissed.

As the judgment put it: “The claimant succeeds in his claim for unfair dismissal pursuant to section 98 Employment Rights Act 1996”

But both Banting and Norman also conceded other points that fatally compromised the university case.  The university and specifically Professor Norman had claimed that the reason I had been sacked was because Zionist students had been offended or felt ‘unsafe’ as a result of hearing my anti-Zionist views.

But they both confirmed under cross-examination by the British Palestinian barrister Zac Sammour that the key reason that I was sacked was precisely because of the anti-Zionist content of my views and not my comments about Zionist student groups.

This was enough to show that I had been dismissed specifically for my anti-Zionist views.

But the most dramatic moment was when the university’s Deputy Principal Professor Judith Squires took the stand. Squires is a professor of political theory by background, so should be more familiar with the issues under discussion.

She has been prominent at the University of Bristol in its responses to the Black Lives Matter movement and the call for divestment in relation to slavery.

She can be seen here delivering a speech in which she calls for the “eradication” of racism, a position which, as I said at the tribunal, I wholeheartedly endorse. As the most senior witness from the university she, of all people, had to support the overall university case that my views were not “worthy of respect in a democratic society”.

And Squires did from the outset, but immediately after she was asked if she thought that my views were views ‘akin to Nazism’. She seemed confused by the question as if she had not realized that affirming the university case entailed this position.

But she eventually agreed. At that moment she was lost.

My barrister proceeded to demonstrate that by asking about a hypothetical case where Anglo-Saxons in Britain forced 75 percent of non-Anglo-Saxons to leave and go and live in Cornwall or Wales, then denied the remaining 25% rights in jobs, education and voting, would that be racist? “Yes”, said Professor Squires.

And he went on if no non-Anglo-Saxon could return, but any Anglo-Saxon, anywhere in the world, could come and live in Britain. Would that be racist? “Yes” And, the barrister went on would it be wrong for a Professor to say that Anglo-Saxonism is racism? And that it should be opposed?  “No”, said Professor Squires.

The University of Bristol, in other words, undermined and eventually destroyed its own case in court.

David Miller is the producer and co-host of Press TV’s weekly Palestine Declassified show. He was sacked from Bristol University in October 2021 over his Palestine advocacy. 

February 20, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »