UN General Assembly Denounces Occupation of Syrian Golan Heights, Demands Israeli Withdrawal
Sputnik – 29.11.2023
UNITED NATIONS – The UN General Assembly renewed its resolution demanding that Israel withdraw from Syria’s Golan Heights.
The resolution was renewed on Tuesday with 91 votes in favor, eight against and 62 abstentions.
The resolution says that United Nations member states are “deeply concerned that Israel has not withdrawn from the Syrian Golan, which has been under occupation since 1967, contrary to the relevant Security Council and General Assembly resolutions.”
The document also emphasizes “the illegality of the Israeli settlement construction and other activities in the occupied Syrian Golan since 1967.”
Health Ministry stops coordination with WHO until detainees released
Palestinian Ministry of Health spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra
Palestine Information Center – November 23, 2023
GAZA – The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza on Thursday held the Israeli occupation forces fully responsible for the lives and safety of the doctors, who were detained on Wednesday.
It announced that it will stop coordinating with World Health Organization (WHO) on the rest of evacuations until the international agency submits a report on the Israeli detention of medical personnel and until they are all released.
The spokesman of the Ministry, Ashraf al-Qudra, said in a press conference at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, “The United Nations bears full responsibility for this event, and we await appropriate and urgent measures on their part to address this situation”.
He pointed out that they were informed by the United Nations about coordination with WHO to evacuate those who were present in the Al-Shifa Medical Complex, which is subject to Israeli siege, raids, and destruction, and were stranded inside the hospital with no food, water, medicine, electricity, or security.
Al-Qudra explained that a convoy from the United Nations, represented by WHO, moved on Wednesday to evacuate some of the patients and medical staff who were subjected to the most horrific Nazi practices in addition to starvation.
“We were surprised that this convoy was stopped by the Israeli checkpoint separating the north from south of Gaza, for about seven hours, during which Israeli occupation forces maltreated the patients, their companions, and the medical staff, before arresting a number of them, including Director General of Al-Shifa Medical Complex, Dr. Muhammad Abu Salmiya,” Al-Qudra said.
Mohammad Abu Salmiya, director of al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. (By AFP)
He pointed out that WHO has not yet submitted any report to the ministry to clarify what happened, including the numbers and names of detainees, stressing that the inability to communicate with Al-Shifa Medical Complex made them unable to know who was arrested.
The Ministry’s spokesman expressed his concerns over potential liquidation of those detainees.
WHO Director General Complains About Online “Conspiracy Theories” About WHO Pandemic Treaty
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | November 12, 2023
Given the fervor of Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’ crusade against “disinformation,” if one didn’t know any better, one could hardly guess that he is at the helm of UN’s health agency, the World Health Organization (WHO), rather than some “ministry of truth.”
Then again, given his own, and WHO’s role in the disastrously mishandled pandemic – when those who were to blame at national and international level discovered “misinformation” as a way to discredit any criticism – this is not so surprising.
Now Tedros writes, “We find ourselves in a time where fake news, lies, conspiracy theories, misinformation and disinformation are rampant.” The reason this time is the UN’s push to get countries around the world to agree to “the pandemic accord.”
The document is designed to put in place the tools to handle “the next pandemic,” but is far from limited to health issues.
Opponents have been warning that the accord also aims to introduce surveillance tools, effectively facilitate censorship, and undermine a country’s sovereignty in the decision-making processes during a health crisis by transferring a number of powers to the UN.
This last serious concern seems to rub Tedros particularly the wrong way.
There are many more aspects to losing national sovereignty than overt ones such as direct imposition of vaccination or lockdowns, but in his post Tedros chose to focus on that, to then blast critics as making claims that are “completely unfounded, untrue, nonsense and have no basis in reality.”
The WHO director-general doth protest too much, some might conclude.
Such language doesn’t just come out of nowhere; it is usually a signal that not everything is going smoothly behind the scenes, and here Tedros seems to be trying to not only persuade countries about “fake news, lies, conspiracy theories…” around this issue, but also to get them to launch propaganda campaigns in favor of the accord, ASAP.
Tedros calls this, “actively countering false narratives.”
“It is important for them to communicate with their own citizens, assuring them that this agreement explicitly protects their country’s sovereignty. There should be no room for doubt or confusion in this matter,” he wrote on X.
A post – or a whole study – explaining how exactly the proposed treaty “explicitly protects” national sovereignty would be even better as a way to leave “no room for doubt or confusion.”
That’s lacking, but efforts to promote WHO’s narratives are only increasing. Thus, Spark Street Advisors is lobbying by proposing “soft (reputational) incentives such as technical and material resources to help countries (with compliance).
Most international agreements leave it to nations to “self-report” on implementation, but here the recommendation is for the accord to set up “an independent monitoring committee, tasked with producing regular assessments of state parties’ compliance with the pandemic agreement and the timeliness, completeness and accuracy of self-reporting.”
Not sovereignty-undermining, this. Not at all.
UN Agency Unveils Action Plan To Regulate Speech on Social Media Platforms
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | November 9, 2023
Yet another United Nations agency – this time the Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) – has joined the contentious efforts to use UN resources in the “war on misinformation.”
UNESCO is not lagging behind some of the veterans of this “war” regarding the kind of alarmist language its leadership is choosing to use to justify the policy.
Thus, Director-General Audrey Azoulay presented an action plan, saying that online disinformation is “a major threat to stability and social cohesion.”
A press release announcing the plan referred to the phenomenon of misinformation as “a scourge” and one that is intensifying. Those behind all this must hope that this is enough to explain what UNESCO – formerly known mostly for protection of world heritage sites and raising funds for underprivileged children – is even doing “fighting disinformation.”
But here’s the plan: to somehow not harm freedom of speech, and yet push for social media companies to hire more “moderators” that speak all the major languages and whose job would be “effective control of content.”
A lot of attention seems to be given to strengthening censorship capacities in languages other than English; that could explain why, according to UNESCO’s statement, the plan has received support particularly from some countries in Latin America and Africa.
Over the past number of years, the whole world could see how efficiently the notion of “misinformation” and the tools to counter it can be turned into proper weapons of censorship; there is likely no shortage of governments that would like to replicate what has been happening in English speaking countries.
“Electoral integrity” also crops up in the press release announcing the UNESCO initiative, and here the proposed solution is “risk assessment” as well as flagging content, more “transparency” around political ads – and who they are meant to target.
Finally, UNESCO somehow manages to work its core task and purpose into the whole thing – namely, culture. And that’s done by calling for “highlighting the risks faced by artists and the need for online access to ‘diverse cultural content’ (quotation marks here are UNESCO’s) as a fundamental human right.”
As for who needs any of this from UNESCO, and why – the agency justified its involvement by mentioning an opinion poll it commissioned, involving 8,000 respondents in 16 countries.
And because “85% of citizens are worried about the impact of online disinformation (on elections)” – we now have this “action plan.”
Barcelona dock workers refuse to deal with weapons ships heading to Israel
MEMO | November 7, 2023
Workers at the Spanish port of Barcelona announced their refusal to allow any ships carrying weapons to operate inside the port, rejecting the violence practiced by Israel in the occupied territories, and accusing the UN of failing to carry out its role.
The workers said in a statement to their association that it is their duty to adhere to and defend the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, at a time when the signatory countries have forgotten about it.
The statement continued: “We decided within the association not to allow ships containing war materials to operate in our port, for the sole purpose of protecting any civilian population, regardless of their location, as there is no justification for sacrificing civilians.”
The statement called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the search for peaceful solutions to conflicts, and for the UN to stop its complicit and negligent behaviour in order to maintain international peace and security and defend international law.
Earlier last week, the Belgian transport workers’ unions called on their members to refuse to load or unload arms shipments being sent to Israel.
“While genocide is under way in Palestine, workers at various airports in Belgium are seeing arms shipments in the direction of the war zone,” the trade unions said in a joint statement.
A Belgian government spokesman declined to comment on whether weapons were being shipped to the region via Belgium.
The unions said that loading or unloading these weapons means contributing to supplying regimes that kill innocent people.
The unions added: “We, several unions active in ground logistics, call on our members not to handle any flights that ship military equipment to Palestine/Israel, like there were clear agreements and rules at the start of the conflict with Russia and Ukraine.”
WHO Publishes Latest Draft of Pandemic Treaty To Combat “Misinformation”
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | November 2, 2023
The United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) has published a new draft of its troubled pandemic agreement/accord/treaty – which the agency has complained is taking too long to finalize.
The latest draft of the negotiating text, released by the Bureau of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) on Monday must be considered until the INB session scheduled for November 6-10, when it should be formalized.
Some of the commitments contained in this version of the document have to do with combating “false, misleading, misinformation or disinformation, including through effective international collaboration and cooperation” – which skeptics might easily dub, “cross-border censorship.”
And then there’s surveillance, too: something called One Health approach for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, which the draft wants to see promoted and implemented. Meanwhile, One Health is a surveillance tool that is supposed to create new methods of disease control.
Yet another point from the proposal is to “develop and strengthen pandemic prevention and public health surveillance capacities.”
Critics have many concerns and misgivings about all of this, including WHO setting up what’s known as a conference of the parties – an international convention’s top governing body – around the pandemic accord.
The fear here is that it would be one more instrument taking agency and consent away from national governments and people and transferring the decision-making processes, in this case related to health, to the world organization, specifically, WHO.
However, the draft’s chapter on institutional arrangements envisages establishing just such a conference of the parties as part of the accord’s scope.
A number of advocacy organizations from around the world have already expressed their dissatisfaction with the draft from different points of view, including how the treaty, if adopted, would impact less developed countries, while the draft itself is seen as “unbalanced.”
This last objection stems from the origin of the proposal – namely the discussions between INB Bureau and Secretariat, rather than drawing from the meetings of the INB itself.
Ignoring proposals from all countries that are supposed to implement the treaty, and allowing those with the most clout (in the Bureau) to set the tone is seen as one-sided in this sense as well.
UN official resigns protesting world body’s failure to prevent genocide in Gaza
Craig Mokhiber, former director of the New York chapter of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
Press TV – October 31, 2023
The director of the New York chapter of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has resigned, protesting the world body’s failure to prevent underway genocide in the Gaza Strip, which has come under a brutal Israeli war.
Craig Mokhiber submitted his resignation to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk in a letter dated October 28. Reactions began to pour in across social media platforms, including X on Tuesday.
“Once again we are seeing a genocide unfolding before our eyes and the organization we serve appears powerless to stop it,” Mokhiber wrote, referring to the United Nations.
He was referring to the October 7 present war that the Israeli regime has been waging against Gaza in response to an operation launched by the territory’s resistance movements against the occupied territories.
The ongoing Israeli massacre has killed more than 8,600 Palestinians and left over 23,000 others wounded.
Mokhiber cited the United States, the UK, and much of Europe as “wholly complicit in the horrific assault,” referring to the Western allies’ consistent political and military support for the Israeli regime, which has bubbled up even throughout the war.
“This is a textbook case of genocide. The European, ethno-nationalist, settler colonial project in Palestine has entered its final phase, toward the expedited destruction of the last remnants of indigenous Palestinian life in Palestine,” the letter read.
The letter went on to call for an end to the Israeli regime’s occupation of the Palestinian territories, supporting the establishment of a “single, democratic” state “in all of historic Palestine, with equal rights for Christians, Muslims, and Jews.”
‘Turning Gaza into ashes’: Israel propaganda vs the world
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | October 31, 2023
Gaza has changed the political equation in Palestine. Moreover, the repercussions of the ongoing devastating war are likely to alter the political equation in the entire Middle East and to re-centre Palestine as the world’s most urgent political crisis for years to come.
Since the establishment of Israel in 1948, facilitated by Britain and protected by the United States and other Western countries, the priorities have been entirely Israeli. “Israel’s security”; Israel’s “military edge”; “Israel’s right to defend itself”, and much more, are the mantras that have defined the West’s political discourse on the Israeli occupation and apartheid in Palestine.
This bizarre US-Western understanding of the so-called conflict, that an oppressor has “rights” over the oppressed; the occupier has “rights” over the occupied, has enabled Israel to maintain a military occupation over Palestinian territories that has lasted for over 56 years. Indeed, many would argue that it is for more than 75 years.
It has also empowered Israel to neglect the roots of this “conflict”, namely the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948, and the long-denied, and very legitimate, Right of Return for Palestinian refugees.
Within this context, every Palestinian-Arab overture for peace was rejected. Even the supposed “peace process”, namely the Oslo Accords, turned into an opportunity for Tel Aviv to entrench its military occupation, expand its illegal settlements and corral Palestinians in Bantustan-like spaces, humiliated and racially segregated.
Some Palestinians, whether enticed by American handouts or shattered by a lingering sense of defeat, lined up to receive the US-Israeli peace dividends: pitiful crumbs of false prestige, empty titles and limited power, granted and denied by Israel itself.
However, the Israeli war against the Palestinians in Gaza is already changing much of this painful status quo. The occupation state’s constant insistence that its deadly war is against Hamas, against “terror”, against Islamic fundamentalism, and all the rest, may have convinced those who are ready to accept the Israeli version of events at face value. However, as the bodies of thousands of Palestinian civilians, including thousands of children, began piling up at Gaza’s hospital morgues and, tragically, in the streets, the narrative began changing.
The pulverised bodies of Palestinian children, of whole families who perished together, stand witness to the brutality of Israel; to the immoral support of its allies; and to the inhumanity of an international order that rewards the murderer and reprimands the victim.
Of all the biased statements made by US President Joe Biden, the one where he suggested that Palestinians are lying about the body count of their own dead was perhaps the most inhumane. Washington may not realise this yet, but the repercussions of its unconditional support for Israel will prove to be disastrous in the future, especially in a region that is fed up with war, hegemony, double standards, sectarian divisions and endless conflict.
The greatest impact, though, will be felt in Israel itself. When Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour gave a powerful, emotional speech on 26 October, he could not hold back his tears. International delegations at the UN General Assembly clapped non-stop, reflecting the growing support for Palestine, not only at the UN, but also in hundreds of towns and cities, and on countless street corners around the world.
When the Israeli Ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, who had promoted many of the lies communicated by Tel Aviv, especially in the early days of the war, finished his speech, not a single person clapped. The contempt was palpable.
The Israeli narrative had clearly crumbled into a thousand pieces. Israel has never been so isolated. This is definitely not the “New Middle East” that Netanyahu had prophesised in his UN General Assembly speech on 22 September.
Unable to fathom how the initial sympathy with Israel turned so quickly into outright disdain, the settler-colonial state resorted to old tactics. On 25 October, Erdan demanded that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres should resign for being “unfit to lead the UN”. The UN chief’s supposedly unforgivable crime was to suggest that “the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum”. Which, of course, they didn’t.
As far as Israel and its American benefactors are concerned, however, no context is allowed to taint the perfect image that the Israelis have created for its genocide in Gaza. In this perfect Israeli world, no one is allowed to speak of military occupation; of siege; of the lack of political prospects; of displacement; of the absence of a just peace for Palestinians.
Even though Amnesty International has said that both sides have committed “serious violations of international humanitarian law, including war crimes”, Israel still attacked it, accusing the organisation of being “anti-Semitic”. In Israel’s thinking, even the world’s leading international human rights group is not permitted to contextualise the atrocities in Gaza or dare suggest that one of the “root causes” of the conflict is “Israel’s system of apartheid imposed on all Palestinians”.
Israel is no longer all-powerful, as it wants us to believe. Recent events have proven that its “invincible army” — a branding that allowed Israel to become, as of 2022, the world’s tenth-largest international military exporter — turned out to be a paper tiger.
This is what is infuriating Israel the most. “Muslims are not afraid of us anymore,” former Knesset member Moshe Feiglin told Arutz Sheva-Israel National News. To restore this fear, the extremist politician called for burning “Gaza to ashes immediately.”
But nothing will turn Gaza into ashes. Not even the more than 12,000 tons of high explosives dropped on the Strip in the first two weeks of war which have already incinerated at least 45 per cent of its housing units, according to the UN’s humanitarian office.
Gaza will not die because it is a powerful idea that is deeply entrenched within the hearts and minds of every Arab, of every Muslim and of millions of people around the world. This new idea is challenging the long-held belief that the world needs to cater to Israel’s priorities, security, selfish definitions of peace and all of the other illusions.
The focus should now be on where it should have always been: the priorities of the oppressed, not the oppressor. It is time to speak about Palestinian rights, Palestinian security and the Palestinian people’s right — in fact, obligation — to defend themselves.
It is time for us to speak about justice — real justice — the outcome of which is non-negotiable: equality, full political rights, freedom and the right of return.
Gaza is telling the world all of this, and much more. And now it is time for us to listen.
Russia, China veto US-drafted resolution backing Israeli offensive
Press TV – October 25, 2023
Russia and China have prevented the passage of a US-drafted UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution that had said Israel, which has killed more than 6,500 people as part of its underway war on Gaza, has been acting in “self-defense.”
The draft was put to vote on Wednesday. The United Arab Emirates also voted no, while 10 members voted in favor and Brazil and Mozambique abstained.
Israel launched the devastating war on October 7 after the Gaza Strip-based Palestinian resistance groups staged Operation al-Aqsa Storm, a surprise attack on the occupied territories, in response to the Israeli regime’s intensified crimes against the Palestinian people. The war has killed 6,546 Palestinians, including 2,704 children, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
The Council then voted on a Russian-drafted resolution that had called for a humanitarian ceasefire and urged Tel Aviv to immediately cancel its orders on Palestinian civilians to head into southern Gaza.
Only Russia, China, the UAE, and Gabon voted in favor of the draft, while nine members abstained and the United States and Britain voted no.
A resolution needs at least nine votes and no vetoes by the US, France, Britain, Russia or China to be adopted.
Also on Wednesday, Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the death of thousands of children in the Gaza Strip had not been enough to get the West behind a resolution demanding a ceasefire in the besieged coastal territory.
“This is the most obvious and rather simple thing to do in this situation: Simply to produce a statement, a resolution, a document with a unified call for a ceasefire, settling the situation and so on,” she said in an interview with Sputnik Radio.
“Even these numbers (the fatality count among the Palestinian minors) cannot compel certain political forces in the West to come to their senses and realize what is going on,” Zakharova regretted.
Israel calls on UN chief to resign
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen at a UN Security Council meeting on the conflict in Middle East, October 24, 2023. © TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP
RT | October 24, 2023
Israeli ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan demanded Secretary-General Antonio Guterres step down on Tuesday, accusing him of showing “compassion” for terrorists and murderers in a speech to the Security Council.
“The UN Secretary-General, who shows understanding for the campaign of mass murder of children, women, and the elderly, is not fit to lead the UN. I call on him to resign immediately,” Erdan said on X, formerly Twitter. “There is no justification or point in talking to those who show compassion for the most terrible atrocities committed against the citizens of Israel and the Jewish people.”
The “shocking” speech by Guterres is evidence that the secretary-general “is completely disconnected from the reality in our region and that he views the massacre committed by Nazi Hamas terrorists in a distorted and immoral manner,” Erdan argued.
“His statement that, ‘the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum,’ expressed an understanding for terrorism and murder. It’s really unfathomable. It’s truly sad that the head of an organization that arose after the Holocaust holds such horrible views. A tragedy!” he posted.
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen reacted to Guterres’ speech in the Security Council by pointing his finger and yelling at the secretary-general. He then announced he would refuse to meet with him again.
“After October 7th there is no room for a balanced approach. Hamas must be wiped out from the world!” Cohen declared on X.
Guterres had condemned the “appalling” and inexcusable violence by Hamas, but noted that Gaza had been “subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation” and that the Israeli response to October 7 attacks has amounted to collective punishment of Palestinians.
“I am deeply concerned about the clear violations of international humanitarian law that we are witnessing in Gaza. Let me be clear: No party to an armed conflict is above international humanitarian law,” Guterres told the Security Council. He also urged an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” to facilitate the release of hostages held by Hamas, deliver aid to civilians and “ease epic suffering” in the Palestinian territory.
Speaking at the same meeting, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken insisted that the UN “must affirm the right of any nation to defend itself and to prevent such harm from repeating itself,” noting that no member of the Security Council “could or would tolerate the slaughter of its people.”
Blinken also questioned what he described as lack of international outrage, “revulsion” and explicit condemnation of the Hamas attacks.
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