Xi Jinping ends landmark KSA visit by calling on Arab states to embrace multipolar world
The Cradle | December 10, 2022
Chinese President Xi Jinping left Saudi Arabia early on 10 December following a three-day visit that saw him attend three different summits with leaders from across West Asia and Africa.
On Friday night, Xi headed the first China-Arab States Summit, which saw a large majority of Arab League heads of state attend in a bid to strengthen bilateral ties with the Asian giant.
“As strategic partners, China and Arab states should … foster a closer China-Arab community with a shared future, so as to deliver greater benefits to their peoples and advance the cause of human progress,” the Chinese president said during his keynote speech.
Xi also called on Arab states to remain “independent and defend their common interests,” adding that China “supports Arab states in independently exploring development paths suited to their national conditions and holding their future firmly in their own hands.”
“China is ready to deepen strategic mutual trust with Arab states, and firmly support each other in safeguarding sovereignty, territorial integrity and national dignity,” Xi said, noting that the two sides should “jointly uphold the principle of non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs, practice true multilateralism, and defend the legitimate rights and interests of developing countries.”
The Chinese leader also urged leaders from West Asia and Africa to embrace “synergy between their development strategies, and promote high-quality [cooperation in the Belt and Road Initiative].”
Launched nine years ago, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is considered the crown jewel of Xi’s long-term foreign policy agenda. The stated aim of the mega-infrastructure project is to bring capital and infrastructure to Global South countries while dramatically strengthening connectivity for commerce, finance, and culture.
The BRI also aims to secure markets for Chinese companies, stable supplies of inputs for Chinese factories, and productive outlets for China’s large foreign exchange holdings. Close to 150 nations across the globe have signed on to participate in the BRI.
For the first half of 2022, Saudi Arabia was the biggest recipient of China’s finance and investment spending in the BRI.
Ahead of the China-Arab Summit on Friday, the Chinese president met with leaders from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). During this summit, he urged the oil and gas giants to conduct energy sales in the Chinese yuan, potentially divorcing the US dollar from bilateral transactions.
He also vowed to import more oil and natural gas from Gulf Arab states while not interfering in their affairs, a departure from Washington’s long-standing policy of interference and domination.
Xi later took the opportunity to express China’s support for the end of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, and voiced frustration over the “historical injustice” suffered by Palestinians.
“It is not possible to continue the historical injustice suffered by the Palestinians,” the Chinese president said on Friday.
He went on to call on the international community to grant Palestine “full membership in the United Nations” and said Beijing “supports the two-state solution and the establishment of a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.”
Beijing’s emergence as a major superpower since the turn of the century has proven to be critically important for Arab states, prompting them to diversify their strategic objectives and balance themselves away from a decades-long Western dependency.
Washington obstructs peace in Yemen as it profits from war: Ansarallah
The Cradle | December 8, 2022
The leader of Yemen’s Ansarallah resistance movement, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, accused the US of obstructing the path for a comprehensive peace process in Yemen, calling the western nation “the root of the problem.”
“[Ceasefire talks] are stalled because of the US, who are the root of the problem, as it benefits from the war and only wants a peace deal that benefits their interests, this type of peace means surrender to us,” Al-Houthi said during a televised speech on 7 December.
“The Americans, the Israelis, the British, and their regional puppets want Yemen to be occupied and submissive to them … The enemies want to set up their bases anywhere in Yemen, control its infrastructure and make the political field subject to their interests, to the extent that they choose who can be president or prime minister,” the resistance leader went on to add.
In April of this year, Riyadh strong-armed ousted Yemeni president Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi to give up his powers to an unelected, Saudi-appointed presidential council, led by Rashad al-Alimi, who Ansarallah leaders christened “the man of America.”
During Wednesday’s speech, Al-Houthi also accused the US-backed coalition – headed by Saudi Arabia and the UAE – of plundering Yemen’s oil and gas resources in order to keep Yemenis living in misery, while “hundreds of billions go to US and European companies.”
Last year, Yemen’s Oil and Minerals Ministry estimated that the country’s oil and gas sector has lost around $45.5 billion in revenue since the start of the Saudi-led war. According to officials in Sanaa, the kingdom deprives Yemen of at least 75 percent of the state budget revenues.
Over the past year, a large number of Saudi and Emirati oil tankers have made their way to Yemeni ports in the provinces of Shabwa and Hadhramaut in order to seize millions of dollars worth of the country’s oil.
The Saudi-led coalition not only plunders Yemen’s oil and gas from the occupied regions – in coordination with US and French troops – but also often seizes UN-approved fuel shipments headed for the Ansarallah-controlled port of Hodeidah.
Moreover, thanks to the normalization agreement signed between Israel and the UAE, Tel Aviv has been deploying troops to the Arab world’s poorest nation.
“They do not want an army that protects the independence and sovereignty of Yemen, they only want groups of fighters under the command of Emirati and Saudi officers, who themselves are under the command of American, British, and Israeli officers,” Al-Houthi said about the increased presence of hegemonic powers in Yemen.
“We cannot accept for Yemen to be occupied, or for the Americans, British, Emiratis, and Saudis to come and set up bases wherever they want,” the resistance leader stressed, before adding that Yemen’s enemies want the country to join the group of Arab nations who have normalized ties with Israel at the expense of the Palestinian people and of several of Yemen’s allies in West Asia.
“Iran did not attack us. Rather, it declared solidarity with our people, a position distinct from all other countries … [The enemies] want us to be hostile to Hezbollah, which took a most honorable position with us. They want us to be hostile to the free people of Iraq who have done nothing against us,” Al-Houthi declared.
He went on to highlight that Sanaa will not be hostile to any Islamic country “for the sake of America and Israel … We are not like the Saudis, Emiratis, and Al-Khalifa in Bahrain, we do not receive directives from America.”
Al-Houthi finished his speech by hinting at the military response of Ansarallah and the Yemeni Armed Forces against any escalation, saying that “any next round of fighting will be greater than all previous ones.”
Washington rejects ICC probe into Israel’s murder of Al Jazeera reporter
The Cradle | December 7, 2022
US State Department spokesperson Ned Price on 6 December said the White House opposes Al Jazeera taking the murder of Palestinian-American reporter Shireen Abu Aqla to the International Criminal Court (ICC).
“We oppose it,” Price told reporters when pressed about the ICC probe. He went on to add Washington maintains its “longstanding objections to the ICC’s investigation into the Palestinian situation and the position the ICC should focus on its core mission, and that core mission of serving as a court of last resort and punishing and deterring atrocity crimes.”
Abu Aqla was shot dead by Israeli troops on 11 May as she was covering a raid in the Jenin refugee camp. At the time of her death, she was wearing full body armor with clearly visible press markings.
Washington has long opposed Palestinian-led efforts to take up Israeli human rights abuses with international bodies, including the UN and the ICC.
The ICC has reportedly reviewed the evidence presented by the Qatari news network, and will make a decision on whether or not it will launch an investigation. The uncertainty comes naturally, as Israel has attempted to shut down any form of an objective inquiry into the incident since it took place.
Independent investigations by the UN, human rights groups, and western media outlets have all concluded Abu Aqla was deliberately shot by an Israeli soldier in an area where no Palestinian gunmen were present.
Last month, the White House disavowed an FBI investigation into the killing in order to appease Israel.
Israel, which rights groups accuse of imposing a system of apartheid on Palestinians, receives $3.8 billion in US security assistance annually.
Price’s reaction to the ICC probe echoes that of Israeli officials, who on Tuesday called for the expulsion of Al Jazeera journalists from the occupied territories.
“Al Jazeera is an anti-Semitic and false propaganda network working against Israel in the world,” Jewish supremacist official Itamar Ben Gvir said in a tweet, before calling for the journalists’ expulsion.
Israeli Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman also called for withdrawing the license of Al Jazeera reporters, saying: “I expect the [Israeli] government press office to revoke the journalists’ credentials of Al Jazeera reporters who are in Israel.”
Outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, for his part, has said he will not allow any interrogation of army soldiers in connection with Abu Aqla’s death.
In a statement on Tuesday, Al Jazeera said its lawsuit with the ICC includes “new witness evidence and video footage that clearly show that Abu Aqla and her colleagues were directly fired at by Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF).”
“The evidence presented to the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) confirms, without any doubt, that there was no firing in the area where Shireen was, other than the IOF shooting directly at her,” the statement added.
“My family still doesn’t know who fired that deadly bullet and who was in the chain of command that killed my aunt,” Abu Aqla’s niece, Lina Abu Aqla, said at a press conference in The Hague.
“The evidence is overwhelmingly clear, we expect the ICC to take action,” she said, adding that they had asked for a meeting with prosecutor Karim Khan.
Israel is not an ICC member and disputes the court’s jurisdiction. The US is also not a member.
Trump Is Toast
Jewish Power will trump Trump
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • DECEMBER 6, 2022
There is considerable irony in the fact that Donald Trump when president virtually crawled to do Israel’s bidding more than any of his predecessors. He moved the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, he accepted brutal Israeli settlement and control of the Palestinian West Bank, approved of the Israeli annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights, and ignored repeated Israeli war crimes using US provided weapons. Yet for all his gifts to Israel, which did not serve any actual US interest, he is currently being crucified by the Jewish/Israel Lobby because of an idiotic dinner with a pair of alleged anti-Semites, one of whom has been labeled a “holocaust denier.”
And the extreme reaction of Jewish groups to the affront also itself possesses a certain irony in that it demonstrates how extraordinarily powerful promoters of Jewish and Israeli interests actually are, something that those selfsame groups take pains to deny at every opportunity, just as they deny having “dual loyalty” to Israel. The fact is that force majeure will prevail and we will now see the deliberate and methodical destruction of Donald J. Trump’s 2024 proposed presidential campaign by American Jewish and Israeli apologists.
Trump had already been taken out to the back woodshed for a good whipping once after he posted a comment on his Truth Social network on October 16th. He boasted how “No President has done more for Israel than I have. Somewhat surprisingly, however, our wonderful Evangelicals are far more appreciative of this than the people of the Jewish faith, especially those living in the US… US Jews have to get their act together and appreciate what they have in Israel — Before it is too late!”
But the rage unleashed by folks like the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) Jonathan Greenblatt, who labeled the October 16th comment as “insulting and disgusting,” combined with the attacks on three black celebrities, is already beginning to produce pushback, particularly from many normally apolitical blacks who are upset at the viciousness of the Jewish take-no-prisoners response due to its perceived racial overtones. Other observers also are concerned at how the Jewish groups and individuals are overstating the significance of some of the alleged anti-Semitic incidents (by their definition) in a self-serving effort to validate their view that Jewish suffering is unique and cannot be compared with other crimes against humanity.
Also, for those who choose to defend the First Amendment right to free speech, it is discouraging to observe how it is possible to say nearly anything as long as it does not offend Jewish sensibilities. There have already been moves in congress to criminalize criticism of Jews or Israel, making such actions the ultimate “hate crime.” Those specifically Jewish sensibilities absurdly include declaring anyone to be an anti-Semite who criticizes the behavior of Israel as it destroys schools and shoots a Palestinian teenager nearly every day. Indeed, the US media of late has been awash with stories about surging anti-Semitism which taken all together celebrate Israeli/Jewish victimhood while also ignoring Jerusalem’s war crimes and focusing instead on alleged conspiracies against Jews. Most despicable of all in the eyes of those protectors of all things Jewish are the few visible critics who have recognized that the standard holocaust narrative that has been artfully and deliberately shaped since the Second World War is full of inconsistencies and errors in demonstrable fact. So-called “holocaust deniers” are denigrated beyond all others because they attack the very raison d’etre that constitutes the “miraculous” Israel creation myth.
Examining what Kanye West and Donald Trump did and said suggests that there has been considerable overreaction from the Greenblatts of this world and their allies in the media and in government. Starting with Kanye West, currently going by the name Ye, one finds that his initial comments made were not particularly startling, suggesting that Jews directly own or control and manage the entertainment industry in the United States, which is manifestly true. As the criticism of Ye, who believes that blacks are descended from the ancient Hebrews, intensified, he responded with some heat, eventually coming out with an incoherent tweet to “go death con 3 ON JEWISH PEOPLE.”
The comedian Dave Chappelle followed up on the controversy by delivering a stinging monologue on “Saturday Night Live” on “the Jews” and their numbers in the entertainment industry saying that it’s “not a crazy thing to think” that Jews exert outsized influence in Hollywood and the media. He also suggested that Kanye had violated Hollywood’s “rules of perception,” saying, “If they’re Black, then it’s a gang. If they’re Italian, it’s a mob. But if they’re Jewish, it’s a coincidence and you should never speak about it.”
If Greenblatt had ignored Ye it is likely that his poorly expressed comments would have been quickly forgotten, but that is not how the Greenblatts of this world operate. Every offense against the standard narrative of Jewish victimhood requires full scale war. Reports early last week suggest that the efforts by ADL and others to convince businesses associated with Ye to cut off all ties with him have been successful, meaning that he is no longer a billionaire and likely has a fortune reduced to something in the $400 million range.
There have been similar responses to basketball player Kyrie Irving’s recent tweet supporting the so-called Black Hebrew Israelite theory that he shares with Ye which asserts that blacks are in fact Jews while black comedian Dave Chapelle making fun of the ADL overreaction on Saturday Night Live is under the gun from that organization, which has accused him of “popularizing” and “normalizing” anti-Semitism. Kyrie Irving, who also believes the earth is flat, was denounced as a “person unfit to associate with” by his team owner and was suspended for eight games without pay by the Brooklyn Nets even though he characteristically offered several abject apologies.
This all led up to the dinner at Mar-a-Lago with Ye and a so-called white supremacist Nick Fuentes. It is not clear what was discussed at dinner, but Ye states that Trump was impressed by Fuentes. In the aftermath of the meal, when news of it appeared in the media, a shit storm erupted. Trump claimed both that he did not know Fuentes and that he had been tricked by Ye, that the man was brought to the meal as Ye’s guest. Those assertions, most likely lies, have been assailed all over the media and also by the usual suspects like Greenblatt who announced that “The normalization of antisemitism is here.” On the following day, Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic majority leader and himself a Jew who fancies himself the “Protector of Israel in the Senate” went to the Senate floor to denounce Trump’s actions as “disgusting and dangerous,” before calling them “pure evil.”
Prominent Republicans like Kevin McCarthy and Marco Rubio have also piled on, suggesting that Trump will find little support even among those politicians that he would normally consider to be favorable to his reelection. Notably, the Republican Jewish Coalition has joined in the attacks, which means that campaign money will not be flowing to Trump from that usually reliable source. And even Trump’s former lawyer and the man he named ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, has condemned his old boss and patron, saying “Even a social visit from an antisemite like Kanye West and human scum like Nick Fuentes is unacceptable.” Ironically, Friedman, whose loyalty to the United States might be considered questionable, was a persistent apologist for Israel during his time in that country rather than a promoter of US interests.
I have to confess that I had never heard of Nick Fuentes, so I did a little checking on the claim that he was a “holocaust denier.” Fuentes is well-documented as making comments reflecting his rather intense dislike for Jews, but concerning the holocaust all I could come up with was a comment allegedly made by him attacking the claim that six million Jews died in what have been described as death camps, with a suggestion that it was more likely 200,000 to 300,000 as a realistic figure supported by official and other records. He described those deaths as “cookies,” which are baked in the oven and which may have angered critics more than the comment about the numbers. Interestingly, the six million number is one of the more ridiculous assertions that are part and parcel of the holocaust narrative as it appears to have been arbitrarily arrived at as “acceptable” and there has been considerable disagreement over its reliability.
So, Fuentes, it seems, is not a holocaust denier, rather he appears to be skeptical regarding the standard narrative, as am I and many others who have bothered to look into the verifiable historical record. But that does not mean that anyone in power will be standing in line to excuse his behavior. And his dinner partner Donald Trump has evidently now outstayed his welcome by the standards of the noble protectors of Jewish and Israeli interests. The large dollops of campaign cash will not be coming in, those willing to endorse his candidacy will be far fewer, and the media will turn on him even more than it has done over the past six years. Indeed, it is doing so already. There are numerous articles in the mainstream every day telling over and over again the tale of the fateful dinner at Mar-a-Lago. Trump has clearly crossed the notorious red line on Jewish issues. The only remaining question is what will it do to people like Greenblatt? If he keeps hammering away, which he will because that is how he is wired, could the worm turn and will Americans begin to wonder how 2% of the population has obtained so much power? That would be a really interesting development.
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.
European firms ‘invest’ $171 billion in Israel’s illegal settlements: Report
The Cradle | December 6, 2022
According to a report published on 5 December by the advocacy group Don’t Buy into Occupation, investments by European firms in Israel’s illegal settlements increased by more than $30 billion since last year.
Almost 24 Palestinian, regional, and European organizations have joined forces to form the group, which aims to investigate and disclose any connections between European financial institutions and companies involved in illegal Israeli settlements.
In their second report, “Exposing the financial flows into illegal Israeli settlements,” the group discovered that between January 2019 and August 2022, 725 European financial institutions, including banks, asset managers, insurance companies, and pension funds, had financial ties to 50 firms that are directly associated with Israeli settlements. International law prohibits all squatters and settlements in Israel.
Loans and underwriting totaled $171.4 billion over the three years covered by the report. The figure represents a $30 billion increase over last year when European firms invested $141 billion in illegal settlements. European investors are also said to hold $115.5 billion in shares and bonds of companies benefiting from the settlements as of August 2022.
According to the advocacy organization, businesses directly or indirectly associated with Israeli settlements run a significant danger of being complicit in serious violations of international humanitarian law, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, as well as contributing to other human rights violations.
Meanwhile, on 8 November, the ‘Elad’ settlement association in occupied East Jerusalem received roughly $7.9 million to support illegal settlements in the Palestinian town of Silwan.
The Elad group pursues the declared objective of “Judaizing” East Jerusalem, including Silwan, as a part of its mission to expand a Jewish presence across the occupied city and to uproot the indigenous Palestinian population under the guise of archeological and touristic endeavors.
Israel has illegally expanded its territory since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and built settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem for over 700,000 settlers, in clear violation of international law.
Israel’s occupation of East Jerusalem is not recognized by most countries and is considered one of the biggest obstacles to peace, as Palestinians consider East Jerusalem the capital of their future state.
Israel and US hold drills targeted at Iran
RT | December 2, 2022
The Israeli military has conducted joint training operations with the United States, holding a series of air drills to simulate strikes on Iran just days after West Jerusalem pressed US officials to accelerate their “operational plans” against Tehran.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) detailed the drills in a statement on Wednesday, saying they practiced “various scenarios in the face of regional threats” while singling out the Islamic Republic by name.
“These exercises are a key component of our two militaries’ increasing strategic cooperation in response to shared concerns in the Middle East, particularly those posed by Iran,” the IDF said.
Four Israeli F-35 fighter jets and four American F-15s took part in the war games, which “simulated a long-range operational scenario and long-distance flights,” the IDF added, noting that a US KC-135 tanker aircraft also refueled a number of Israeli F-16s during the exercise.
The drills follow a visit to the US capital last month by IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi, who called on American officials to develop new “operational plans” to take on the Iranian military. The two sides also discussed their “commitment to ensuring that Iran never acquires a nuclear weapon,” despite Tehran’s repeated insistence that it is not pursuing the bomb.
Israel has carried out a number of drills specifically targeting Tehran in recent months, including an exercise over the Mediterranean Sea earlier this year which reportedly simulated strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Another similar drill focused on nuclear sites was also conducted last June, involving more than 100 aircraft which practiced long-distance strikes.
While this week’s war games saw midair refueling operations with an American tanker, the Jerusalem Post previously reported that Israel had developed capabilities allowing it to reach Iran without the need to refuel along the way. The outlet suggested the air force had upgraded its US-made F-35 jets to accomplish that feat, but offered few details on the supposed improvements.
Israel revokes Jerusalem Residency Rights Of Imprisoned Palestinian-French Lawyer
IMEMC | DECEMBER 1, 2022
On Wednesday, the Israeli Prison Authority informed imprisoned Palestinian-French lawyer, held under Administrative Detention without charges or trial, that it revoked his Jerusalem ID card and stripped him of all residency rights in occupied Jerusalem, and will be deporting him to France upon his release.
The Israeli occupation imposed a three-month Administrative Detention order against the imprisoned lawyer, Salah Hammouri, 37, and renewed the order in June 2022, then renewed it again in September 2022.
Hammouri, a lawyer and a field researcher with the Ad-Dameer Prisoner Support And Human Rights Association, spent more than eight years in Israeli prisons, starting when he was abducted in 2001 and was sentenced to five months in prison.
In 2004 he spent four months under arbitrary Administrative Detention orders without charges, then was abducted again in the year 2005 and was imprisoned for seven years, and then in the year 2017, he was abducted yet another time and spent 13 months under Administrative Detention orders, and upon his release, he received an order barring him from entering the rest of the West Bank for two years.
On June 6, 2022, Salah received another three-month Administrative Detention order just hours before his scheduled release after being imprisoned for three months under a similar order.
The decision to revoke his residency was made in October of last year, 2021, after accusing him of “breeching loyalty to the state” for his human rights and legal work in defending Palestinian political prisoners.
Salah was born to a Palestinian father from Jerusalem where he grew up and lived, and his mother is a French national.
Several years earlier, Israel deported his French wife to her country after detaining her at the airport in Tel Aviv for three days when she returned to Jerusalem. Salah and his wife have two children.
Palestinians born in occupied Jerusalem are only granted “residency” status and not citizenship of Israel despite Israel’s constant claims of “unified Jerusalem as its capital.” Children born to Jewish parent/s in any part of the world are entitled to become citizens of Israel.
Russian Foreign Ministry: No Evidence That Tehran Wants to Develop Nuclear Weapons
Samizdat – 30.11.2022
MOSCOW – There is no evidence that Tehran intends to develop nuclear weapons, reviewing its participation in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Vladimir Yermakov, director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Non-Proliferation and Arms Control Department, said in an interview with Sputnik.
“Iran has been and remains a conscientious participant in the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The conclusion of the JCPOA in 2015 helped to finally and irrevocably remove all the questions that the [International Atomic Energy Agency] had to Tehran at that time.”
“After that, for several years Iran remained the most verified state among agency members. No deviations from its obligations were identified,” Yermakov said. “There is no evidence that would indicate Tehran’s intention to ever reconsider its participation in the NPT and start developing a nuclear explosive device.”
Yermakov’s remarks come as the US undertakes joint military drills with Israel, complete with fighter jet simulations on strikes against Iran’s nuclear program infrastructure. Earlier announcements detailed the drills would be held in the Mediterranean Sea starting November 29, and lasting through December 1.
At the time, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz stressed that the drills were needed in order for Israel to “prepare” its service members for any “possibility.”
Days before the drills kicked off, US media reported that Tehran was inching toward achieving a weapons-grade enrichment, paving the way for Iran to acquire the technology to assemble nuclear weapons.
However, it’s worth noting that Iran has repeatedly indicated it has no intention to create nuclear arms; in fact, Iranian leadership imposed a fatwa in 2003 on the production or usage of any form of nuclear weapons.
Tension between Iran, Israel and the US has remained high for years. Under the Trump administration, however, escalations were at near-boiling after the US withdrew from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, reimposed past sanctions and continued on a “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran.
Talks to restore the agreement under the Biden White House have remained stalled for months. Iran earlier dispatched a “constructive” response to Washington’s proposals but was ultimately shut down by administration officials who deemed the messages “not constructive.”
Israel calls on world leaders to oppose ICJ opinion on occupation
The Cradle | November 29, 2022
On 29 November, acting Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid sent a letter to more than 50 world leaders, demanding them to oppose a Palestinian bid at the United Nations regarding an advisory position of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
“This resolution is the result of a concerted effort to single out Israel, discredit our legitimate security concerns, and delegitimize our very existence,” Lapid said in the letter.
Among the recipients were the heads of government of the United Kingdom, France, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Latvia, Georgia, Brazil, Uruguay, Peru, and Vietnam.
With a majority of 98 votes in favor and 17 against, a committee of the UN General Assembly approved a resolution on 11 November requesting the ICJ to “urgently” issue a stance on the effects of Israel’s illegal occupation and colonization of Palestinian territories, The New Arab reported.
In the coming weeks, the resolution has to be voted on for a second time by the plenary of the General Assembly.
The acting Prime Minister stated that this resolution resulted from a “biased campaign” by the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva and its Commission of Inquiry, which have repeatedly denounced human rights abuses against the Palestinians.
According to Lapid, the “status of the disputed territory must be subject to direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.”
However, Israel has illegally expanded its territory since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and built settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem for over 700,000 settlers, clearly violating international law.
On 13 November, Israeli authorities announced their plans to construct 9,000 new illegal settlement units over the ruins of Palestine’s Jerusalem International Airport.
The settlement plan was initially submitted for discussion last year by the Israeli-run Jerusalem Municipality but then halted due to pressure from EU member states and several rights groups; however, the plan has been revived and is under review by the municipality.
On 8 November, the ‘Elad’ settlement association in occupied East Jerusalem received roughly $7.9 million to support illegal settlements in the Palestinian town of Silwan.
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From the Archives
The Balfour Declaration – A Century of Jewish Power
By Gilad Atzmon | May 17, 2017
This year, Palestinians and their supporters mark the 100th anniversary of The Balfour Declaration, a written statement from the United Kingdom’s Foreign Secretary, Arthur James Balfour, to Walter Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, in favour of the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine.
For Palestinians, The Balfour Declaration was the beginning of their plight: a century of ethnic cleansing at the hands of European newcomers who claim Palestine as their historic home. Yet, for some reason, supporters of the Palestinians are desperate to suppress discussion of the motivation for the Balfour Declaration – how and why did it come about? … continue
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