The Hague won’t stop us – Netanyahu
RT | January 13, 2024
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed at a press conference on Saturday not to let the genocide case being taken against his country at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) stand in the way of continuing his country’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
“No one will stop us – not The Hague, not the Axis of Evil, and no one else. It is possible and necessary to continue until victory and we will do it,” he said.
While the term “Axis of Evil” was first used in a speech by then-US president George W Bush to refer to Iraq, Iran and North Korea – at the time believed to be Washington’s chief enemies equipped with “weapons of mass destruction” later shown to be almost entirely mythological – it’s not clear whether Netanyahu intended to slight Pyongyang. However, North Korean state media did argue in an editorial posted shortly after the October 7 attack by Hamas that West Jerusalem had brought the raid upon itself with its “constant criminal acts against the Palestinian people.”
Elsewhere in the speech, the Israeli leader used the term to refer to Iran, the Houthis of Yemen, Hezbollah, and Hamas itself – a loose coalition that has elsewhere been described as the “Axis of Resistance” for its opposition to US and Israeli power in the region.
Hearings into alleged genocide against Israel began earlier this week at the ICJ in The Hague in the Netherlands, with South Africa making the case that Israel has engaged in actions “intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnic group.”
West Jerusalem has countered that it is Hamas actually that is harboring genocidal intent against Israelis and argued it is justified in attempting to “eliminate” the militant group it blames for 1,200 Israeli deaths on October 7 – no matter the resulting harm to the civilian population.
Israel Defense Forces troops have since admitted they were ordered to fire on Israelis in the border kibbutzes and desert rave during the Hamas raid, raising questions about how many of the casualties were actually killed by Palestinians as opposed to IDF tank fire and airstrikes.
Venezuelan FM Condemns the US Attacks on Yemen
teleSUR – January 13, 2024
The Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil, strongly condemned the USA, United Kingdom and other countries’ attacks on Yemen, through a formal statement on his X account.
Gil emphasized that those are an illegal action that violates International Law and that only contributes to generating greater destabilization in the region.
“Venezuela insists that the only way to guarantee peace and stability in the Middle East is through the cessation of the genocide in the Gaza Strip, carried out by Israel,” reads the communique.
As well, Venezuela asks the immediate compliance with all United Nations resolutions for the establishment of a free and sovereign Palestinian State.
The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela join to the countries that urges the international community to exert all necessary pressure measures to reestablish international legality and justice in the area, avoiding an escalation of the conflict caused by Israeli barbarity in Palestine.
Other FMs, like the Russian and the Cuban, also condemned the military attacks by the US & NATO allies in Yemen. They considered that such acts encourage genocide in Gaza and reiterated their call for an immediate cease-fire in the Palestinian enclave.
Remembering Tom Hurndall
A Poster in memory of British peace activist Thomas Hurndall on January 16, 2004 in Rafah refugee camp, Gaza Strip. [Abid Katib/Getty Images]
MEMO | January 13, 2024
On this day in 2004, British photography student Tom Hurndall died in a hospital in London, having never regained consciousness after being shot in the head by an Israeli sniper nine months earlier while volunteering with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) in the Gaza Strip.
What: Death of Tom Hurndall
Where: London
When: 13 January, 2004
Who was Tom Hurndall?
Born on 27 November 1981, in London, Tom Hurndall was a photography student at Manchester Metropolitan University, ISM volunteer and an activist against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. His photographs and journal entries capture the often distressing and occasionally inspiring moments he witnessed and lived through while staying with local families in Iraq, in a Jordanian refugee camp, and in the Gaza Strip.
In early 2003, Hurndall joined the anti-war movement against the Iraq invasion, relocating there before moving to Jordan to contribute to medical aid for Iraqi refugees. It was during this time that he discovered the ISM, an organisation advocating non-violent protest against the Israeli military in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
What happened?
On 6 April, 2003, Tom moved to Rafah in the Gaza Strip, hoping to document the oppressive living conditions of the Palestinians. His journals reflect a dramatic change in tone upon his arrival in Palestine as he began emailing images of the Israel Defence Forces and Palestinians back to his family. “No one could say I wasn’t seeing what needs to be seen now,” he wrote.
He even noted the death of 23-year-old Rachel Corrie, who had been crushed to death on 16 March 2003 by an Israeli armoured bulldozer while trying to stop a Palestinian home from being destroyed. “I wonder how few or many people heard it on the news and just counted it as another death, just another number…”
On 11 April, Hurndall, along with fellow ISM activists, aimed to set up a peace tent on a road in Rafah to impede IDF tank patrols. It was then that Israeli snipers began shooting. As they sought cover, the young man noticed a group of children in the line of the fire. Some had run for cover, but three children stood paralysed with fear.
“He sprinted to where the children were, picked one up and carried her to safety. When he went to collect a second child, he was shot in the head by an IDF soldier, Taysir Al-Hayb.”
Bleeding on the ground, less than a week after his move to Palestine, Tom Hurndall was unarmed when he was shot, wearing a bright orange jacket identifying him as an international volunteer (as was Rachel Corrie when she was killed), and was plainly visible to Israeli sniper towers. According to other ISM activists, “There was no shooting or resistance coming from the Palestinian side at all.”
It was reported that an ambulance came very quickly to where Hurndall lay, about two minutes after the shooting. However, it was then delayed by the Israelis for up to two hours.
What happened next?
Hurndall was taken to a hospital in Rafah, where he was declared to be clinically dead. Transferred by the IDF to a hospital in Beersheba, he was kept on a ventilator and operated on. From there he was flown six weeks later to the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability in London. The brain damage was irreversible and, after nine months in a persistent vegetative state, he died on 13 January, 2004. He was 22 years old.
Meanwhile, the IDF’s initial “routine internal inquiry” claimed that Hurndall was “accidentally shot in the crossfire” and implied that his ISM group served as “human shields”. However, this account was contested by witnesses, who insisted that he was struck by a rifle bullet while attempting to protect Palestinian children, rather than being caught in any crossfire.
The Hurndall family applied pressure on the Israeli and British governments, prompting the then British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw to order an additional investigation in October 2003.
Eventually, in 2005, sniper Al-Hayb was convicted of manslaughter by an Israeli court and sentenced to eight years in prison, of which he served six and a half years, it being declared that he “no longer poses any danger.” During his trial, the soldier claimed that a policy of shooting unarmed civilians was in place at the time.
“On the very street where Tom was shot, two children had been shot just days before,” said human rights activist Raphael Cohen, who was with Tom Hurndall on the day that he was shot. “This is why he and the rest of the group went to that spot, to protest against the shooting of children as they played outside their homes. There has never been any investigation into the shootings of those children.” Indeed, the killing of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers and police, and illegal settlers, rarely leads to convictions.
According to the Telegraph, Hurndall’s sister Sophie said that her family wasn’t informed by the Israeli authorities about Al-Hayb’s release. Instead, the news was delivered by the British foreign office.
“We have not had time to regroup or work out what is going on. We have barely had time to process the news and we all feel angry and shocked,” she said, adding that they had long feared such a thing would happen. “We have had to deal with cover ups and lies and a total lack of accountability throughout – and this is in line with that. It’s symptomatic.”
She added that the family was not so much angry about Hayb’s actions, but rather the IDF’s and Israeli authorities’ casual attitude when it comes to harming Palestinian civilians. “To be honest, it’s about the system. Not the man himself. This man who shot Tom was the same age as him. He is both the victim and the killer. He is part of a system that proactively encourages soldiers to target [Palestinian] civilians.”
The soldier’s early release, she added, sent a message to Israeli soldiers that they can act with impunity. “So many innocent people were killed in so many horrific ways. They just don’t seem to care about anyone.”
Tom Hurndall’s sister expressed her anger at and disappointment in her own government and Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair. “It’s incredibly sad. One of the things that happened to me since my brother was killed is that I have lost faith in humanity. I cannot believe that people can do such things, and that my own government can sit by and keep quiet.”
The Hurndall family, especially Tom’s mother Jocelyn and Sophie, continue to be active in the Palestine solidarity movement, along with his close friends. His contribution to the cause has been honoured through conferences, a film and a book.
UNSC has not authorized force against Yemen; China urges all parties concerned to abide by international law
Global Times | January 13, 2024
China opposes any forcible transfer of the Palestinian people from the Gaza Strip, and all measures must be taken to alleviate the humanitarian catastrophe and make a cease-fire the most urgent task of the moment, China’s permanent representative to the UN Zhang Jun said during a UN Security Council conference on Friday local time.
An immediate ceasefire has become the overwhelming call of the international community, but a permanent member of UN Security Council (UNSC) has vetoed the consensus reached by the UNSC in this regard on various grounds, which is a blatant defiance of international fairness, justice and the authority of UNSC, Zhang said.
The UNSC failed to adopt a draft resolution on December 8, 2023 that would have demanded an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza due to a veto cast by the US. Many countries expressed disappointment over the US veto of the Gaza-related draft.
It is a blatant double standard for some people to talk about the protection of human rights and the prevention of genocide while pretending to be deaf and dumb, covering up and diverting attention from the tragic situation in Gaza, Zhang remarked, “We must remove all interference and take vigorous action to quell the war, save lives and restore peace.”
In addition, Zhang stressed that that any forcible transfer of the Palestinian people must be firmly rejected.
Over the past three months, millions of Palestinian people have been forced to relocate repeatedly and were under constant threat to their lives, said Zhang, noting that China is gravely concerned about the “voluntary emigration” of Gaza people, which has been advocated by some Israeli politicians.
The horrific idea of displacing two million people from Gaza and turning it into a “safe zone” devoid of human habitation, if implemented, would constitute a grave crime under international law and completely destroy prospects for the “Two-State solution,” Zhang remarked.
The Chinese envoy called for all measures to be taken to alleviate the humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip.
Zhang said it was totally unacceptable for Israel to accuse the UN of not having the will and capacity to provide humanitarian relief when it was clear that Israel was accountable for the continued bombing and striking in Gaza and setting obstacles to the entry of humanitarian supplies.
He urged Israel to immediately cease its indiscriminate military attacks and destruction of Gaza.
UNSC resolutions 2712 and 2720 must be fully implemented, and Israel must fulfil its obligations as the occupying party to guarantee the safety of humanitarian workers and provide full cooperation with humanitarian relief efforts, Zhang said.
The envoy reiterated that a ceasefire must be implemented with the utmost urgency. “Only a ceasefire can prevent greater civilian casualties and humanitarian disasters and create conditions for the early release of all hostages; only a ceasefire can prevent the complete destruction of the basis of the Two-State solution; and only a ceasefire can prevent the entire Middle East region from being drawn into a catastrophe.”
Regarding the recent attacks launched by US and UK on Yemen against the Houthi rebels, which targeted Israeli-linked ships in the Red Sea, Zhang expressed concerns about the spillover effects of the Gaza crisis.
Zhang said at a UNSC emergency conference on the Red Sea situation on the same day that the UNSC has never authorized any country to use force against Yemen. The military action taken by the related countries runs counter to the UN resolution 2722, which the Security Council has just adopted.
The envoy warned that the Middle East region is on the brink of extreme danger, and what should be avoided now is reckless military adventurism. He added that what is needed most of all is calm and restraint to prevent further expansion of the conflict.
China urges all parties concerned, especially the influential powers, to abide by the Charter of the UN and international law, adhere to the direction of dialogue and consultation, and make practical efforts to maintain peace and stability in the Red Sea and the Middle East region, Zhang said.
The US carried out further strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen on Friday night a day after launching a coordinated multi-nation attack on nearly 30 Houthi locations.
Is China hatching a sinister plot regarding the Israel-Gaza war?
Gaza Strip. © MOHAMMED ABED / AFP
By Timur Fomenko | RT | January 13, 2024
A recent Foreign Affairs article purports to expose “China’s game in Gaza,” accusing Beijing of “Exploiting Israel’s War to Win Over the Global South.”
The author alleges that “in calling for a two-state solution, refusing to condemn Hamas, and making symbolic efforts to support a ceasefire, [China] has taken advantage of global anti-Israeli sentiment in a bid to elevate its own standing in the Global South.”
This argument is interesting, because it is premised on the logic that the war on Gaza can end quickly if Beijing simply supports the US position, which the article claims is “to reconcile public support for Israel with private pressure to more carefully target its attacks in Gaza and to be more open to a political settlement with the Palestinians.” So let’s get this right, it’s the US that wants to end this conflict fairly and China is exacerbating it and therefore is at fault?
This kind of analysis is farfetched at best and outright dishonest at worst, and overall an insult to every observer’s intelligence. It really shows the lengths to which the mainstream cycle of journalists and think-tankers will go in order to not place any blame on Israel whatsoever, but to scapegoat third parties who do not in fact have a hand in the conflict. China has always taken a neutral position on the Israel-Palestine issue, though it recognizes the State of Palestine’s sovereign existence, and therefore advocates a two-state solution.
However, the situation really doesn’t need China at all in order to ferment an anti-Israeli and anti-US backlash across the Global South. The US and its allies have managed to do that all by themselves. China’s rhetoric on the issue has been inconsequential and certainly hardly provocative.
First of all, the Foreign Affairs article takes the misleading State Department position that the US is some kind of honest broker and mediator in the Israel-Palestine conflict that just wants the two sides to make up and get along. This is an absolute lie. All the US has offered is unconditional, uncritical and blanket support to Israel which Benjamin Netanyahu has calculated allows him to do whatever he wants, effectively consequence-free. Will the US actually sanction Israel? Will the US condemn Israel at the UN? Will the US stop arming Israel? Absolutely not, and he knows this, therefore anything Washington might claim in regards to sparing civilians or talking about a ceasefire is hollow because it is not backed up by any substance. Israel is allowed to do whatever it sees fit, because placing any restraints on it is domestically politically untenable in the US, as well as in allied countries such as the UK.
Therefore, even if it wanted to, how could China possibly end the conflict, let alone be responsible for it? It is the scenes of unprecedented, Western-backed slaughter and carnage in Gaza that are provoking outrage in the Global South, and the reality that Israel is a law unto itself. This backlash is entirely and exclusively Western-generated and there is no conspiracy nor agenda by China as a neutral player to exploit it. In fact, if China were serious, it would be actively whipping up anti-Israeli sentiment, but it is not doing so because Beijing for the most part is restrained and has little to say on third-party issues.
Rather, China’s alignment with the Global South is a historic trend given Beijing itself is a part of the Global South from the days of its revolutionary heritage, the common experience of colonialism, and therefore the desire to sustain sovereignty and independence from Western domination. This forms a common position with the states of the Middle East, Africa and Latin America on Palestine, with the latter being the most prominent example of Western-led colonial oppression in the world. The situation in Gaza is a Western-backed injustice and set of atrocities, which in turn reveals the double standards of these countries who purport to be the champions of freedom and human rights.
In this case, China doesn’t need to say anything regarding Gaza to inflame the Global South because the situation really is quite self-explanatory. The US is costing itself support throughout the Global South by showing that it is an enabler of genocide through the unconditional political and military backing it grants the Israeli state, yet here in Foreign Affairs we have the lopsided rendition that really it’s just all China’s fault, as usual.
Israel has destroyed 380 mosques since 7 October
MEMO | January 12, 2024
The Israeli occupation army has destroyed 380 mosques and three churches in Gaza since the beginning of its aggression on 7 October, the Government Media Office in the Gaza Strip revealed yesterday.
Earlier, the Ministry of Health in Gaza announced that the death toll from the aggression on the territory had risen to 23,469 martyrs and 59,604 wounded.
The Ministry of Health stated that the occupation had committed ten massacres against families in the territory in the past 24 hours, resulting in 112 deaths and 194 injuries.
Since October, the occupation army has deliberately targeted mosques, churches, and historical sites in the Gaza Strip in an attempt to erase the religious, cultural, and heritage presence in the territory, and to conceal the historical evidence and Palestinian historical depth in Gaza, according to the Government Media Office.
Israel’s well-oiled PR machine collapses
By Ali Choukeir | The Cradle | January 11, 2024
“Israel condemns South Africa’s decision to play advocate for the devil.”
“History will judge South Africa for its criminal complicity with the bloodiest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, and it will judge it without mercy.”
With these highly emotive words, Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy lashed out at South Africa for filing a lawsuit before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the genocidal Israeli military assault that has killed more than 22,000 civilians in Gaza and injured tens of thousands more.
As the war in Gaza enters its fourth month, Israel faces challenges in shaping international public opinion despite its substantial Hasbara propaganda machine, and a significant budget allocated to ‘public diplomacy’ activities globally. Observers and researchers say the occupation state is losing the propaganda war, ceding its long-cultivated ‘victim’ image to one of a perpetrator of horrendous war crimes.
Hasbara is part of Israel’s ‘national security’
Following the Hamas-led Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on 7 October aimed at targeting the occupation army’s Gaza Division and taking captives to advance a prisoner swap deal, Israel intensified its media and digital diplomacy efforts, alongside its military and security actions. Recognizing the importance of framing those events to shape public perception, Israel made every effort to construct unimpeachable narratives that cast the Palestinian resistance actions as ‘terrorism,’ both domestically and internationally.
But faced with unprecedented levels of pro-Palestinian activism on social media and on the ground in the form of global protests, Israel and its western allies collaborated heavily on quashing those counter-narratives in order to create support for Tel Aviv’s military assault on Gaza.
Greg Shupack’s book, The Wrong Story: Palestine, Israel and the Media, highlights three central frameworks that form the foundations of Israel’s narrative to the west:
- Creating equal blame between both parties to the conflict.
- Framing ‘extremists’ as the main obstacle to peace efforts and undermining moderate voices.
- Emphasizing Israel’s right to ‘self-defense’ even in the face of unarmed protests, with little regard for Palestinian rights.
These frameworks essentially guide western mainstream media coverage of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Though, additionally, Israel leverages historical claims to Palestinian land and anti-Semitism accusations to shape its narrative and appeal to western sympathy.
Several key Hasbara strategies were employed to impact the western media narrative following Operation Al-Aqsa Flood:
First, the tapping into the western conscience: Both at official and popular levels, this involves associating Hamas with ISIS (“The world defeated ISIS. The world will defeat Hamas”) and framing 7 October as Israel’s 9/11. This tactic aims to create an emotional connection by reducing what can be termed the ‘emotional gap.’
Second, falsifying facts and fabricating lies: This tactic plays a significant role, taking advantage of the ‘anchoring bias,’ which involves presenting a version of events that influences how subsequent information is perceived, such as the notorious allegation, now debunked, of 40 beheaded babies. Utilizing this strategy, Israeli President Isaac Herzog, for example, claimed that Hamas fighters have instructions on how to make chemical weapons.
Third, paid advertising and utilizing influencers: High profile social media figures like Elon Musk were flown into Israel for PR stunts while in a little over a week, Israel’s Foreign Affairs Ministry ran 30 ads that have been seen over four million times on his platform X.
Fourth, establishing the idea of cultural difference: By dehumanizing and ‘othering’ the Palestinians, Israel seeks to emphasize its unique connection to western civilization in West Asia. Statements by Israeli officials, such as Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s use of the words “fighting human animals” and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s call for the civilized world to combat “barbarians,” contribute to this narrative.
The information war shifts dramatically
It can be argued that Operation Al Aqsa Flood constituted a qualitative leap for the Palestinian cause in the media realm, based on the results reaped from massive global public interaction, inputs from global influencers, large demonstrations in many countries – all of which have slowly seeped into the corporate media coverage.
Despite the vast disparities between Palestinians and Israelis in terms of capabilities, technologies, material resources, and major media reach, social media became the great equalizer in this information war, making it increasingly difficult for establishment outlets to ignore the new global discourse on Palestinian developments and events.
Equally important to Hasbara’s failings is the recognition of Palestinian performance and narrative in the information war:
Israelis are now forced to chase down their top allies to help salvage their narrative shortcomings, as in when President Herzog complained to British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak about defining Hamas as a terrorist organization. UPDAY, Europe’s largest news group, was revealed to have instructed its staff to prioritize the Israeli point of view, minimize coverage of Palestinian deaths, avoid pro-Palestinian headlines, and formulate comments by Israeli politicians in a way that dehumanizes their adversaries. These kinds of revelations have prompted audiences everywhere to read their media with a pinch of salt.
More instructive is the growing numbers of journalists and political figures who have left their organizations in protest of the enforced pro-Israel discourse, with prominent celebrities being sacked for public stances that favor the Palestinian perspective.
Western and Israeli media performances have diminished public trust in the Israeli and western narrative globally, particularly over wild, unsubstantiated allegations, all now proven false, that Hamas “beheaded 40 babies,” ran its operations from a command center under Shifa Hospital, and was in active pursuit of chemical weapons capabilities. US President Joe Biden’s quickly debunked endorsement of the claim that babies had been beheaded based on “photos he has seen,” also played a role in this shift.
Media professionals and politicians are also increasingly undermining the Israeli narrative by employing the term ‘genocide’ rather than ‘self-defense’ – largely because international organizations have now weighed in to provide facts and figures showing that Tel Aviv indiscriminately kills civilians, in greater numbers and with greater firepower than in any other conflict this century.
They have even begun to undermine their own tired argument that “anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism,” as western political leaders rush to differentiate Netanyahu’s jingoistic right-wing coalition with the rest of Israel’s body politic, though that is mainly because they need to unseat the former in order to rehabilitate Israel’s post-war image.
In the meantime, the Palestinian narrative emphasizes resistance to Israel’s ongoing oppression, and has succeeded in contextualizing the events of 7 October as a justifiable resistance by Gaza, “the largest open-air prison in the world,” against 75 uninterrupted years of inhumane oppression – an oppression the world has come to intimately understand through three harrowing months of genocide on their X, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook platforms.
Because the mainstream media has had to – at least gratuitously – provide some balance to the biggest news story of the day, Palestinian historical context has seeped into the news, as seen in myriad interviews, such as with Palestine’s ambassador to Britain Husam Zomlot, which helped to extend public understanding beyond recent events.
Despite ferocious Israeli efforts to restrict the Palestinian narrative in western nations, pro-Palestine protests have grown unchecked, and hashtags like #StandWithPalestine continue to dominate social media platforms. The hashtag reached over 4.8 billion views, outpacing #StandWithIsrael on TikTok, even amid the many restrictions in play.
In attempting to gain and maintain global sympathy on the back of 7 October events, Israel’s disinformation and deceptive tactics through its global Hasbara apparatus has faced significant setbacks and backlashes, which may have been entirely avoided had it not chosen to blow Gaza to bits.
The vicious murder and maiming of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians, mostly women, children and refugees, in Tel Aviv’s almost gleeful rage-fest that followed Hamas’ operation, has permanently flipped Israel’s David vs Goliath narrative. And its collaborating western allies have suffered an equal blow in the social media realm, as all of Israel’s debunked storylines were parroted verbatim in major western capitals.
Gaza has undoubtedly thrust the Palestinian cause back into the global spotlight, gaining support at popular levels rarely seen globally, and increasing pressure on governments, NGOs, and media outlets to both acknowledge and address Israel’s ongoing genocide.
Given the now obvious challenges Tel Aviv faces in achieving its stated military goals, even a nominal field victory for Netanyahu can no longer make up for the country’s Hasbara collapse. It is a national security disaster that more than matches a military loss. For Israel, this war was lost from the moment it dropped bombs on homes in the Gaza Strip.
Israel Goes to Court for the Crime of Genocide
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • JANUARY 12, 2024
A friend of mine who follows international developments closely recently observed that the United States and Israel have “own goaled” themselves to become widely perceived as together the two most evil governments on earth. It is a judgement that is hard to disagree with regarding the Jewish state if one examines the abundant evidence that Israel is systematically committing war crimes against the largely unarmed Palestinian civilian population in an effort to bring about ethnic cleansing or even genocide in Gaza and on the West Bank. The process would include removing the Palestinians physically and/or killing them if they resist, which is what is currently taking place. Something like 10,000 dead Palestinian children attest to the brutality and inhumanity of the effort, together with nearly 400 doctors and nurses who were directly targeted plus more than 100 UN employees trying to bring aid to the civilians. What Israel is doing is monstrous, almost unimaginable. A number of senior Israeli officials have confirmed their government’s view, supported by public opinion, that a land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea swept clean of Arabs would be the most desirable outcome of current developments.
The United States is at the same time loathed alongside Israel because it is enabling the slaughter by the Israelis while simultaneously spewing the lies that it is somehow restraining or even making more “humanitarian” Israel’s attack. Nothing could be farther from the truth as the White House recently worked hard to defang a major UN-led diplomatic effort that had global support to bring about a ceasefire that would enable emergency relief supplies to be introduced into the battered enclave. Instead, Israel now continues its daily bombardment of Gaza and controls entering supplies, slowing the process down while watching people die of famine and disease, not to mention from artillery shells and bombs. Oh, and the United States both funds the Israeli war effort and supplies the munitions that make it all possible. That makes Washington an accessory to the war crimes and to what most of the world considers to be a genocide being perpetrated openly and with malice.
In spite of all that, and the tons of evidence of atrocities of all kinds which even includes “friendly fire” killing of Jewish hostages, the Joe Biden Administration continues to spout the nonsense that neither war crimes nor a genocide are taking place. Thursday saw the opening of the International Court of Justice hearings on evidence filed by South Africa demonstrating that Israel’s slaughter of the Palestinians amounts to a genocide as defined by the 1948 “UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide” which both Israel and the US have signed. On the day before it opened at the Hague, US National Security Council Spokesman John Kirby preemptively stated that the charges were “meritless, counterproductive and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever.” State Department spokesman Matt Miller added that the United States is “not seeing any acts that constitute genocide” in Israel’s bombing and physical destruction of Gaza. Both comments are contrary to the fact that Israel is clearly creating at a minimum “conditions that don’t allow the survival of the population,” which is a definition of genocide. It all means that the United States will be fighting hard on behalf of its favorite son, doing whatever lying, coercing and cheating that it might take to protect Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the crimes-against-humanity crew that he has surrounded himself with. As it is not a US interest to become a nation that condones the killing of tens of thousands of helpless civilians, one must ask the question “Who owns you Joe and why are your top officials lying about what is taking place?”
As an American, what I find most offensive about the current state of play is that my country has been turned into a war criminal by a group of politicians and staff appointees controlled by a foreign government and its lobby whose ignorance is so profound that they should not be running a hot dog stand. In particular, it is soul-destroying to hear the pathetic squealing coming out of a subservient White House every time Israel kills another hundred or so Palestinian children and women cowering in the ruins of a hospital, church or school. Each squeal in support of more “humane” or “restrained” warfare is followed by an assertion from Netanyahu to the effect that Israel’s war cabinet will make its own decisions about who it will kill and when. One senior official Itamar Ben-Gvir even warned Biden that Israel is “no longer a star on the American flag.” Indeed, but it is not that Israel is ungrateful, as those two-thousand pound bunker buster bombs supplied by Biden can really do a number on them “terrorists.” The Biden Administration has now expedited two shipments of munitions to Israel worth about $253 million, relying on another lying rascal Antony Blinken of the State Department’s claim that the weapons were urgently needed for poor “victim” Israel to “defend itself, allowing circumvention of existing Congressional authority requiring legislative approval of arms sales. There is no step so low when pandering to Israel that the Biden Administration will not take it!
It is all as if Genocide Joe is in a hurry to get the job done on those pesky Palestinians so he can get back to the serious work of fooling the US electorate into voting for him a second time. He is now going around the country trying to sell the product that he is “saving democracy,” which he is claiming would be destroyed by Trump. As Trump is on an apparent revenge tour, Biden might actually be more right than he usually is, but one has to ask what is happening to American democracy with the current open borders and two wars being de facto fought simultaneously without any actual threat to the US having ever been involved and without the consent of the American people. Quite the contrary, opinion polls suggest the wars are very unpopular while Biden weasels his way to support the fighting while pretending that the US is not directly involved. Can one imagine voluntarily putting the survival of one’s nation in the hands of someone like Joe Biden?
Israel continues to play its own hand as the US has given it political cover to bomb and otherwise kill as it sees fit. Civilian deaths from bombing totaled 247 on one night alone in early January, but the Netanyahu government has just announced that it will be shifting from large scale troop movements in Gaza to more “directed” operations that will focus on Hamas concentrations, finding hostages, and destroying the tunnels that connect resistances points. Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, the chief spokesperson for the Israeli military, described how the new phase of the campaign, hopefully to be completed by the end of the month, will involve fewer soldiers and airstrikes, though Israel has previously lied repeatedly about its actual intentions. Ironically, the US concern appears to be that the war is already expanding apart from Gaza. The violence by armed settlers directed against Palestinians on the West Bank is increasing and foreign targeting by Israel now includes the killing of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders in Lebanon, regular bombing missions directed against targets in Syria which recently killed a dozen senior Iranian officials near the Damascus airport, assassinations in Iraq, as well as the terror bombing in Tehran claimed by ISIS that killed 103. Both Israel and the US are known to have cooperative clandestine relationships with ISIS.
And there are several other issues that are worthy of mention. First, is how a steady stream of mostly Republican hawks have been making the pilgrimage to Israel to express their wholehearted support of Israel’s ongoing genocide of the Palestinians. Most recently, former Vice President Mike Pence made the trip and was photographed near Israel’s border with Lebanon writing messages or possibly signing off on US made artillery shells that were about to be fired against Hezbollah. This pushing for direct US involvement in an impending war that should and could be avoided has had an impact in Washington, where clowns like Senator Lindsey Graham have called on the Biden administration to “… hit Iran. They have oil fields out in the open, they have the Revolutionary Guard headquarters you can see from space. Blow it off the map.” This pressure has prompted Biden to pledge to those in Congress calling for war and also to the Israelis that he will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon and do whatever it takes to stop it. As US intelligence has declared its judgement that Iran has no such weapons program, the alleged intelligence suggesting that Iran has a secret program will inevitably come from Israel and Netanyahu, so guess what? Israel will be working hard to produce fabricated evidence that will drag the US into a first strike against Iran, which will in turn hit back against US bases in Syria, Kuwait, Qatar and Iraq. It is all too reminiscent of the neocon-Israeli plot that dragged a clueless George W. Bush and Condi Rice into initiating the disastrous Iraq War in 2003.
And the other issue that absolutely no one chooses to talk about is the “secret” Israeli nuclear arsenal of 200-400 weapons together with delivery systems, which is definitely a potential game changer no matter what happens in Gaza and on the West Bank. Would Israel use the nukes? They sure would, especially if the war they are deliberately expanding should turn against them somehow. When former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was queried about how the rest of the world might respond to Israel using its nukes to effectively wipe out its Arab neighbors, he responded “That depends on who does it and how quickly it happens. We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force… We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under.”
The plan by America’s “best friend” and “closest ally” to nuke the world even has a name: “The Samson Option,” recalling how the Biblical strongman Samson brought down the temple where the Philistines were mocking him, killing thousands of them. So maybe Joe Biden should be thinking long and hard about how, and with whom, he is getting our country set up to go to war. Or just maybe it is already too late!
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.
India gets a rude awakening in West Asia
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | JANUARY 12, 2024
From the standpoint of affirming ‘solidarity’ with the regime of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the October 7 attack, India has swung away to the far horizon and has unceremoniously dumped the US-Israeli axis, which provided beacon light to Delhi’s West Asian policies in the past few years.
From a strategic asset, the Israeli connection is becoming a liability for the Indian government. Delhi spurned Netanyahu’s repeated entreaties to brand Hamas as a terrorist organisation — by the way, India never pointed finger at Hamas for the October 7 attack. It has resumed the traditional stance of voting against Israel in the UN General Assembly resolutions on the Palestine problem. The Netanyahu-Modi pow-wows have become infrequent.
This is a far cry from the controversial gesture by PM Modi during his ‘historic’ five-day visit to Israel in 2017 to pay homage at the tomb of the founding father of Zionism Theodor Herzl in Haifa. It is doubtful if any Indian prime minister would repeat Modi’s feat in the future. With reasonable certainty, it can be said that the future of Zionism in West Asia itself looks rather bleak.
Again, for reasons that remain obscure even today, India decided to be a strong votary of the ill-fated Abraham Accords that purportedly aimed at ‘integrating’ Israel into the Arab fold but, in reality, to isolate Iran in its neighbourhood. Delhi never provided a rational explanation for such a dramatic shift in the traditional policy not to take sides in the intra-regional fratricidal strife in West Asia or identify with the US hegemony in that region.
Delhi followed up by enthusiastically lining up with a surreal venture called ‘I2U2’ which brought together India and the UAE with the US and Israel as a condominium to promote the spirit of the Abraham Accords. In an extravagant gesture, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar paid a 5-day visit to Israel to participate in ‘I2U2’.
Above all, Delhi, which hosted the G20 Summit last year and was supposedly highlighting the rise of the Global South in the world order, instead ended up arranging photo-ops for the visiting US President who hijacked the event and instead catapulted a phoney, laughable idea as the main outcome of that historic event — the so-called India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEEC).
The US apparently incentivised Delhi by planting the patently absurd thought that IMEEC would toll the death knell for China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). China of course retaliated by just hoisting the BRI flag high all over the Maldives (population: 515,132 in the 2022 census) on India’s soft underbelly from where it is visible all over the subcontinent day and night.
However, Indian diplomats are quick learners and course corrections come naturally to them. Delhi has understood that such absurdities in its West Asian policy will do no good and may even be counterproductive as they raise hackles in the Arab Street. Thus, Qatar ticked off India recently by ordering the 15 Indian schools in Doha that cater to the needs of the largely-Hindu 700,000-strong Indian ex-patriate community to ignore Hindu holidays, especially Diwali.
Consistent with the championing of the Global South, India should have voiced support for South Africa’s brilliant initiative to petition the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to bring Israel to justice for its genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. After all, it was in South Africa that Mahatma Gandhi had finessed the concept of resistance to racialism. But, alas, India lacked the courage of conviction and the moral fibre to do so.
It is too much to expect the ICJ to put Netanyahu in a cage and try him in the Hague court for his abominable acts against humanity. But there is a strong likelihood that with tacit western support, the ICJ may issue in the coming weeks some sort of interim order for a ceasefire. And in the present atmosphere, that can prove to be a game changer.
All this makes India’s decision to stay clear of the US’ harebrained idea of disciplining Yemen’s Houthis a sensible step. The theatre of the absurd playing out in the Red Sea with the Five Eyes in the cockpit is incredibly complicated. One main vector there is about the phenomenon of the Houthi resistance as such.
An old friend and Beirut-based editor-in-chief of the Cradle, Sharmine Narwani tweeted about the quagmire in the Red Sea that awaits the Anglo-American attack on Yemen today:
“I honestly question whether the US or UK have carefully considered #Yemen‘s potential responses to this act of war. Ansarallah (Houthi) is an unusual member of the region’s Axis of Resistance. It marches to its own tune and its mindset is entirely devoid of western narrative grooming. There is no guessing at the full spectrum of its retaliatory palette, but I would not want to be an American or Brit in the Persian Gulf, Red Sea, or any of the neighbouring waterways right now.
“It may be that Washington misread the Russian and Chinese abstentions at the UNSC yesterday (on Red Sea). Or, perhaps Moscow and Beijing dangled that bait so the US would miscalculate this badly. The Americans are now militarily engaged, supplying, or bogged down on 5 separate fronts: Ukraine, Gaza-Israel, Yemen, Iraq, Syria. US adversaries can easily hold out until the fatigue sets in; they are nowhere near depleted.
“Bottom line is I think the entire Global South is going to be wearing Abdul Malik al-Houthi t-shirts by springtime.”
Indeed, it is such prescience that is often lacking in India’s West Asia strategy. This is not a region for one-dimensional men. It has been a strategic mistake to be aligned to the US and its allies in the Indian Ocean under the rubric of ‘maritime security’. The erstwhile colonial powers are innovating Neo-mercantile mechanisms to transfer wealth to their metropolis. Why should Indians act as ‘coolies’, as during British rule?
Most important, India should be seized of the Renaissance that is sweeping through the Muslim countries in West Asia. It is epochal in its sweep and has cultural, political and economic dimensions — and will inevitably have far-reaching geopolitical significance. That is why, it becomes imperative that Delhi stops viewing the region though Netanyahu’s Zionist eyes. It is important to terminate India’s collaboration with the US and colonial powers such as France and the UK to interfere in the region on the pretext of maritime security in the Indian Ocean.
India has no reason to have institutionalised partnerships with the US Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT). In a conceivable future, the curtain could well be descending on the western military bases in West Asia. Delhi should grasp the reality that something fundamentally changed post-October 7 in the geopolitics of West Asia.
It is in sync with what Germans call the zeitgeist (spirit of the times) that Saudi Arabia is demanding that the security of the Red Sea is an international responsibility in cooperation with the riparian countries and UN support. Since 2018, Saudi Arabia has called for the establishment of a Council of States bordering the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, and in 2020, eight countries signed the Council’s founding charter, who include, ironically, Yemen. Saudi Arabia plans to host a summit meeting of the Council of States.
Today’s Anglo-American missile strike against Yemen should come as a rude awakening to India messaging that the very same western powers who are backing Israel are also escalating the conflict in Gaza and step by step transforming it as a regional conflict — all in the name of freedom of navigation in the Red Sea. Unsurprisingly, Saudi Arabia, the regional superpower in the Red Sea, has called on the US to exercise restraint.
US, UK Trying to Distract From Genocide in Gaza by Strikes in Yemen – Ansar Allah Member
Sputnik – 12.01.2024
DOHA – The US and the UK are trying to divert attention from the genocide in the Gaza Strip with ill-conceived airstrikes against the Ansar Allah movement, also known as the Houthis, in Yemen, Hezam al-Asad, a member of the movement’s political bureau, said on Friday.
The US and the United Kingdom carried out overnight airstrikes against Houthi positions in four governorates of Yemen, including the capital Sanaa and the cities of Al Hudaydah, Saada and Taiz, provincial government officials told Sputnik. The US and UK officials confirmed the airstrikes, saying these were targeting Houthi military facilities and positions in Yemen in response to attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea and not civilian population centers.
“Through these hostile and ill-conceived operations, Washington and London are trying to divert attention from the ongoing crimes of genocide. We will continue to defend our principled position on the key issue for us — Palestine — and neither the US nor the UK will be able to dissuade us from supporting our people in the Gaza Strip, whether in the Red or Arabian Seas,” al-Asad wrote on X.
The Red and Arabian Seas will remain closed to Israeli-associated ships until the conflict in the Gaza Strip ends, the political bureau member added.
“Our armed forces are well prepared and the aggressors will regret their aggression against the Yemeni people,” he said.
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Former Insiders Criticize Iran Policy as U.S. Hegemony
By GARETH PORTER | CounterPunch | February 27, 2013
“Going to Tehran” arguably represents the most important work on the subject of U.S.-Iran relations to be published thus far.
Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett tackle not only U.S. policy toward Iran but the broader context of Middle East policy with a systematic analytical perspective informed by personal experience, as well as very extensive documentation.
More importantly, however, their exposé required a degree of courage that may be unparalleled in the writing of former U.S. national security officials about issues on which they worked. They have chosen not just to criticise U.S. policy toward Iran but to analyse that policy as a problem of U.S. hegemony. … continue
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