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Jaafari: Ending Civilians’ Suffering Requires Implementing UN Resolutions

Al-Manar | February 25, 2018

Syria’s Permanent Representative at the UN Bashar al-Jaafari said that ending the suffering of Syrians doesn’t require showboating sessions or forming UN committees; it only requires applying the 30 resolutions issued by the UN.

In a speech after the Security Council voted on a resolution calling for the cessation of combat activities in Syria for at least 30 days, Jaafari said that the people in Damascus are truly suffering due to the acts of the terrorists positioned in the Eastern Ghouta, adding “the appeals of 8 million Syrians do not reach the General Secretariat or the mailboxes of Britain and France’s representatives, but the appeals of terrorists do reach them.”

He noted that the Syrian Arab Red Crescent HQ in Damascus was targeted by 10 shells fired by the so-called “moderate” terrorists located in Ghouta, killing and injuring people including a doctor.

Jaafari stressed meanwhile, that the Syrian government has dealt in a serious manner with all initiatives and was committed to them due to its care for the lives of Syrian citizens, and that the government has called on armed groups in the Eastern Ghouta to lay down their weapons and provided safe corridors for civilians to exit it.

Syria’s Representative said that the Astana agreement had stipulated for committing the armed groups to break any ties to ISIL and Nusra Front terrorist groups, and gave the Syrian government the right to retaliate to any attack.

“We practice a sovereign right of self-defense and we will continue to fight terrorism wherever it is found on Syrian soil,” Jaafari affirmed, adding that the Syrian government reserves the full right to retaliate against armed terrorist groups if they target civilians with even a single shell.

The Syrian diplomat asserted that the new resolution should be applied to the entirety of Syrian territory, including Afrin, and areas occupied by US forces, and the occupied Syrian Golan.

He also said that what is required is for the governments of the United States, Britain, and France to stop holding meetings and making strategic plans that bring to mind the age of colonialism and that seek to divide Syria and change the governing system in it by force.

February 25, 2018 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , , , | 1 Comment

Haley and Abbas have exposed the fallacy of PA representation at the UN

By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | February 22, 2018

The outcome of the UN Security Council meeting does not bode well for the people of Palestine. Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas gave a lengthy speech during which opportunities for hammering out the truth of the matter were reduced to statements showing that little has changed in terms of how the PA interprets history and time frames.

Abbas declared that Israel “has transformed the occupation from a temporary situation as per international law into a situation of permanent settlement colonisation.” He also described the PA as having become “an Authority without authority.” The inaccuracy of these statements is the suggestion that their claims have just become obvious, highlighting the refusal to recognise that the facts of the matter have been very clear since the start of the occupation — Zionism is an expansionist ideology forever seeking “Greater Israel” — and the creation of the PA, whose sole role is to serve Israeli interests. Having allocated enough space in order to portray the alleged deterioration of the situation as opposed to current circumstances being the result of a premeditated plan of colonisation and collaboration, Abbas is entrenching a poor bargaining position for Palestinians.

This deficiency has been recognised by the US. The response to Abbas by America’s Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, emphasised that the only option considered by the US is “compromise”. In Haley’s words: “You can choose to put aside your anger about the location of our embassy and move forward with us towards a negotiated compromise that holds great potential for improving the lives of the Palestinian people.” In other words, forget about a state; you can have the crumbs off the table, which is better than no crumbs at all.

Haley’s response cannot be read solely within the context of a diatribe against Abbas. It is a direct attack on Palestinians rights and aspirations for liberation. Indeed, this exchange portrays the consequences which Palestinians suffer as a result of political isolation. The rhetoric within international institutions takes place in such a detached manner that it is possible to discern a narrative for UN forums that only skims the surface of what is deemed acceptable to discuss. The choice of discourse has been determined away from Palestinian reality.

The diverging narratives are imbued with recognition and repudiation, with the latter reserved for Palestinians. Haley is emphasising this discrepancy and exploiting it at a time when Israel and the US are working overtly to accelerate the colonisation process so that “Greater Israel” becomes more of a reality day by day. Recognising the colonial narrative at an international level is aided by the fact that Abbas is not speaking for all Palestinians. His calculated discourse, which should generate outrage at the way decades of Israeli violations are being recognised by himself and the PA so belatedly — particularly after US President Donald Trump’s unilateral declaration on Jerusalem — is a blatant example of pandering to colonial complicity.

Haley’s statement on Palestinians’ limitations unfortunately rings true. Whether or not the US is involved in negotiations, the damage to the Palestinians and their cause is immense. Turning to international organisations with weak leadership for solutions will ultimately result in the diminished power of the people. The fact that Abbas continues to engage with the international community without acknowledging its role in isolating Palestinian voices can only mean an extension of the current situation, with long-term benefits for Israel. Engaging with the US after the measures it has taken to hinder the legitimate claims of Palestinians on their territory to the point of elimination should not be an option.

Whatever Abbas chooses, and recent history has shown many examples of how the PA fluctuates from one degenerative option to another, it is important to remember that the decisions are not Palestinian choices. The people of Palestine have been experimented upon from all sides — even militarily — and options offered by parties across the political spectrum ignore the fact that the genuine possibilities for Palestinians can only be generated from within; Abbas knows this only too well. It is with calculated intent that the entire world has been allowed to impose anything and everything upon the Palestinians apart from their legitimate rights. The added indignity is having these same impositions articulated in the name of the Palestinian people by someone like Mahmoud Abbas.

February 24, 2018 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | 1 Comment

Syria slams Western silence on fatal terrorist attacks against Damascus civilians

Press TV – February 23, 2018

Syria’s UN envoy has denounced the US and Europe for their silence on the carnage of civilians in Damascus by the terror groups operating in Eastern Ghouta, saying it is “unacceptable” to endanger the lives of eight million in the capital in order to protect a few thousand terrorists in its suburbs.

Bashar al-Ja’afari was speaking at a United Nations Security Council meeting on the situation in Syria on Thursday.

After losing most of the Syrian territories under their control, foreign-backed militant groups, including the notorious al-Nusra Front, are now largely concentrated in the Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta, an area they have been using to launch deadly mortar attacks on the capital.

Syrian government forces have been pounding terrorist positions in the area to liberate it and free a large number of civilians struggling there with malnutrition and lack of basic medical supplies.

The US and its allies accuse Syrian forces of killing civilians in its aerial campaign against militant positions in Eastern Ghouta, a claim sharply rejected by Damascus and Moscow, which backs the anti-terror operation with its air force.

Ja’afari further said the terrorist groups in Eastern Ghouta, which have been designated as terror organizations by the Security Council, have been targeting Damascus with hundreds of rocket and mortar shells on a daily basis, killing and injuring hundreds of its residents.

He expressed surprise that the US, along with its European and Persian Gulf allies, has remained silent about the deaths of civilians in the capital in the terror attacks from Eastern Ghouta.

The eight million citizens of Damascus, Ja’afari said, are under constant threat by a few thousand terrorists in Eastern Ghouta, and yet the Western countries are more concerned about the well being of those terrorists than that of the civilians in the capital.

He said the US-led coalition, purportedly fighting Daesh in Syria, has moved from the proxy war to direct aggression against Syria in order to achieve what the terrorists failed to achieve.

He complained that the UN has turned a blind eye to the coalition’s crimes, including its complete destruction of the northern city of Raqqah under the pretext of fighting Daesh.

Also, he said the world body is ignoring more than a month of Turkish aggression on the Afrin district in northern Syria as well as Israel’s repeated attacks on the Syrian territory.

Al-Ja’afari said the instances of the UN’s failure to call the aggressors to account “stress that this international organization suffers a professional and ethical crisis through adopting the stances of states which support terrorism in Syria and denying the right of the Syrian government to defend its citizens.”

February 23, 2018 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | 2 Comments

The Palestinian People Are Not Fooled any More

By Rima Najjar | Palestine Chronicle | February 21, 2018

As a Palestinian, I am skeptical about Mahmoud Abbas’s address, billed by the press as “Abbas delivers rare address at UNSC meeting”, which calls for two states.

Whereas I believe that the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement’s goals can be achieved through more than one political accommodation, including a two-state scenario in historic Palestine as a solution to its violent partition in 1948, I am skeptical about the ability or will of the international order to achieve this end without compromising Palestinian fundamental human rights.

Read my answer to ‘Why is it so difficult to reform the United Nations Security Council?’ here.

Abbas is addressing a world order impotent to stand up to Israel – one that is also committed to Israel’s Jewish national identity and to advancing its national security. They are the very same players who have, without question, deceived the Palestinian people throughout the long decades of Oslo.

As the ESCWA report on Israel’s Apartheid noted in the introduction,

“the policies, practices and measures applied by Israel to enforce a system of racial discrimination threaten regional peace and security. United Nation resolutions have long recognized that danger and called for resolution of conflict so as to restore and maintain peace and stability in the region.”

Recognition has yet to translate into action as far as the U.N. is concerned.

Additionally, instead of unifying all segments of the Palestinian people (who are fragmented as a condition imposed by Israel) behind the goal of liberation, Abbas is cooperating with Israel and its allies in the escalation of the deprivation of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip – in order to pressure them into relinquishing their political objectives.

Such political maneuvering on Abbas’s part has turned the goal of the Palestinian people, as Karma Nabulsi expressed it, on its head:

“The goal of Palestinians is to unify for the struggle to liberate their land and return to it, and to restore their inalienable human rights taken by force – principles enshrined in centuries of international treaties, charters, and resolutions, and in natural justice.”

The creation of a Jewish state in Palestine dispossessed Palestinian Arabs, against their will, of land and property, as well as of their fundamental right to self-determination in their own homeland in favor of self-determination for Jews worldwide.

In my opinion, without addressing Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish state in Palestine, the Palestinian people are unlikely ever to achieve self-determination in their own homeland. The right of the Jewish people to self-determination in a state of their own is a right acknowledged internationally today, but one that must be challenged, if only from a demographic perspective in Palestine.

As Albert T. Clay wrote in the February 1921 issue of The Atlantic:

“A visit to some of the better established Jewish colonies will not fail to awaken sympathy for Economic Zionism. No unbiased observer of past events could think of throwing obstacles in the way of those Jews who, being persecuted in certain lands, prefer to live in a community solely Jewish; or who, through historical sentiment, long to reside in a purely Jewish cultural community in the land of their ancestors. Only an extremist would deny the gratification of their desires to as many of these people as can be accommodated; yet it must be borne in mind that, as estimated by experts, the tiny country can support only about a million and a half additional inhabitants; which number, if all were Jews, would represent only one tenth of the fifteen millions in the world.”

The Palestinians have never held the bargaining chips in their tragedy and might as well go for broke – ending the Apartheid Zionist colonial regime in all of historic Palestine. We have spent enough time agreeing to piecemeal “solutions” during the so-called peace process that achieved nothing but unspeakable inhumanity and suffering.

– Rima Najjar is a Palestinian whose father’s side of the family comes from the forcibly depopulated village of Lifta on the western outskirts of Jerusalem. She is an activist, researcher and retired professor of English literature, Al-Quds University, occupied West Bank.

February 21, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Iran strongly rejects claims of delivery of missiles to Yemen

Press TV – February 20, 2018

Iran has once again rejected the allegations about the Islamic Republic’s provision of missiles to Yemeni forces, saying such claims are lies and a foolish scenario.

“Iran’s missile program is for defensive and deterrent [purposes] and claims about the dispatch of missiles to Yemen despite the all-out blockade on this country are lies and a foolish scenario designed to exonerate the aggressors,” Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi said on Tuesday.

He added that Britain and France have expressed their concern over Iran’s defensive missile program without providing any reason or wise justification.

A group of so-called independent United Nations experts monitoring the sanctions on Yemen reported to the Security Council in January that it had “identified missile remnants, related military equipment and military unmanned aerial vehicles that are of Iranian origin and were brought into Yemen after the imposition of the targeted arms embargo.”

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson in a statement on Monday called on Iran to stop taking actions which could lead to further escalation of the Yemeni conflict.

“I call on Iran to cease activity which risks escalating the conflict and to support a political solution to the conflict in Yemen,” Johnson said.

His remarks came on the same day that the French foreign ministry also said in a statement that Paris was concerned about Iran’s ballistic missiles program and its activities in the region, mentioning its support for the Houthis in Yemen.

In reaction to the allegations, Qassemi said the Islamic Republic has designed its defensive missile program based on its military doctrine and valuable experience it obtained during the eight-year war imposed on it by Iraq backed by major global powers in the 1980s.

He added that Iran’s missile program aims to deter any aggression by extremist powers against the country.

“In this clear path that is completely in conformity with international principles, we will never accept other countries’ intervention and regard as irresponsible and suspicious the adoption of such unprincipled stance and strongly reject them,” Qassemi said.

He emphasized that the Yemeni army and people have no need for foreign countries’ weapons, saying the Yemenis’ defense of their country’s dignity with minimum facilities has led to the defeat of aggressors.

The chief commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) in January dismissed the allegations leveled by the US and its allies about the Islamic Republic’s provision of missiles to Yemeni forces.

“Missiles fired at Saudi Arabia belong to Yemen which have been overhauled and their range have been increased,” Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari said.

Iran’s Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani also said in December that the Islamic Republic is not providing military assistance to Yemen and all claims to this effect are false.

“We are not a country that would deny providing military assistance to anybody,” Larijani said.

Qassemi further called for an immediate end to the sale of European and US arms to Saudi Arabia and other aggressors and warmongers who are killing innocent Yemeni people on a daily basis.

A Saudi Arabian-led coalition launched a war against Yemen in 2015 and has ever since been indiscriminately hitting targets in the country. Yemeni Houthi fighters have been firing missiles in retaliatory attacks against Saudi targets every now and then.

The US State Department in January approved a possible $500-million sale of missile system support services to Saudi Arabia in defiance of global calls for Washington to stop providing Riyadh with military support due to the regime’s war crimes in Yemen.

The potential sale follows a request by Saudi Arabia for continued technical assistance for Patriot Legacy Field Surveillance Program (FSP), the Patriot Advanced Capability 3 (PAC-3) and the Patriot Engineering Services Program (ESP).

During his first trip to Saudi Arabia last year, US President Donald Trump signed a $110 billion arms deal with the Saudis, with options to sell up to $350 billion over a decade.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in December the United States is complicit in Saudi war crimes in Yemen amid Washington’s baseless claim that Tehran is providing supply of ballistic missiles to Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement.

“No amount of alternative facts or alternative evidence covers up US complicity in war crimes,” Zarif said in a post on his official Twitter account.

He added that the US has sold weapons to its allies enabling them to “kill civilians and impose famine,” in reference to Washington’s arms deal with Riyadh in its aggression against Yemen.

February 20, 2018 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , , | 1 Comment

The Next Logical Step: General Assembly Intervention Plan to End the Maritime Siege of Gaza

Break the Maritime Siege of Gaza | February 15, 2018

Gaza is the largest open air prison in the world, with 2 million people, mostly children. Now it is lacking potable water, with only 2-4 hours of electricity per day. There is severe widespread physical and psychological trauma and illnesses from numerous Israeli bomb attacks and ground invasions. These have killed thousands and left hundreds of thousands homeless, with widespread infrastructure destroyed. Gaza is suffocating. The UN has predicted that Gaza will become uninhabitable within the next 2 years.

Background

In 1967, Israel invaded and occupied the Gaza Strip. The people of Gaza have suffered under a maritime siege ever since. This blockade is inhumane and illegal. It amounts to collective persecution.

Unlike any other seafaring people in the world, Gaza’s Palestinians have been unable to use their ports to conduct any international commerce for over 50 years — since the 1967 Six Day War.  Ships from the Gaza Strip are prevented from leaving Gaza territorial waters, and international cargo is prevented from sailing directly into Gaza. Israel illegally blocks food, medicine, fuel, repair equipment, and other materials to and from Gaza. All goods intended for Gaza must go through Israeli ports, and Israel completely controls what is allowed in and out of Gaza. For the last 11 years, this siege has become extremely severe.

Despite international standards of 20 nautical miles, Gaza fishing vessels are limited to 3-6 nautical miles, depending on the whims of the occupier.  Fishers often suffer violent attacks by Israeli warships.  They have been injured and killed, and many Gazan fishing vessels have been confiscated, damaged and destroyed.

An international civil society group, the Free Gaza Movement, breached this maritime siege by successfully sailing into Gaza five times in 2008. Ever since, attempts to sail additional boats into Gaza by the Free Gaza Movement, and subsequently the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, have been stopped by violent Israeli piracy in international waters. Activists have been injured and killed, thrown into Israeli prisons, and deported. Boats and ships have been hijacked and confiscated by Israel.  In 2014, “Gaza’s Ark,” an international initiative to build a cargo ship in Gaza to sail Gaza merchandise to international markets was crushed when Israeli warplanes completely destroyed the reconstructed ship in Gaza Harbor just before the boat’s renovation was complete. To date, the international community has been unwilling to take any substantial action that could give Gaza the right to maritime commerce like all other countries in the world.

For decades, the U.S. has consistently blocked resolutions at the UN that are critical of Israel. Since the UN Security Council is hopelessly deadlocked with inevitable U.S. vetoes, and since acts of Israeli piracy toward international vessels attempting to reach Gaza occur without consequence, it is time to take the next logical step:  A UN General Assembly Intervention Plan (GAIP) toward ending the maritime siege of Gaza.

A Solution 

Several groups are now proposing General Assembly action under the “Uniting For Peace Doctrine” to permanently and nonviolently end the Israeli maritime blockade against Gaza. U.S. vetoes have prevented the Security Council from solving the decades-long Israeli occupation and oppression of the Palestinians. The international community cannot continue to simply stand by and allow the suffering of the Palestinians to continue, especially in Gaza, where the abuse is so clear and so preventable. The General Assembly can implement this General Assembly Intervention Plan, a flotilla of state-sponsored cargo ships to carry humanitarian supplies to Gaza free of any Israeli interference. The G.A. can also require that the Israeli blockade end under threat of serious sanctions.

The blockade is a clear “breach of the peace.” The Israeli maritime blockade of Gaza is seen by most international experts as illegal. Ironically and to the point, Israel itself identified the creation of a maritime blockade by Egypt in 1967 as being illegal and a casus belli (an act of war). The United States backed that Israeli position in 1967 asserting that uninvolved nations could break an illegal blockade between A and B, and the U.S. President, Lyndon Johnson, proposed such a flotilla of military ships to break what he understood to be an illegal Egyptian maritime blockade of an important Israeli port.

The Uniting for Peace Doctrine states:

“Conscious that (the) failure of the Security Council to discharge its responsibilities where there appears to be a … breach of the peace … does not relieve Member States of their obligations or the United Nations of its responsibility under the Charter to maintain international peace and security, … (The General Assembly states that) in any cases where the Security Council … fails to act as required to maintain international peace …, the General Assembly …. shall … (step in and make) appropriate recommendations to Members for collective measures (of any kind) … to maintain or restore international peace and security.”

This General Assembly action would not be vulnerable to any Security Council veto, because it will not need American approval. This blockade is an issue that can be completely solved by the General Assembly without force or violence. Furthermore, such action would stipulate that the Israeli maritime blockade ends under threat of serious sanctions. It is time to take concrete substantial support for the Palestinians, in particular, for the people of Gaza.

Moving Forward

A group of activists from the U.S. and Sweden went to the United Nations for a week this past November, coinciding with the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. Our intention was to bring attention to this General Assembly Intervention Plan for Gaza, gain support, and generate discussion among a number of missions.

While at the UN, along with our allied organizations, we had meetings with officials from the Palestine Mission to the UN and 12 other nations.

Riyad Mansour, the Ambassador for the Palestine Mission to the UN, met with us and gave his blessings. Although he was not able to fully endorse this initiative based on a first meeting, he assured us that he would not oppose it. We also paid visits to several other UN Missions and distributed the 11-page General Assembly Intervention Plan for Breaking the Maritime Blockade of Gaza.

We also were able to make contact with Ambassador Fode Seck of Senegal, who chairs the CEIRPP, Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. On Wednesday, November 29, 2017, we attended the UN sessions of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. At the evening reception, we had informal discussions with other mission representatives and members of civil society supporting Palestinian rights.

In summary, the General Assembly Intervention plan is the next logical step, following the giant footsteps of the Free Gaza Movement and the Freedom Flotilla Coalition. Its goal is to permanently end the 50 year old maritime siege of Gaza. The GAIP is gaining a growing list of endorsers, which include, but are not limited to:

Richard Falk, Rima Khalaf, Hans von Sponeck, Denis Halliday, Miko Peled, Mazin Qumsiyeh, Ramzy Baroud, Rashid Khalidi, Freedom Flotilla Coalition, BDS South Africa and the Rachel Corrie Foundation.

– If you would like to see the full General Assembly Intervention Plan and/or endorse our initiative and/or help move this process forward, please contact us at BreakMaritimeBlockade@gmail.com

February 16, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | 1 Comment

UN: Over 200 companies have Israel settlement ties

MEMO | January 31, 2018

The United Nations human rights office said today it had identified 206 companies so far doing business linked to Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, where it said violations against Palestinians are “pervasive and devastating”.

“The majority of these companies are domiciled in Israel or the settlements (143), with the second largest group located in the United States (22). The remainder are domiciled in 19 other countries,” the UN human rights office said in a statement.

The report, which did not name the companies but said that 64 of them had been contacted to date, said that the work in producing the database “does not purport to constitute a judicial process of any kind”.

Its mandate was to identify businesses involved in the construction of settlements, surveillance, services including transport and banking and financial operations such as loans for housing that may raise human rights concerns.

Human rights violations associated with the settlements are “pervasive and devastating, reaching every facet of Palestinian life”, the report said. It cited restrictions on freedom of religion, movement and education as well as lack of access to land, water and livelihoods.

Israel assailed the Human Rights Council in March 2016 for launching the initiative at the request of countries led by Pakistan, calling the database a “blacklist” and accusing the 47-member state forum of behaving “obsessively” against Israel.

Israel’s mission in Geneva said today that it was preparing a statement responding to the UN report.

“We hope that our work in consolidating and communicating the information in the database will assist States and businesses in complying with their obligations and responsibilities under international law,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein.

The report is to be debated at the main annual session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva from 26 February to 23 March.

January 31, 2018 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , | 1 Comment

To imagine a world free from fascism and Israel, imagine a world without the UN

By Greg Felton | January 27, 2018

Cowardice in the face of Zionist/corporate coercion is not confined to individual state actors; it is also found among groups of states. The crippling power of groupthink and the fear of reprisal for defying the hegemonic power can inhibit states from behaving ethically. To stand against tyranny is admittedly dangerous and difficult, so perhaps cowardice is too strong a term for those that don’t, but tyrants have only as much power as their victims are willing to give them; at some point they have to stop giving: There is no cowardice as strong as a shared cowardice, or as Edmund Burke so aptly said: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” For an assemblage of do-nothing good men, I give you the United Nations.

The UN’s role in creating our neo-fascist world order goes virtually unremarked as the world’s propaganda organs and gossip networks fixate on the U.S.’s warmongering bombast. To condemn the UN in this manner likely seems absurd to anti-war activists and those indoctrinated with the dogma of liberal internationalism, but it is no coincidence that the 20th century, the most violent in human history, is also the first century when the world succumbed to the conceit that war could be rationalized out of existence.

The UN did not prevent wars; it centralized and depoliticized their execution. Before the UN, states had to make the conscious decision to declare war before engaging in hostilities. War was an instrument of politics. After the UN, war was divorced war from rational politics. It became an aggression sanctioned by the Security Council, like the no-fly zones over Iraq, or a self-proclaimed right to attack based on contrivances like “responsibility to protect” and “violations” of Security Council resolutions. These are the excuses invoked to lay waste whole countries like Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. Victims of great power aggression, like Palestine, on the other hand, have no hope of redress.

Like the League of Nations, the UN is founded on high moral principles but has neither the military strength nor the political will to enforce them. It could hardly be otherwise. The U.S. emerged from WWII as the world’s pre-eminent economic, military and political hegemon, so to think that it would willingly subordinate itself to an objective moral code or an international body was preposterous. In fact, the UN exposed its hypocrisy within a mere 25 months of its founding. I discussed the matter in a July 22, 2011, column concerning the possible UN membership of Palestine, which of course never happened.

The essay’s most remarkable aspect is not its scintillating prose but the fact that it could be reprinted today with no loss of relevance, especially concerning the Arab League’s announcement that it would lobby the UN to recognize the state of Palestine because of Donald Trump’s decision to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to the ancient Canaanite city of Jerusalem. In theory, the league’s idea is perfectly sound. According to Article 4 of the United Nations Charter:

Membership in the United Nations is open to all other peace-loving states which accept the obligations contained in the present Charter and, in the judgment of the Organization, are able and willing to carry out these obligations.

In practice, the announcement is farcical. The league does not seem to have learned anything from the UN’s failure to do so 2011. Why should it expect the UN to behave any differently now? If the league wants the UN to recognize the state of Palestine, it must go about it a different way. It has to make Israel, not Palestine, the issue. The following excerpt from my article shows UN cowardice in the face of U.S. terrorism.

Original Cowardice

By late November 1947, the issue of a Jewish national home had yet to be settled. On one side were those who sympathized with partition of Palestine because of the persecution the Jews suffered under Hitler’s Reich. On the other were those who recognized that such a plan was grossly illegal and a violation of fundamental UN principles of justice. By the 25th, the Zionist lobby realized that it did not have the requisite two-thirds majority in the General Assembly to support partition. Extraordinary measures had to be taken.

Vijayalakshmi Pandit, head of India’s UN delegation and sister of India’s Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, received daily death threats warning her to change her vote. Nehru, though, refused to buckle in the face of threats or lucrative bribes. (Najma Heptulla, Indo-West Asian relations: the Nehru era (Allied Publishers, 1991, p. 158.)

Other, smaller, countries could not afford to stand on principle. In Palestine and Israel—A Challenge to Justice, Professor John Quigley recounts how Liberia, the Philippines, and Haiti—all financially dependent on the U.S.—were coerced into switching their votes:

“Liberia’s ambassador to the United Nations complained that the U.S. delegation threatened aid cuts to several countries. Some delegates charged U.S. officials with ‘diplomatic intimidation.’ Without terrific pressure from the United States on governments which cannot afford to risk American reprisals, said an anonymous editorial writer, the resolution would never have passed. The fact such pressure had been exerted became public knowledge, to the extent a State Department policy group was concerned that ‘the prestige of the UN’ would suffer because of ‘the notoriety and resentment attendant upon the activities of U.S. pressure groups, including members of Congress, who sought to impose U.S. views as to partition on foreign delegations.’” (p. 37)

On Nov. 29, the Partition Plan, known as UNGA Resolution 181 narrowly gained the required two thirds—33 in favor, 13 opposed, 10 abstaining and 1 absent—yet the resolution was a violation of the UN Charter since the UN has no authority to take land from one people and give it to another….

As a result, 726,000 Arabs were made refugees in their own land from November 29, 1947, until the end of 1948, according to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine. Walter Eytan, Director General of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, referred to the UNRWA’s figure as “meticulous” and believed that the real number was closer to 800,000. Moshe Dayan would later admit: “There is not one single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population.” (Ha’aretz, April 4, 1969).”

One can have sympathy for Liberia, the Philippines and Haiti—without economic freedom, political freedom is an illusion­­––but the issue never should have been brought to the General Assembly, especially since the voting was known to be coerced. As the last line said: “The UN has no authority to take land from one people and give it to another.”

The crowning cruelty is that Resolution 181 had nothing to do with Israel’s “creation.” President Harry Truman admitted that he refused to let it be ratified in the Security Council precisely because of Jewish savagery against Arabs. In a March 25, 1948, statement he wrote:

“It has become clear that the partition plan cannot be carried out at this time by peaceful means. We could not undertake to impose this solution on the people of Palestine by the use of American troops, both on Charter grounds and as a matter of national policy.”

Without ratification, Resolution 181 was merely a General Assembly recommendation, not a decision, so the partition never officially took place; however, because Zionists were in control of Congress on the matter, and the media and U.S. public were thoroughly indoctrinated with Holocaust™ propaganda, Truman did nothing to stop the Jewish atrocity because he needed Jewish votes in the 1948 election. Truman’s moral cowardice and the UN’s refusal to defend its Charter against obvious violation have given us the illegitimate state of Israel, from which emanates our terroristic, neo-fascist world.

At no time since 1947 has the UN done anything to atone for its cowardice or stop Israel from committing its slow genocide of Palestine. From this perspective, the Arab League’s asking the UN to grant statehood to Palestine is an exercise in futility. Instead it must demand that the UN acknowledge the non-existence of Resolution 181, and thereby the non-existence of Israel.

Cowardice Compounded

The second thing the Arab League has to do is have Israel expelled from the UN. On May 11, 1949, Israel was admitted as a member, but that decision cannot be justified since “Israel” failed the peace-loving criterion mentioned in Article 4 of the Charter. To get around this inconvenient fact, the UN cheated. As I had Ban Ki-Moon say on May 11, 2009:

Few people know that Israel is the only state to be given a conditional admission. Under General Assembly Resolution 273, Israel was admitted on the condition that it grant all Palestinians the right to return to their homes and receive compensation for lost or damaged property, according to General Assembly Resolution 181, paragraph 11. Suffice to say, Israel has never lived up to these terms, and never intended to. For 60 years Israel has violated its terms of admission, and for 60 years the UN has done nothing about it. It has watched as Israel heaped misery upon misery on Palestine, and violated international law with impunity.

It is not necessary for the Arab League to lobby the UN for Palestinian statehood. All it has to do is show that Israel violated its terms of admission to have it expelled. Since the General Assembly, not the Security Council, controls membership issues, vetoes would not come into play.

The league would also do well to consider the example of Taiwan’s UN membership. On Oct. 25, 1971, it was expelled because the UN chose not to recognize Taiwan as a country any longer. The UN decided that the People’s Republic of China was the only legitimate representative of China to the United Nations, not the representatives of Chiang Kai-shek. Although Taiwan considers itself an independent state, China considers it to be a province of China. The UN adopted a “One China” policy, just like the U.S. did, and did so asserting that Taiwan had unlawfully occupied China’s UN seat. Let’s let that sink in for a moment: unlawfully occupied.” Is there any more unlawful occupier than Israel?

The UN cannot accept two governments in Palestine any more than it could accept two Chinese governments. Because its “creation” and its membership in the UN are both unlawful, Israel must be expelled and its seat given to Palestine.

The Arab League, and all civilized nations, must demand that the UN adopt a “One Palestine” policy.

January 26, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | 11 Comments

Israel thwarts PA bid to join UN nuclear disarmament body

MEMO | January 26, 2018

Israel has thwarted Palestinian Authority efforts to obtain observer status at the UN Conference on Disarmament (UNOG), Israel Radio reported on Thursday. The Israeli Foreign Ministry has apparently been working behind the scenes with member states, including the United States, to prevent the PA’s accession to the international body this year.

The Palestinian Authority submitted an application to obtain observer status at UNOG, which has 65 member states. As a result of Israel’s lobbying, the PA withdrew its request only one day before the latest conference session in Geneva.

Israel Radio quoted a diplomatic source as saying that Israel, “Did not want to set a precedent in which the Palestinians had observer status in an organisation [that addresses sensitive intelligence issues] like this.”

January 26, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | 1 Comment

Why cutting US aid to the Palestinian Authority is not a bad idea

Dr Alaa Tartir | Middle East Eye | January 5, 2018

Many observers and analysts warn that cutting US aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA) is dangerous and may threaten stability. Some have even argued that US President Donald Trump’s funding threat to Palestinians is more dangerous than his decision to move the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

“Do you think that the PA’s days are now numbered?” is one of the most recurring question by journalists over the past few days after Trump’s statement that “we pay the Palestinians hundred of millions of dollars a year and get no appreciation or respect. They don’t even want to negotiate a long overdue.”

Actions against Palestinians

Trump continued by saying “with the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace, why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?”. However, Trump’s threat to withdraw aid to the PA should not come as a surprise.

US aid has been always used as a political tool, and the conditionality attached to it has been harmful and damaging for the Palestinians.

But in case the threat of cutting aid to the PA materialises, is it really that bad? I argue no; it is not that bad. Arguably it may prove beneficial – possibly not in the short term, but certainly in the long term.

US aid to the PA largely aims to solidify the role of the PA as a subcontractor to Israel’s occupation and has made the Israeli occupation cheaper and longer, which has benefited Israel’s economy, entrenched Palestinian fragmentation, and denied the potential for Palestinian democracy. For all these reasons, cutting US aid to the PA is not that bad.

The first and foremost goal of the US to Palestine is to promote “the prevention or mitigation of terrorism against Israel”. In other words, aid is provided to the Palestinians to secure Israel; but is that an assistance to the Palestinians or to Israel?

Israel-first paradigm

According to this Israel-first security paradigm, the US administration poured millions of dollars of security assistance to the PA as a way to “professionalise” its security forces for the stability and the security of Israel, its occupation, and settlers in the occupied West Bank.

This skewed logic meant that the PA became a subcontractor to the Israeli occupation, thanks to US aid and conditionality.

This did not only sustain Israel’s occupation, but also it made it profitable for Israel, its economy and its companies. US assistance to the Palestinians is often used to pay PA creditors directly, many of which are Israeli companies charging predatory rates and taking advantage of a captive PA economy.

In addition, the majority of US aid for Palestine (up to 72 percent), especially the securitised aid, ends up in Israel’s economy. Therefore, a large portion of the US “assistance” to the Palestinians effectively translates to additional support for Israel and its security apparatus.

US aid has also entrenched Palestinian fragmentation over the past decade and fuelled the divide between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Also, the aid does not only deny the potential for Palestinian democracy but sponsors the emergence of an authoritarian style of governance in the West Bank.

Driven by its securitised agenda, the US-sponsored securitised processes aims to criminalise resistance against Israel’s occupation and supress the Palestinian people’s needs and aspirations.

US aid intervention

The operations and interventions of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the office of the US Security Coordinator (USSC), were instrumental in causing all this harm. By doing so, these two institutions not only violate key international principles of aid delivery, but also they effectively act as a complementary arm of the Israeli colonial occupation.

Certainly, these damages and harmful consequences of the US aid intervention will not be automatically reversed if Trump’s threat to cut aid becomes a reality.

It is far more complex than that, as it requires dismantling complex structures, dynamics, and institutions that have emerged and solidified over the past quarter of a century.

What is crucial at this stage is that Palestinians do not panic and curse their luck for “losing” $300mn to $400mn a year; rather, they should act – and they have plenty of choices. As a starter, they should hold USAID and the USSC accountable, and they should revoke the registry exemptions the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat gave to USAID to operate without any Palestinian oversight.

Reverse vetting process

It is time to reverse the “vetting process”; instead of USAID vetting the Palestinians, it is time for the Palestinians to do the necessary vetting to USAID and the other US bodies in the aid industry in Palestine.

Doing so requires the political will and courage among Palestine’s political leadership. However, the current PA leadership remains fixated on its failing approaches and formulas.

The inability of the PA leadership to perform small actions, such as revoking USAID registry exemptions, reflects a deeper legitimacy crisis and illustrates the tactical moves by the current PA leadership to buy time, remain in authority, or re-arrange “peace” talk cards. Those ideas must be urgently resisted and replaced by new strategic directions that are dictated by the Palestinian people.

The remaining major challenge, however, is how to channel the Palestinian people’s demands and aspirations into a legitimate polity and representative institutions.

From the ordinary Palestinian people perspective, there will be short-term negative consequences in the event of Trump’s threat to cut aid  materialising. However, it is also crucial to recognise that aid to the PA does not automatically translate to aid to the Palestinian people.

It is misleading to assume that aid and its benefits trickle down to ordinary Palestinian people. The aid industry is designed to benefit few and harm many.

Sam Bahour, the chairman of Americans for a Vibrant Palestinian Economy, recently argued: “I would not lose any sleep if Congress totally stopped funding the Palestinian Authority. It would not make daily life easier under occupation, but maybe it would wake up enough American leaders to see the absurdity of their being dragged around like a flock of sheep by their Israeli herder.”

I would not lose any sleep, either. While a US aid cut will have some negative consequences on Palestinian lives, long-term prospects may prove more more positive as this action would push the PA to abandon the framework of the Oslo Accords aid model. It’s time to lay the failed Oslo aid model to rest.

But a phasing out process requires serious actions, concrete and clear steps, and a national action/rescue plan for a transition toward a post two-state formula and a post-Oslo Accords framework.

Finally, while humanitarian assistance is important, what matters more for the ordinary Palestinians is not a coupon to get wheat or sardines, but rather the political roots to fight against the denial of their rights.

Until those political roots are addressed and no matter of how big the aid flows get, ordinary Palestinians will not feel the positive outcome of aid, be it American, European, or Arab aid.

Trump’s threat to cut aid offers ordinary Palestinians a new opportunity to place the principles of self-determination and dignity in the core of the aid framework and industry.

Dr Alaa Tartir is the programme director of Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network, and a research associate at the Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding (CCDP), The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID) in Geneva, Switzerland. Follow Alaa Tartir on Twitter @alaatartir and read his publications at www.alaatartir.com  

January 7, 2018 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

As US seeks emergency UN meeting on Iran, Russia reminds it of Ferguson & Occupy crackdowns

RT | January 4, 2018

The US has said it will call an emergency UNSC meeting to discuss the unrest in Iran, citing the need to support the protesters. Moscow says the move is hypocritical, given Washington’s own history of cracking down on protests.

While the US envoy to the UN, Nikki Haley, said Washington would call for an “urgent” UN Security Council (UNSC) meeting on Iran Monday, there’s been no word yet from the UN on such a meeting being scheduled. Kairat Umarov, Kazakhstan’s envoy to the UN, who is now holding the rotating presidency in the UNSC, said Tuesday the council has not yet added Iran to its agenda and no decision has been yet taken on the issue.

Haley was emphatic in her support of Iran’s anti-government protesters, praising their “great bravery” and calling on the international community to support them. “The people of Iran are crying out for freedom,” Haley told journalists at a news conference. “All freedom-loving people must stand with their cause,” she added, while promising to seek an emergency session of the UN Human Rights Commission.

Washington’s latest attempt at masquerading as a global human rights defender was met with ridicule in Moscow, which reminded the US about its own approach when dealing with protests whenever they occur on American soil. “There is no doubt that the US delegation to the UN has something to tell the world,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova said on Facebook.

“Haley can, for example, share the US experience of putting down protests, tell [the Security Council] about the mass arrests and crackdown against the Occupy Wall Street movement or about the “clean-up operation” in Fergusson,” she sarcastically added.

The Occupy Wall Street protests began in the world’s financial capital, New York City, in September 2011. People came to Zuccotti Park located in the Wall Street financial district to protest against social and economic inequality in the US. Despite the peaceful nature of the protest, the police crackdown was swift, arresting as many as 700 protesters in one day as they marched across Brooklyn Bridge on October 1. Later, it was also revealed that the FBI monitored the movement through its Joint Terrorism Task Force and used counterterrorism agents to investigate OWS, despite labelling it peaceful.

Fergusson, Missouri, witnessed massive protests in 2014 following the death of Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old black man who was shot and killed by a police officer. US authorities imposed a curfew in the area while military police repeatedly dispersed the protesters using tear gas and other means. Later, the Missouri governor deployed National Guard troops to secure the area.

January 4, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , | 1 Comment

Israel agrees to EU deal excluding settlements

RT | December 31, 2017

Israel’s government has approved an agreement with the EU that includes a provision excluding funding for settlements, seemingly consenting to the EU’s boycott of settlements.

The agreement centers on Israel’s part in the EU’s ENI Cross-Border Cooperation in the Mediterranean (CBC Med) program, which provides funds for projects for non-EU countries in the Mediterranean area, such as Israel, Egypt and Jordan, Haaretz reports. The projects are largely focused on promoting development, education, technology and environmental sustainability.

As per EU policy, the ENI CBC Med agreement contains a provision which excludes areas outside Israel’s 1967 borders from receiving grants. This means Israeli settlements inside the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights (which were occupied by Israel in the conflict) cannot receive funding under the program.

Israeli settlements inside Palestinian territories are considered both an impediment to the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians, and to be in violation of a number of UN resolutions and the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Israel’s Culture and Sport Minister, Miri Regev, voiced her objections to the agreement to the cabinet secretary earlier in the month. She fought against the deal at the cabinet meeting, the Jewish Press reports, but no other minister agreed to second her motion to delay the vote pending further debate.

The deal was given final approval by the government Sunday, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed off on the measure last week. It’s also been approved by the Justice Ministry and Foreign Ministry, Haaretz reports. The foreign ministry is said to have led the charge for Israel to be part of the program.

The agreement is at odds with the Israeli government’s stance on settlements, which it continues to develop within the occupied territories in disregard of the EU and others’ condemnation. Netanyahu is also a fierce opponent to the international Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement which calls for boycotts and sanctions against Israel.

“My fundamental position is that the Israeli government should reject agreements from the outset that require us on a de facto basis to boycott portions of the homeland or populations living in the Golan Heights, Jerusalem or Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] other than with very limited exceptions,” Regev wrote in her letter.

“I do not see the justification to compromise and with one hand sign the agreement while with our other demanding that the world give de facto recognition to our right to a united Jerusalem and even to move embassies to Israel’s capital,” she added.

Aside from the settlement matter, Regev’s letter to Cabinet Secretary Tzachi Braverman also took issue with the text of the agreement referring to the Palestinian Authority “as if it were a neighboring country.”

It is “not acceptable to me,” she said.

 The far-right Regev managed to halt a similar agreement with the EU last year. A Creative Europe culture and media program contained a similar provision excluding settlements, and, although Netanyahu had given consent, Regev stopped it from going ahead. Earlier this month, Regev succeeded in forcing  the NBA remove a reference to Palestine as being “occupied territory.”

Read more:

‘Enough is enough’: Norway’s trade unions vote to boycott Israel over Palestine

December 31, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

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