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Hiroshima inviting Israel to attend nuclear bombing anniversary ‘very unfortunate,’ says scholar

Hope Nagasaki’s refusal to invite Israel to its peace event to mark US bombing of Japan ‘makes some kind of impact on the world,’ Richard Falk tells Anadolu

Riyaz ul Khaliq  |05.08.2024, https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/hiroshima-inviting-israel-to-attend-nuclear-bombing-anniversary-very-unfortunate-says-scholar/3296156

An invitation for Israel to attend an annual peace event in Hiroshima to mark the US nuclear bombing of the Japanese city was “very unfortunate,” a leading legal scholar told Anadolu.​​​​​​​

“It is very unfortunate that Hiroshima does not grasp the fact it was victimized in a way Palestinian people have been victimized by Israel,” said Richard Falk, an American professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University.

Falk’s comments to Anadolu come as the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki will be commemorating 79th anniversary of 1945 atomic bombing by the US this week.

While Nagasaki has refused to invite Tel Aviv, Hiroshima will be hosting Israeli officials on Tuesday.

Nagasaki will be holding a similar event on Friday.

The US dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima, the site of the world’s first atomic bombing, on Aug. 6, 1945, and then Nagasaki, resulting in the deaths of at least 140,000 people by the end of that year.

“And what Nagasaki is doing by not inviting Israel to its observance of the bombing in World War II is to make a statement that it does not want to be identified with a government that behaves that way,” Falk said, referring to Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, including its ongoing brutal offensive on the Gaza Strip.

“That is a very important lesson for the world and is a very interesting way of highlighting two ways of relating to Israel” amid the war on Gaza, said Falk, who in past served as UN special rapporteur on occupied Palestinian territory. “I hope it makes some kind of impact on the world.”

Japan has refused to invite Russia and Belarus to similar events as Moscow has been waging war on Ukraine since February 2022.

Hiroshima’s local administration has invited Tel Aviv despite accusations of double standards and activists pressing authorities to backtrack on the move.

Local authorities in Hiroshima have called for an “immediate cease-fire in the Palestinian territory.”

Several demonstrations have been held against Israel’s participation in the program on Tuesday.

Israeli war on Gaza ‘changed discourse in Japan’

Saul Takahashi, professor of human rights and peace studies at Osaka Jogakuin University, told Anadolu that there has been “lot of protests and lots of discussions” in Japan about Hiroshima’s decision to invite Israel.

This event is where all the countries in the world come together and pray for peace.

So “how can it be that a country that has been found by International Court of Justice to plausibly be committing genocide … how can it be we invite them (Israel). This is outrageous,” Takahashi told Anadolu.

He said the genocide in Gaza has “changed discourse in Japan for sure.”

“People are much more mindful, they are much more paying attention to the Palestine question … in particular young people and that is big, really big,” said the academic.

Recalling his pre-Oct. 7 lectures on Palestine, which were mostly attended by older individuals, Takahashi said: “I was concerned about the future of the movement (regarding Palestine in Japan).”

“But it is completely different. You have young people in the streets, every week and not just in Tokyo but also in smaller cities and that is very big.”

Last week, both Iran and Hamas accused Israel of assassinating Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’ political bureau, in Iran’s capital Tehran, an accusation that Israel has neither confirmed nor denied. However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hinted at Israel’s involvement.

Israel, flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire, has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gazasince an attack last October by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas.

Nearly 39,600 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children, and nearly 91,400 injured, according to local health authorities.

Almost 10 months into the Israeli war, vast tracts of Gazalie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, which ordered it to immediately halt its military operation in the southern city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.

August 6, 2024 Posted by | Israel, Japan, politics international | Leave a comment

The Hidden Ties Between Google and Amazon’s Project Nimbus and Israel’s Military

By Caroline Haskins, Jul 15, 2024  https://www.wired.com/story/amazon-google-project-nimbus-israel-idf/?utm_brand=wired&utm_source=twitter&utm_social-type=owned&mbid=social_twitter&utm_medium=social
A WIRED investigation found public statements from officials detail a much closer link between Project Nimbus and Israel Defense Forces than previously reported.

On April 16, police entered Google offices in New York and California to detain several employees protesting a $1.2 billion cloud contract with Israel’s government called Project Nimbus. The deal, shared with Amazon, has met pushback from some employees at both companies since 2021, but the protests have grown louder since Israel’s renewed conflict with Hamas after the attacks of October 7, 2023.

Current and former Google and Amazon workers protesting Project Nimbus say it makes the companies complicit in Israel’s armed conflicts and its government’s illegal and inhumane treatment of civilian Palestinians. Google has insisted that it is not aimed at military work and is not “relevant to weapons or intelligence services,” while Amazon, seemingly, has not publicly discussed the scope of the contract.

But a WIRED review of public documents and statements by Israeli officials and Google and Amazon employees shows that the Israel Defense Forces have been central to Project Nimbus since its inception, shaping the project’s design and serving as some of its most important users. Top Israeli officials appear to think the Google and Amazon contract provides important infrastructure for the country’s military.

In February, at a conference dedicated to Project Nimbus, the head of Israel’s National Cyber Directorate, Gaby Portnoy, was quoted by Israeli media as crediting the contract with helping the country’s military retaliation against Hamas.

“Phenomenal things are happening in battle because of the Nimbus public cloud, things that are impactful for victory,” Portnoy said, according to an article published in People & Computers, which coorganized the conference. “And I will not share details.” Portnoy and the Cyber Directorate did not respond for comment.

Portnoy’s statement contradicts Google’s statements to media, which have sought to downplay the military connections of Project Nimbus. “This work is not directed at highly sensitive, classified, or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services,” Google spokesperson Anna Kowalczyk said in an emailed statement. “The Nimbus contract is for workloads running on our commercial cloud by Israeli government ministries, who agree to comply with our Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy.”

Google’s terms forbid customers from “high risk activities,” defined to include situations where “use or failure of the Services would reasonably be expected to lead to death, personal injury, or environmental or property damage (such as the creation or operation of nuclear facilities, air traffic control, life support systems, or weaponry).” It is unclear how supporting IDF combat operations would fit within those rules.

Portnoy’s claim and other documents and statements reviewed by WIRED add to recent reporting that appears to confirm the Nimbus contract’s long-established military connections. Time quoted an internal Google document that said the Israeli Ministry of Defense has its own “landing zone” into the company’s Project Nimbus infrastructure. The Intercept reported that two state-owned Israeli arms companies are required to use Google and Amazon cloud services through Project Nimbus.

In response to a detailed list of questions from WIRED, Google spokesperson Anna Kowalczyk repeated the company’s boilerplate statement.

Likewise, Amazon spokesperson Duncan Neasham repeated boilerplate language Amazon has used in the past to talk about Project Nimbus, which says the company provides its technology to customers “wherever they are located” and that employees have the “right to express themselves.”

“We are committed to ensuring our employees are safe, supporting our colleagues affected by these terrible events, and working with our humanitarian relief partners to help those impacted by the war,” Neasham added. (Sasha Trufanov, a Russian-Israeli Amazon employee, is currently being held hostage by Hamas in Gaza. He was last seen alive in a hostage video released on May 28.)

Making Project Nimbus

Project Nimbus began in 2019 as a major upgrade to Israeli government technology. The multi-year project, led by the Ministry of Finance, had no specific end-date and called for the government to pick preferred cloud providers that would build new data centers to store data securely inside Israel. Like other Cloud customers, the Israeli government could use Google for data storage, and use its built-in tools for machine learning, analyzing data, and developing apps.

An early trace alluding to the Israeli military’s involvement in Project Nimbus came in a June 2020 LinkedIn post from Shahar Bracha, former chief executive officer of Israel’s National Digital Agency, then called the ICT Authority. “I am happy to update that the Ministry of Defense (in the name of the IDF) decided to join with the Cloud Center and in doing so changed the center to be greater and more attractive,” he wrote, suggesting the military would be a major user of services under the project.

Over the three-year bidding process, many other documents and public statements were explicit about the IDF’s intimate involvement in Nimbus and its expected role as a user. “Project Nimbus is a project to supply public cloud services to the government, the defense department and the IDF,” a statement provided by Israel’s Ministry of Finance in 2022 to Israeli online news outlet Mako said. . It added that “the relevant security bodies were partners of this project from its first day, and are full partners still.”

The IDF’s involvement included having a say in which companies would win the Nimbus contract. An Israel State Comptroller audit report from 2021 that says the IDF joined “to enable the transfer of declassified systems to the public cloud” and notes that “the Ministry of Defense and the IDF are crucial parts of the team working on the tender, both in creating the requirements and in assessing the outcomes.”

Ultimately, Google and Amazon won the Project Nimbus contracts, beating out Microsoft and Oracle. A May 2021 press release in English that congratulated the companies and announced “The Israeli Government is Moving to the Cloud” said that Project Nimbus is intended to serve “the Government, the Security Services and other entities.”

The Times of Israel reported the same day that Google and Amazon could not pick and choose which agencies they worked with, quoting an attorney for the Israeli Finance Ministry saying that the contract bars the companies “from denying services to particular government entities.”

That appears to still include the IDF. WIRED identified several Israeli government statements and documents published since 2022 that confirm the IDF’s continued involvement with Project Nimbus, although they do not provide details of the tools and capabilities it uses.

For instance, a government document published on June 15, 2022, that outlines the scope of the project, says “The Ministry of Defense and the IDF” will get a dedicated “digital marketplace” of services they can access under Project Nimbus.

In July 2022, The Intercept also reported on training documents and videos provided to Nimbus users in the Israeli government that revealed some of the specific Google technologies the contract provided access to. They included AI capabilities such as face detection, object tracking, sentiment analysis, and other complex tasks.

Official government pages old and new, both in Hebrew and English, feature the same boilerplate description of Project Nimbus. It calls the contract “a multiyear and wide-ranging flagship project, led by the Government Procurement Administration in the Accountant General’s Division in the Ministry of Treasury together with the National Digital Unit, the Legal Bureau in the Ministry of Finance, the National Cyber Unit, the Budget Division, the Ministry of Defense and the IDF.” The statement appears on one of the main government pages about Project Nimbus, an undated news release, a 2022 cloud strategy document, and a press release from January 2023.

A version of the statement has also been posted in an Amazon guidance document about Nimbus from January 2023, and on the event page for the 2024 “Nimbus Summit,” a privately run event that brings together tech workers from Amazon, Google, and the dozens of other companies that have played some hand in modernizing Israel’s tech infrastructure in recent years.

Close Ties

Social media posts by Israeli officials, Amazon employees, and Google employees suggest the country’s military remains closely involved with Project Nimbus—and the two US cloud companies working on it.

In June 2023, Omri Nezer, the head of the technology infrastructure unit at the Israeli Government Procurement Administration, posted a recap of a cloud conference held by the Israeli government to LinkedIn. He wrote that it was meant to bring together people from “different government offices within ‘Project Nimbus.’”

Nezer’s post mentions a panel at the conference that featured “an IDF representative” and the head of engineering IT for Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, a defense company originally created as a research and development company for the Israeli military. The Intercept reported last month that Rafael and Israel Aerospace Industries, both Israeli government-backed weapons manufacturers, are “obligatory customers” of Google and Amazon through Project Nimbus. Amazon spokesperson Duncan Neasham tells WIRED that Rafael is “not required to use AWS or Google only for cloud services” and can “also use other cloud providers’ services.”

National security agencies remain an important part of Project Nimbus. In a 2023 LinkedIn post tagged #nimbus, Omri Holzman, defense team lead at Amazon Web Services, summarized a recent event AWS put on for defense customers. “We had attendees from each security organization in Israel,” Holzman wrote, without specifying which agencies. “AWS puts a lot of focus on the National Security (NatSec) community which has its unique needs and requirements.”

Google has recently been pitching Israeli policing and national security officials on its Gemini AI model, the centerpiece of the search company’s attempts to compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Shay Mor, director and head of public sector and defense for Google Cloud Israel, said in a March Linkedin post that he recently presented information about its “groundbreaking Nimbus projects” with agencies that include the Israeli Police, the Israel National Digital Agency, and the Israel National Cyber Directorate.

“It was an honor and a pleasure to present our Gemini technology and some of our groundbreaking Nimbus projects with the Israeli Police, Israel National Digital Agency, Ministry of Education, and the Israel National Cyber Directorate today at the Nimbus event,” Mor posted, referring to the same event where Portnoy the Cyber Directorate leader said Nimbus helped the battle with Hamas. Mor didn’t specify how the IDF or security agencies could use Google’s AI, but the company has said Gemini could help its cloud customers write code, analyze data, or identify security challenges.


In his own reported comments at the event, Portnoy suggested that the Nimbus project is set to deepen Amazon’s and Google’s ties with Israel’s national security apparatus. He said that the companies have been “working partners” on a new project creating “a framework for national defense” with cloud-based security tools. Portnoy likened it to Israel’s missile defense system, calling it the “Iron Dome of Cyber.”

Growing Outcry

The recent protests against Project Nimbus do not mark the first time that a cloud deal with military connections has prompted protests—in particular, protests inside Google. A former Google employee who was fired along with dozens of others after protesting Project Nimbus in April says years of trying to steer the company in a more ethical direction had left them exhausted. “I became convinced that basically, you cannot trust anything they say,” says the former employee. They protested in 2018 against Project Maven, a now-lapsed Pentagon contract that saw Google algorithms analyze drone surveillance imagery, Google’s work with US Customs and Border Protection in 2019, and Project Nimbus starting in 2021 with the group No Tech for Apartheid. “I have zero trust in these people.”

The first major action against Project Nimbus took place in October 2021, when a coalition of Google and Amazon employees published an open letter in The Guardian decrying the contract. No Tech for Apartheid also formed explicitly in response to Project Nimbus at around this time. Many of the same people who joined these early organizing efforts were also involved in No Tech for ICE, a tech worker-led movement formed in 2019 to oppose their companies working for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Ariel Koren, at the time a project manager at Google who helped draft the open letter, says that her manager told her in early November 2021 that she had to agree to move to São Paulo, Brazil, within 17 business days “or lose her position,” according to the Los Angeles Times. Koren announced that she had resigned in March 2022. A few weeks later, a group of tech workers and activists led protests outside Google and Amazon offices in New York, Seattle, and Durham, North Carolina, to express solidarity with Koren and her demand to wind up Project Nimbus.

Protests have escalated from there. Emaan Haseem, a former engineer for Google Cloud, was fired in April alongside 48 others after she traveled from Seattle to San Francisco to participate in a group sit-in inside the office of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian. She says that No Tech for Apartheid is part of a wider movement known as Boycott Divest Sanction, using economic pressure to encourage Israel to end occupation of Palestinian territories.

Opposition to Israel’s military actions in Gaza and the West Bank, Haseem said, is a central pillar of No Tech for Apartheid. Poject Nimbus “is a contract that stands out the most for anyone who has their eyes on the genocide in Gaza currently.”

August 6, 2024 Posted by | Israel, media | Leave a comment

Arundhati Roy: India Must Stop Arming Israel or ‘Forever Be Linked to Genocide’

“It is our responsibility to show that as people of India, we refuse to be complicit in that, even if our government wishes to continue with what it does.”

Brett Wilkins, Aug 02, 2024,  https://www.commondreams.org/news/arundhati-roy-israel

Acclaimed Indian author and activist Arundhati Roy this week joined prominent jurists, diplomats, artists, and others in urging their government to stop selling weapons to Israel, which they called “abominable” and “a serious violation of India’s obligations under international law and our Constitution.”

Speaking Thursday at an event organized by the Press Club of India, Roy—winner of the 1997 Booker Prize for her debut novel The God of Small Things—said that Indians must “at least show that we do not support that murder in Gaza, we do not support our government’s support of that.”

Acclaimed Indian author and activist Arundhati Roy this week joined prominent jurists, diplomats, artists, and others in urging their government to stop selling weapons to Israel, which they called “abominable” and “a serious violation of India’s obligations under international law and our Constitution.”

Speaking Thursday at an event organized by the Press Club of India, Roy—winner of the 1997 Booker Prize for her debut novel The God of Small Things—said that Indians must “at least show that we do not support that murder in Gaza, we do not support our government’s support of that.”

“What is happening in Gaza, it is not just the murder… of tens of thousands of women and children,” she continued. “It is the bombing of hospitals, the destruction of universities… the attempt to erase the very memory people have of that place. It is a genocide like no other because it’s taking place on live TV.”

“India used to be a country that supported the people of Palestine in their struggle for freedom,” Roy noted. “Everywhere, even in the United States… people are standing up against their government’s support for [Israel]. But we are not standing up… and that is such a shame.”

“We must stand up. We must refuse,” she asserted. “We will not support the export of weapons of any kind.”

Roy is one of more than two dozen former Indian Supreme Court justices and other judges, foreign service officers, academics, artists, activists, and others who on Wednesday sent a letter to Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh urging him to halt the licensing of arms sales to Israel, whose military forces have killed or wounded more than 140,000 Palestinians while obliterating and starving Gaza.

“The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has clearly ruled that Israel is in violation of obligations under the Genocide Convention and further that Israel is in illegal occupation of the occupied Palestinian territory,” the letter states. “In light of these rulings, any supply of military material to Israel would amount to a violation of India’s obligations under international humanitarian law and the mandate of Article 21 read with Article 51(c) of the Constitution of India.”

Among the weapons India has sent to Israel are Hermes 900 unmanned aerial drones, which are co-manufactured with Israeli arms company Elbit Systems. The letter notes that the drones “have been extensively used in the Israeli Defense Forces’ military campaign in Gaza.”

“Several [United Nations] experts have warned that the transfer of weapons and ammunition to Israel may constitute serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian laws, and risk state complicity in international crimes, possibly including genocide, reiterating their demand to stop transfers immediately,” the letter’s signer wrote.

“In short, the grant of licenses and approvals for export of military material to Israel, coupled with reports of such exports by Indian companies, constitutes a serious violation of India’s obligations under international law and our own Constitution,” the letter stresses.

“International law aside, we consider such exports to be morally objectionable, indeed abominable,” the signatories added. “We demand, therefore, that India should immediately suspend its collaboration in the delivery of military material to Israel. Further, India must immediately make every effort to ensure that weapons already delivered to Israel are not used to contribute to acts of genocide or violations of international humanitarian law.”

The letter came ahead of planned nationwide protests by Indian leftists on Saturday calling for an end to arms sales and “all forms of complicity with Israel’s illegal occupation and genocide.”

India—which in 1971 invaded Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) in large part to end a U.S.-backed Pakistani genocide mostly targeting Bengalis—voted in favor of the December U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an immediate Gaza cease-fire.

However, the administration of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and many lawmakers from his right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party have expressed steadfast support for Israel and its Gaza onslaught. Critics have noted that both Israel and India are occupying Muslims, the former in Palestine and the latter in Jammu and Kashmir.

In an interview with Middle East Eye published Friday, Roy—who faces prosecution in India over comments she allegedly made nearly 15 years ago regarding Kashmir—said that India could “forever be linked to genocide” if it does not change course.

“India needs to stop the export of weapons to Israel and ensure the return of Indian workers who have been sent to Israel to replace Palestinian workers,” she said.

“If it does not do so at once, it is in violation of the orders of the ICJ,” she added. “It will forever be complicit in aiding and abetting a genocide that is being telecast live for the world to watch.”

August 5, 2024 Posted by | India, Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Mass Media Goons Are Still Reporting That Biden Is Getting Tough On Netanyahu

Caitlin Johnstone, Aug 03, 2024,  https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/mass-media-goons-are-still-reporting?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=147305961&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Another day, another Axios article falsely asserting that President Biden is really getting tough on Benjamin Netanyahu. 

In a write-up titled “Biden warns Netanyahu against escalation as risk of regional war grows,” Barak Ravid reports that while Biden has pledged to support Israel against any strikes from Iran in retaliation for its insanely escalatory assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, he also told Netanyahu that he “expects no more escalation from the Israeli side” from here on out.

“President Biden privately demanded in a ‘tough’ call Thursday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stop escalating tensions in the region and move immediately toward a Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal,” writes Ravid, citing two US officials who as usual remain unnamed.

“At the end of the meeting with Netanyahu in the Oval office last Thursday, Biden became emotional, raised his voice and told Netanyahu he needs to reach a Gaza deal as soon as possible, three Israeli officials with knowledge of the meeting told Axios,” Ravid reports.

Ravid writes:

“One U.S. official said Biden complained to Netanyahu that the two had just spoken last week in the Oval Office about securing the hostage deal, but instead Netanyahu went ahead with the assassination in Tehran.

“Biden then told Netanyahu the U.S. will help Israel defeat an Iranian attack, but after that he expects no more escalation from the Israeli side and immediate movement toward a hostage deal, the U.S. official said.”

Sure, sure. This time Biden really means it when he draws a firm line with Israel, unlike all those other times when this administration has continued to back Israel’s psychopathic actions unconditionally since October 7.

Commentators on US foreign policy are less than impressed with this report.

“It’s the umpteenth installment of ‘Biden is secretly mad at Bibi’: he became emotional! He raised his voice!” tweeted The Economist’s Gregg Carlstrom. “Can’t imagine anyone takes these self-serving leaks seriously. Least of all Netanyahu, who has ignored Biden with impunity for ten months”

“Biden reportedly told Netanyahu he’ll help defeat an Iranian attack, but expects no more escalation from Israel, warning Netanyahu that he shouldn’t count on the US to bail him out again,” tweeted Quincy Institute’s Trita Parsi, adding, “Fine, but given Biden’s record, why should Netanyahu believe him?”

Barak Ravid has made an entire career out of writing up these anonymously sourced White House press releases about how badass and un-genocidal the president is and packaging them as real news stories. Here are some of the headlines from Ravid’s reporting since October:


Biden “running out” of patience with Bibi as Gaza war hits 100 days

Scoop: Biden in “frustrating” call told Bibi to solve Palestinian tax revenue issue

Biden’s ultimatum to Bibi: Change Gaza policy or we will

White House temperature is “very high” ahead of Biden-Bibi call

“We won’t support you”: Inside Biden’s ultimatum to Bibi

Israel and U.S. deeply divided in meeting on key Rafah operation issues

Biden and Bibi “red lines” for Rafah put them on a collision course

Biden-Bibi clash escalates as U.S. accused of undermining Israeli government

Biden and Netanyahu hold first call in a month amid public split

Biden breaks with Netanyahu but sticks with Israel

Biden on hot mic: Told Bibi we needed “come to Jesus” meeting on Gaza

Biden, in rare criticism, warns Netanyahu that Israel risks losing global support

Biden, in rare criticism of Bibi, says pause in Gaza fighting should have come sooner

Scoop: Blinken warns Israeli officials global pressure will grow longer war goes on

Israeli minister lambasted at White House about Gaza and war strategy

Scoop: Biden tells Bibi he’s not in it for a year of war in Gaza

Blinken unloads on Bibi: “You need a coherent plan” or face disaster in Gaza

Scoop: White House cancels meeting, scolds Netanyahu in protest over video

Netanyahu irked by “critical” Harris comments

This is just one guy, from just one outlet. These “Biden is very upset with Netanyahu and wants him to be different” reports have been coming out throughout the US media since the early weeks of this ongoing mass atrocity, all of which are flatly contradicted by the White House taking zero meaningful action this entire time to rein in Israel’s demented genocidal aggressions.

And to be clear, none of this is actually news. “Anonymous sources say X, Y and Z about how the president’s feelings are feeling” is not a news story. These reports serve no purpose other than to create distance in the eyes of the American public between the genocidal monster Benjamin Netanyahu and the president who is unconditionally supporting his genocidal atrocities in every way possible. They are PR spin and nothing more, which would be surprising to anyone who still believes the mainstream western press exist to report the news instead of promulgate propaganda for the advancement of the information interests of the western empire.

All they’re doing here is trying to wash this administration’s hands of the horrors that are being inflicted in the middle east with the direct facilitation of this administration. Don’t let them. All the monstrous actions being perpetrated by Israel today are just as much the fault of the US government as they are of Israel itself. This is who they are. Make them own it.

August 5, 2024 Posted by | Israel, media, USA | Leave a comment

The Abrahamic Alliance: Reality or work of fiction?


Lorenzo Maria Pacini, Strategic Culture Foundation, Sat, 27 Jul 2024, https://www.sott.net/article/493617-The-Abrahamic-Alliance-Reality-or-work-of-fiction

DC‘Abrahamic Alliance’ will probably end up being an empty and superficial alliance, consisting mostly of the U.S. and Israel, similar to Operation Prosperity Guardian, which is widely considered a flop.

On Wednesday 24 July 2024, Israeli President Bibi Netanyahu delivered a speech to the Congress of the United States of America that will go down in history.

The speech of the world’s most dangerous clown

In the absence of the political leadership – embroiled in an unprecedented social crisis of paedophilia scandals, old men with Alzheimer’s pressing random buttons in war rooms and clowns on psychiatric drugs attacking banks -, the ‘host’ from the Middle East took the opportunity to travel to Washington and clarify certain programmatic aspects of the future of the collective West.

Here are some highlights of his crazy speech, with which he orwellianly turned reality upside down, spread fake news, manipulated his listeners and legitimised a genocide that goes on while the rest of the world thinks about going on holiday, while writing ‘All eyes on Rafah’ on social media to wash hisconscience.

– “The war in Gaza has one of the lowest ratios of combatants to non-combatants in the history of urban warfare”;

– “Not a single innocent Palestinian civilian has been killed by the IDF in Rafah”;

– “Iran is behind all the terrorism, all the unrest, all the chaos and all the endless killing. And this should come as no surprise”;

– “For Iran, Israel is first, America is second. When Israel fights Hamas, we are fighting Iran. When we fight Hezbollah, we are fighting Iran. When we fight the Houthis, we are fighting Iran. And when we fight Iran, we are fighting radical terrorism”;

– “We are not just protecting Israel, we are protecting the United States. Our enemies are your enemies. Our fight is your fight. Our victory is your victory”;

– Netanyahu then proposed an Abrahamic Alliance, consisting of Israel, the U.S., and Arab countries dependent on the two aforementioned.

– He received a total of 58 standing ovations in his 60-minute speech (not even a Taylor Swift concert!).

So, to recap:

– Genocide of the Palestinians does not exist;

– If anything, there is a good genocide and that is the Israeli one;

– Palestine is called Israel and if you think otherwise you are an idiot;

– Israel is a victim, unfortunately it has found itself in the home of people who had been there for thousands of years who are demanding their land back;

– The only good Palestinian is a dead Palestinian;

– Iran (the only country in the world to have fought against the imperialism of the Great Satan (Israel+USA+UK+Saudi Arabia) is entirely to blame for being Shia (and also for having eradicated Wahabi and Salafist Islamic terrorism in the Middle East and curbed imperialist expansionism);

– If you think otherwise, maybe you deserve a bullet too.

The Abrahamic Alliance

In the general delirium of his words, Netanyahu put forward the strategic proposal of an alliance, military, political and economic, called the ‘Abrahamic Alliance’.

If the U.S. had tried to form this alliance 10 years ago, we could say that Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Jordan and Egypt would probably have joined. With the ongoing Syrian war, fears over the nuclear programme and anti-Iranian sentiment at boiling point, the Arab nations felt they had something to prove.

However, in the Middle East of the year 2024, with Iran as an emerging force that has imposed hard power equations on its neighbours, and after the peace agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, I think such an alliance is not feasible. At best, the Kingdom of Jordan and Bahrain would join such an alliance.

Saudi Arabia is openly interested in closer ties with Iran, the UAE mostly follows Saudi policy and is heavily dependent on Iranian imports, while Egypt has a history of rejecting alliances and has bigger problems than Iran. None of these countries will be enthusiastic about the prospect of an anti-Iran alliance at a time when Iran is rapidly emerging as a pre-eminent geopolitical power in the Middle East.

Jordan, because of its dependence on NATO and the U.S., is the one most likely to be in favour. It was the only Arab nation to open its airspace to the Israeli Air Force when Iran launched its missile attacks against Israel in April this year.

Bahrain, which hosts the U.S. Persian Gulf Fleet, while it might be interested in joining, has also openly expressed its interest in re-establishing diplomatic ties with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In short: the ‘Abrahamic Alliance’ will probably end up being a shell of what it once could have been. It will be an empty and superficial alliance, consisting mostly of the U.S. and Israel, similar to Operation Prosperity Guardian, which is widely considered a flop.

Then, in all this, there remains one last fundamental point to consider: while Netanyahu and his followers blather on about turning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into a global war on a religious basis (in perfect neocon eschatological style), they perhaps forget that the rest of the world – ‘the rest’, as the Americans used to say – is turning over a new leaf and will not stand by and watch. Russia and China have already concluded the laying of the pillars of a multipolar world… in which war will no longer be fought as before.

Comment: The Abrahamic Alliance is merely a guise to ‘circle the wagons’ assuring Israel an unhindered mission and survival at the expense of others. Some have eyes to see.

August 3, 2024 Posted by | Israel, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Israel lobby ramps up scare campaigns in fear of truth

By Bilal Cleland | 1 August 2024,  https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/israel-lobby-ramps-up-scare-campaigns-in-fear-of-truth,18826

srael lobby groups have increased efforts to silence those accusing the nation of genocide in Gaza, writes Bilal Cleland.

SHAIMA FARWANEH, 16, in the coastal displacement camp in al-Mawasi, west of Khan Younis, was preparing to make breakfast for her family on 13 July when the Israeli bombs fell. 

Ninety people, mainly women and children, were killed and over 300 injured.

Shaima told Mondoweiss:

There is no country in all the world that does this to children, women, and civilians. This isn’t how wars are.

A leg hit me and I saw dismembered bodies a few metres away. I saw a young child screaming. He lost his lower limbs and was crawling on his hands and screaming. The bombs didn’t stop and suddenly the boy disappeared. I saw how he vanished before me while we ran and lowered our eyes to the ground, unable to do anything but run.

Israel in trouble

Following 7 October, by the end of 2023, from over 4,000 immigrants a month only about 1,000 a month were arriving in Israel. A 70 per cent decline.

In that same couple of months, about 470,000 Israelis fled.

As reported in Anadolu Ajansi:

‘Therefore, there is a negative migration of about half a million people, and this does not include thousands of foreign workers, refugees and diplomats who left the country.’

Despite the support given to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by the ruling parties across North America, much of Europe and Australia, one in four Israeli Jews and four in ten Arab Israelis would like to leave Israel according to a new survey. This reflects ‘a steady distrust with Israel’s political and military leadership’.

International institutions closing in

Haaretz published the stunning International Court of Justice (ICJ) findings on the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory:

  • Israel must end its presence in the occupied territories as soon as possible.
  • Israel should immediately cease settlement expansion and evacuate all settlers from the occupied areas.
  • Israel is required to make reparations for the damage caused to the local and lawful population in the Palestinian territories.
  • The international community and organisations have a duty not to recognise the Israeli presence in the territories as legal and to avoid supporting its maintenance.
  • The UN should consider what actions are necessary to end the Israeli presence in the territories as soon as possible.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague is expected to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant within a fortnight.

Conflating opposition to genocide with anti-Semitism

The United States makes much of the role of the Iranian Council of Guardians selecting acceptable candidates for political office but ignores the role of its own Council of Guardians, AIPAC, which decides on suitable candidates for office.

U.S. Congressman Jamaal Bowman, once a recipient of lobby largesse, after seeing reality in Palestine on a J Street-funded excursion, called Gaza a genocide and said boycotts were legitimate.  

Israeli lobby groups spent $9.9 million in a Democrat primary to get rid of him in favour of a supporter of Israel.

The scare campaign around rising anti-Semitism, which conflates criticism of Israel’s mass atrocities with prejudice against Jews, is a feature of most of the old colonial countries.

Mary Kostakidis, one of Australia’s most respected journalists, who speaks truth to power, has written regarding the Israeli genocide in Gaza:

‘In an effort to silence me, the Zionist Federation have filed a complaint with the [Australian Human Rights Commission] for racial vilification, aided by a reporter who can’t do his own research.’

The lobby levelled another case of harassment and suspicious accusations against a Palestinian Australian engaged in anti-genocide activity.

Hash Tayeh, who had to present himself to the police over alleged anti-Semitic comments, was not charged and his matter has been referred to the Office of Public Prosecutions.

His Caulfield Burgertory outlet was set on fire, allegedly by two men, on 10 November, an attack he claimed was linked to his involvement in a pro-Palestine rally and thus a hate crime.

Then we witnessed the arrest of a Palestinian activist in the Prime Minister’s electoral office.

Sarah Shaweesh, who was asking about the delay in visas for her family in Gaza, was arrested.

The office refused to help her.

She is a key organiser of the 24/7 Gaza sit-in protest in front of the PM’s office.

Complicity in genocide

In early March, Sydney law firm Birchgrove Legal lodged a communiqué to the ICC prosecutor claiming that the Australian PM and a number of other high-level local politicians are complicit in the Gaza genocide.

On Tuesday this week, it announced that the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC had added the document:

‘“…to the evidence gathered as part of the ICC’s investigation into the Situation in the State of Palestine,” as well as having been transmitted “to relevant staff members for further review”.’

Meanwhile, Muslim Votes Matter is mobilising the anti-genocide vote in preparation for the next federal electio

August 3, 2024 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, Israel, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Major escalation’: Israel bombs densely populated area of Beirut, Hezbollah says commander survived the attack

SOTT, Peoples Dispatch, Tue, 30 Jul 2024

In a major escalation towards regional war, Israel today bombed one of the most densely populated areas in Beirut. The Israeli military claims to have targeted a senior Hezbollah commander, who in fact survived the attack. Israeli forces have claimed that this commander was responsible for theattackon Majdal Shams, in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights on Saturday, July 27.

Comment: Except that Hezbollah have refuted the claim, and they aren’t known for lying about their retaliations, whilst Israel is. Hezbollah also has no reason to kill Druze people in what is Syrian territory. And, tellingly, when Israeli officials visited to ‘pay their respects’ they were shouted down by the locals.

The attack occurred almost immediately after Netanyahu had finished his US genocide tour, and after allegedly receiving pledges of support from US officials to escalate the Greater Israel war. Netanyahu used this incident as his excuse to leave the US earlier than scheduled: Israel’s FM claims ‘moment of an all-out war’ with Hezbollah approaching

Following this attack, Israeli officials had released numerous threats against Hezbollah, who they blamed for the Majdal Shams strike, which killed at least 12 people, including 9 children and one teenager. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahuvowed that Israel will “not let [the attack] pass in silence.” Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari threatened, “We will prepare for a response against Hezbollah, we will act.”

Comment: Israel’s motive for this attack should now be quite obvious.

Israel’s attack of densely populated Beirut was this response, an attack which resulted in the death of at least one person.

However, Hezbollah as well as other regional resistance forces have claimed that they are not responsible for the Majdal Shams attack, with some placing the blame squarely on Israel. The head of the Druze initiative Ghaleb Saifclaimedthat the missiles which fell on the Syrian Golan Heights and Galilee were Israeli interceptor missiles. “Every day, we see how Iron Dome missiles miss their targets and end up falling on us,” he said.

The Iranian ambassador to Lebanon Mojtaba Amani described the attack on Majdal Shams as a “staged play orchestrated by the occupation regime.”

“This was incredibly reckless and criminal by Israel. Once again it’s the side labeled ‘terrorists’ who are left to act as the adults in the room,” said Rania Khalek, journalist with Breakthrough News who is based in Beirut. According to Khalek, “awaiting Hezbollah’s response never feels as unsettling as awaiting Israel’s aggression, [because Hezbollah has] thus far been measured while the Israelis play with fire.”

Comment: Around the same time as the above, an explosion was reported at an Iraqi base for ‘Iran-aligned’ security forces base:……………………………….more https://www.sott.net/article/493570-Major-escalation-Israel-bombs-densely-populated-area-of-Beirut-Hezbollah-says-commander-survived-the-attack

August 2, 2024 Posted by | Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Nagasaki decides against inviting Israel to commemorate nuclear bombing of Japan amid war on Gaza

In contrast, another US nuclear bomb-hit Hiroshima city has invited Tel Aviv to annual event

Riyaz ul Khaliq   01.08.2024, ISTANBUL  https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/nagasaki-decides-against-inviting-israel-to-commemorate-nuclear-bombing-of-japan-amid-war-on-gaza/3290598

The local government in Nagasaki province declared Wednesday it will not invite Israel to its annual conference to commemorate US nuclear bombing of Japan.

Mayor Shiro Suzuki said Israel would “not be invited to the Aug. 9 annual peace ceremony,” Tokyo-based Kyodo News reported.

The decision to not invite Israel to the event comes on a day Israel assassinated Palestinian resistance group Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh at his residence in Iranian capital Tehran.

Nagasaki and Hiroshima cities will be commemorating 79th anniversary of 1945 atomic bombing by the US on Japan next month.

Japan has refused to invite Russia and Belarus for similar conference since Moscow waged war on Ukraine in Feb. 2022.

However, local government in Hiroshima has invited Tel Aviv to its event on Aug. 6.

The local authorities in Hiroshima, however, have called for an “immediate cease-fire in the Palestinian territory.”

The Hiroshima government has come under severe criticism for purported double standards and many activists are pressing the authorities to withdraw the invite to Tel Aviv.

Several programs against Israel’s participation have been planned in the run up to Aug. 6.

Japan has witnessed many demonstrations and protests against Israeli war on Palestinian besieged enclave of Gaza, with calls to ceases military relations with Tel Aviv.

Israel, flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire, has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7, 2023 attack by the Palestinian group Hamas.

At least 39,400 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children, and nearly 91,000 injured, according to local health authorities.

Over nine months into the Israeli onslaught, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, which ordered it to immediately halt its military operation in the southern city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.

August 2, 2024 Posted by | Israel, Japan, politics international | Leave a comment

Iran vows revenge after Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh killed in Tehran

Death came hours after Israel said it killed a top Hezbollah commander in Beirut, fuelling fears of regional conflict

Guardian, Emma Graham-Harrison, Quique Kierszenbaum and Bethan McKernan in Jerusalem, and William Christou in Beirut 31 July 24

Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, was killed by a strike in Tehran in the early hours of Wednesday morning, only hours after Israel said it had killed a top Hezbollah commander in Beirut.

The dual assassinations are heavy blows to Hamas and Hezbollah, but also raise the stakes for Iran, which backs both groups and vowed revenge. They will fuel growing fears that the war in Gaza could escalate into a broader regional conflict.

A senior Hamas official described Haniyeh’s killing as a “cowardly act that will not go unpunished”. Mediators Qatar and Egypt warned it would set back talks on a ceasefire and a deal to release hostages held in Gaza.

Haniyeh was targeted by an airstrike at a “residence in Tehran”, Hamas said, after he travelled to the Iranian capital for the inauguration of the country’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said that because the attack took place in Tehran, “we consider his revenge as our duty”. Pezeshkian said his country would defend its territorial integrity and honour, and make the “terrorist occupiers regret their cowardly action”.

The Israeli government officially declined to comment on Haniyeh’s death, but the strike was widely acknowledged as an Israeli operation both inside the country and beyond.

Israel vowed to kill all Hamas leaders after the 7 October attacks, and its intelligence services have a history of carrying out covert killings inside Iran, mostly targeting scientists working on the country’s nuclear programme.

The retired general Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israel’s Military Intelligence Directorate, described the attacks on Wednesday night as “two quality operations of Israel defence forces against two top terrorists, one in Beirut and one in Tehran”.

The US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, speaking after the assassinations, said the Biden administration was “doing things to take the temperature down” but would come to Israel’s defence if it were attacked…………………………………………………………………….

Haniyeh’s death came hours after Israel claimed it had killed Hezbollah’s top military commander, Fuad Shukur, in an airstrike on a south Beirut suburb launched in retaliation for a rocket attack that killed 12 children at the weekend…………………………………………………………….. more https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/31/hamas-leader-ismail-haniyeh-death-raid-iran-home-israel-gaza-war

August 1, 2024 Posted by | Iran, Israel, weapons and war | 1 Comment

“Unspeakable”: Doctors Back from Gaza Say Death Toll “Much Higher,” Push Harris, Biden for Ceasefire

Democracy Now, AMY GOODMAN, 26 Jul 24

We speak to two doctors who are part of a group of 45 U.S. doctors, surgeons and nurses who have volunteered in Gaza since October 7 and wrote an open letter to President Biden and Vice President Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, demanding an immediate ceasefire and an international arms embargo of Israel. The group includes evidence of a much higher death toll than is usually cited: more than 92,000 people, which represents over 4% of Gaza’s population. The doctors write, “With only marginal exceptions, everyone in Gaza is sick, injured, or both. Israel’s continued, repeated displacement of the malnourished and sick population of Gaza, half of whom are children, to areas with no running water or even toilets available is absolutely shocking.” The conditions in Gaza are “unacceptable,” and “people know this is wrong but no one is speaking up,” says Dr. Thalia Pachiyannakis, an obstetrician and gynecologist who volunteered at the Nasser Medical Complex. “We all saw evidence of a death toll that is certainly much higher than what is reported by the Gaza Ministry of Health,” adds Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, a trauma surgeon who volunteered at the European Hospital.

Transcript

AMY GOODMAN: As Israel carries out new airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency, known as UNRWA, is reporting nine in every 10 Palestinians in Gaza have been forcibly displaced. Meanwhile, the World Food Programme is warning Israel continues to block delivery of aid, and says it’s been forced to reduce food rations, quote, “to ensure broader coverage for newly displaced people,” unquote. U.N. experts are blaming Israel for the onset of famine in Gaza, accusing it of carrying out a targeted starvation campaign.

Here in the United States, days after launching her White House presidential campaign and skipping Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s joint address to Congress, vice president and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris met privately Thursday afternoon with Netanyahu, who also met with President Biden. Harris spoke afterwards.

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating. The images of dead children and desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time, we cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb
to the suffering. And I will not be silent.

AMY GOODMAN: Harris described her private meeting with Netanyahu as “frank and constructive.” She said nothing about cutting U.S. military assistance for Israel, even as she reiterated calls to finalize a ceasefire deal.

This comes as a group of 45 U.S. doctors, surgeons, nurses who have volunteered in Gaza since October 7th have written an open letter to President Biden and Vice President Harris, demanding an immediate ceasefire and an international arms embargo against Israel. The group of health workers include evidence of a much higher — they say there’s evidence of a much higher death toll than is usually cited: more than 92,000 people, which represents over 4% of Gaza’s population.

Two of the doctors join us now. In South Bend, Indiana, we’re joined by Thalia Pachiyannakis. She’s an obstetrician-gynecologist who returned from Gaza earlier this month after having worked at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis. And joining us from Stockton, California, is Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, a trauma surgeon who volunteered at European Hospital in Khan Younis in the early spring. He worked with the Palestinian American Medical Association in collaboration with the World Health Organization. He recently co-wrote the recent Politico article, “We Volunteered at a Gaza Hospital. What We Saw Was Unspeakable.”………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….more https://www.democracynow.org/2024/7/26/feroze_sidhwa_thalia_pachiyannakis_gaza_war

July 31, 2024 Posted by | Gaza, Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Israeli Forces Have Killed 366 UN Workers and Family Members in Gaza: Leaked Report

Confidential figures shed additional light on what’s been the deadliest-ever war for United Nations staff.

Jake Johnson, Jul 24, 2024,  https://www.commondreams.org/news/un-workers-killed-in-gaza
A leaked report obtained by Drop Site estimates that Israeli forces have killed at least 366 United Nations staffers and their family members in the Gaza Strip since October, an indication of the grave threat Israel’s ongoing assault poses to humanitarian relief workers and the enclave’s broader civilian population.

Drop Site‘s Ryan Grim reported Wednesday that the confidential figures, assembled by the U.N.’s Crisis Coordination Center, show that three family members of World Food Program staffers and four dependents of U.N. Children’s Fund workers were among those killed by Israeli forces. The total number of U.N. staffers killed so far is 195, according to the data.

The U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the primary aid agency operating in Gaza, has seen the largest impact on staffers and their family members. The leaked report estimates that Israeli forces have killed 158 dependents of UNRWA staffers since October.

Israel’s devastating military campaign in Gaza, aided by U.S. weaponry and diplomatic support, is by far the deadliest-ever war for U.N. personnel, who have repeatedly been targeted by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Over the weekend, Israeli soldiers fired on a U.N. convoy heading toward Gaza City. UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said that “the teams were traveling in clearly marked U.N. armored cars and wearing U.N. vests.”

“While there are no casualties, our teams had to duck and take cover,” he added. “Like all other similar U.N. movements, this movement was coordinated and approved by the Israeli authorities.”

Targeting humanitarian relief personnel is a war crime.

Grim noted that the leaked report is just “the latest in a series of alarming findings regarding Israel’s actions in Gaza,” much of which is facing famine conditions due to what U.N. experts recently described as a “targeted starvation campaign” by Israel.

During a 12-hour period earlier this week, Israeli forces killed at least 70 Palestinians and wounded around 200 others—mostly women and children—in a barrage of attacks on the city of Khan Younis, according to the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor.

The confidential U.N. data emerged hours before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s scheduled address to a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress on Wednesday afternoon. Dozens of Democratic lawmakers are expected to boycott the prime minister’s speech.

U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the lone Palestinian American in Congress, argued Tuesday that Netanyahu “should be arrested and sent to the International Criminal Court,” alluding to that body’s request for an arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister.

On Tuesday, hundreds of demonstrators were arrested on Capitol Hill during a peaceful Jewish-led demonstration against Netanyahu’s visit and U.S. complicity in the IDF’s mass atrocities in Gaza.

July 30, 2024 Posted by | Gaza, Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Netanyahu’s Visit to Congress Underscores US Contempt for International Law

Netanyahu is getting cozy with Congress, just days after the ICJ told UN members to stop aiding the Israeli occupation.

By Marjorie Cohn , Truthout July 24, 2024

he U.S. has long ignored many commands of international law, but its casual disregard of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has come into sharp focus this week as the U.S. Congress extends a warm welcome to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, just five days after the ICJ notified all UN member states that they have a legal “obligation not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by Israel’s illegal presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

The World Court’s historic 83-page advisory opinion, which was issued on July 19 and held that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory is illegal, was quickly hailed by Middle East political expert Nomi Bar-Yaacov as a “legal earthquake” and the strongest decision that the court had ever issued.

Unsurprisingly, however, both the Israeli and U.S. governments denounced the ICJ’s ruling and proceeded with their plans — including Netanyahu’s visit to Washington, D.C. — as if it had never occurred.

The purpose of Netanyahu’s trip is to shore up U.S. support for his ongoing genocidal campaign against the Palestinians in Gaza and for his crusade against Iran.

“The Jewish people are not occupiers in their own land, including in our eternal capital Jerusalem nor in Judea and Samaria, our historical homeland,” Netanyahu declared after the ICJ issued its decision. “No absurd opinion in The Hague can deny this historical truth or the legal right of Israelis to live in their own communities in our ancestral home.”

Joe Biden’s administration meanwhile conveyed that it is “concerned that the breadth” of the decision will “complicate” the “efforts to resolve the conflict.” The U.S. State Department said the ICJ’s order that Israel withdraw from the Palestinian territories is “inconsistent with the established framework” for resolving “the conflict.” Parroting Israel’s mantra, the State Department said the resolution should occur through negotiations.

Negotiations have proved worthless in ending Israel’s illegal occupation and its genocide in Gaza and achieving justice for the Palestinians. Although the Biden administration has advocated a two-state solution, its unbridled support for the Zionist regime, which continues to carve up occupied Palestinian territory into noncontiguous enclaves, makes that “solution” impossible.

The U.S. government enables Israel’s illegal occupation by providing $3.8 billion annually and it has sent Israel an addition $15 billion in military aid since October 7, 2023. This helps fund Israel’s genocide, which has killed nearly 39,000 Palestinians by the official Gaza Health Ministry count, although the true death toll is likely much higher. Moreover, the U.S. has vetoed three Security Council resolutions that would have demanded a ceasefire in Gaza.

In order to comply with the ruling of the World Court, the U.S. government would have to end its military assistance to Israel and stop providing political and diplomatic cover to enable Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory.

The ICJ’s Legal Findings

The ICJ ruled that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza violates international law, which prohibits the acquisition of territory by threat or use of force and enshrines the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination. “The sustained abuse by Israel of its position as an occupying Power, through annexation and an assertion of permanent control over the Occupied Palestinian Territory and continued frustration of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, violates fundamental principles of international law and renders Israel’s presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory unlawful,” the court wrote…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Consequences of the Ruling

The World Court’s advisory opinion was issued in response to a request by the General Assembly. Although not legally binding, the decision carries great moral weight………………………………………………………………………………………….. more https://truthout.org/articles/netanyahus-visit-to-congress-underscores-us-contempt-for-international-law/

July 30, 2024 Posted by | Israel, Legal, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

War Criminal Benjamin Netanyahu Addresses the US Congress

Lies proliferate and Congress cheers genocide in Gaza

The Unz Review, Philip Giraldi • July 26, 2024

To my surprise, last Thursday morning there was relatively little coverage of the address to the US Congress delivered by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last Wednesday afternoon apart from a critical opinion piece that appeared in the New York Times regarding Israel’s war on the Palestinians. The article, by Megan K. Stack, asserted:

“History will cast Mr. Netanyahu’s visit in deservedly ugly tones. He’s not a guest we should aspire to host, but he is a visitor we deserve. Gaza is our war, too, thanks to the indispensable military aid and political cover the US government has lavished on Israel as the death toll climbs… What exploded as a war of retribution against Hamas has looked increasingly like a broader campaign of annihilation — the slaughter of trapped civilians; the excruciating deaths of thousands of children; the destruction of hospitals, schools and much of the civilian infrastructure.”

Polls have shown for months that more Americans disapprove than approve of the Israeli onslaught in Gaza, but Congress and the White House are not interested in the views of the public when they are on the receiving end of hundreds of millions of dollars in “donations” from Jewish billionaires.

Much of the coverage of the Netanyahu appearance in the mainstream media was toothless and even adulatory. It generally reflected what was hailed as Bibi’s “fiery speech” that “did not give an inch” which vowed to continue fighting until “total victory” is achieved. There was some coverage of how Netanyahu went so far as to portray the many thousands of demonstrators, some of whom were pepper-sprayed and arrested, who surrounded the Capitol as “useful idiots paid for by Iran.” The jibe, together with other calls to go to war with Iran, produced cheers and other paroxysms of joy among the leaping and waving Congressmen. Bibi might have been particularly personally aggrieved by Pro-Palestinian protesters successfully having released insects into the Watergate Hotel where he was staying. Online video showed maggots running amok on the dinner table.

The Netanyahu speech was light on serious analysis, but heavy on emotional appeals, repeatedly invoking the assertion that he and the United States, in its “ironclad” support of Israel, are fighting to save “civilization” and that “our enemies are your enemies” and “our victory will be your victory.” Predictably, the Congressmen and guests who filled the chamber bobbed up and down applauding wildly after nearly every sentence, producing 53 standing ovations, far exceeding Netanyahu’s record 29 obtained the last time he addressed Congress in 2015.

Notably some Congressmen with active consciences skipped the event, including Nancy Pelosi, who, after the fact, denounced the address in a post on X:

“Benjamin Netanyahu’s presentation in the House Chamber today was by far the worst presentation of any foreign dignitary invited and honored with the privilege of addressing the Congress of the United States. Many of us who love Israel spent time today listening to Israeli citizens whose families have suffered in the wake of the October 7th Hamas terror attack and kidnappings. These families are asking for a ceasefire deal that will bring the hostages home – and we hope the Prime Minister would spend his time achieving that goal.”

nore https://www.sott.net/article/493515-War-criminal-Benjamin-Netanyahu-addresses-the-US-Congress
A substantial number of progressive and moderate Democrats, possibly as many as 136, also did not attend, suggesting that Netanyahu is not well regarded by many in the Democratic Party. Netanyahu spoke for an hour and the over-the-top reception he received from congress suggested that:

the government’s true loyalty is not to the voters who elected them but rather to a foreign leader who is a war-criminal, implying to some that Bibi is actually de facto the American president and Israel and the US are in practical terms one country, with Israel as the dominant partner in the arrangement.……………………………………………………………………

My particular gripe was over the fact that Netanyahu’s speech was full of uncontested lies and grossly exaggerated assumptions designed to get his audience roaring. The falsehoods were certainly recognizable as such by much of the audience, but Netanyahu was not challenged by anyone save only Representative Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat of Michigan and the sole Palestinian-American member of Congress, who attended the speech while holding up a sign while many of her colleagues applauded Netanyahu’s comments………………………………………………………………….more https://www.sott.net/article/493515-War-criminal-Benjamin-Netanyahu-addresses-the-US-Congress

July 29, 2024 Posted by | Israel, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

The World Court Has Cleared the Fog Hiding Western Support for Israel’s Crimes

The Unz Review, JONATHAN COOK • JULY 24, 2024

The legal ruling by the world’s highest court obliges western states not just to end their persecution of the boycott movement but to take up that cause as their own

Don’t be fooled. The ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on 19 July that Israel’s occupation of Palestine is unlawful is earth-shattering. Israel is a rogue state, according to the world’s highest court.

For that reason, the judgment will be studiously ignored by the cabal of western states and their medias that for decades have so successfully run cover for Israel.

Doubters need only watch the reception Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu receives during his visit to the United States this week.

Even though he is currently being pursued for war crimes by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, the US Congress will give him a hero’s welcome when he addresses its representatives on Wednesday.

The warm handshakes and standing ovations will be a reminder that Netanyahu has had the full backing of western powers throughout the nine-month slaughter of at least 16,000 Palestinian children in Gaza – with another 21,000 missing, most of them under rubble.

The welcome will be a reminder that western capitals are fully on board with Israel’s levelling of Gaza and the starvation of its population – in what the same court concluded way back in January amounted to a “plausible genocide”.

And it will serve as a heavy slap in the face to those like the World Court committed to international law – reminding them that the West and its most favoured client state believe they are untouchable.

Western politicians and columnists will keep emphasising that the World Court is offering nothing more than an “advisory opinion” and one that is “non-binding”.

What they won’t point out is that this opinion is the collective view of the world’s most eminent judges on international law, the people best positioned to rule on the occupation’s legality.

And it is non-binding only because the western powers who control our international bodies plan to do nothing to implement a decision that doesn’t suit them.

Nonetheless, the ruling will have dramatic consequences for Israel, and its western patrons, even if those consequences will take months, years or even decades to play out.

‘Top secret’ warning

Last week’s judgment is separate from the case accepted in January by the ICJ that put Israel on trial for genocide in Gaza. A decision on that matter may still be many months away.

This ruling was in response to a request from the United Nations General Assembly in December 2022 for advice on the legality of Israel’s 57-year occupation.

That may sound more mundane a deliberation than the one on genocide, but the implications ultimately are likely to be every bit as profound.

Those not familiar with international law may underestimate the importance of the World Court’s ruling if only because they had already assumed the occupation was illegal.

But that is not how international law works. A belligerent occupation is permitted so long as it satisfies two conditions.

First, it must be strictly military, designed to protect the security of the occupying state and safeguard the rights of the occupied people.

And second, it must be a temporary measure – while negotiations are conducted to restore civilian rule and allow the occupied people self-determination.

Astonishingly, it has taken 57 years for the world’s highest court to deliver a conclusion that should have been staring it – and everyone else – in the face all that time.

The military nature of the occupation was subverted almost from the moment Israel occupied the Palestinian territories in June 1967.

Within months, Israel had chosen to transfer Jewish civilians – mostly extreme religious nationalists – into the occupied Palestinian territories to help colonise them.

Israel knew that this was a gross violation of international law because its own legal adviser warned it of as much in a “top secret” memo unearthed by the Israeli journalist Gershom Gorenberg some two decades ago.

In a declaration enlarging on the ICJ’s reasoning, Court President Nawaf Salam specifically referenced the warnings of Theodor Meron, who was the Israeli foreign ministry’s legal expert at the time.

In September 1967, his memo cautioned that any decision to establish civilian settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories “contravenes explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention”. Those provisions, he added, were “aimed at preventing colonization”.

Nine days later, the Israeli government rode roughshod over Meron’s memo and assisted a group of young Israelis in setting up the first settlement at Kfar Etzion.

Sham peace-making

Today, hundreds of illegal settlements – many of them home to what amount to armed militias – control more than half of the West Bank and much of East Jerusalem.

Rather than protecting the rights of Palestinians under occupation, as international law demands, the Israeli military assists Jewish settlers in terrorising the Palestinians. The aim is to drive them off their land.

In the words of the Israeli government, the settlements are there to “Judaise” Palestinian territory. In the words of everyone else, they are there to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian population.

Which brings us to Israel’s second violation of the laws of occupation. In transferring hundreds of thousands of settlers into the occupied territories, Israel intentionally blocked any chance of a Palestinian state emerging.

The settlements weren’t makeshift encampments. Some soon developed into small cities, such as Ariel and Maale Adumim, with shopping malls, parks, public pools, synagogues, factories, libraries, schools and colleges.

There was nothing “temporary” about them. They were there to incrementally annex Palestinian territory under cover of an occupation that Washington and its European allies conspired to pretend was temporary.

The whole Oslo process initiated in the early 1990s was a switch-and-bait exercise, or a “Palestinian Versailles”, as the Palestinian scholar Edward Said warned at the time.

Israel was never serious about allowing the Palestinians meaningful statehood – a fact the then-Israeli prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, admitted shortly before he was killed by a far-right settler in 1995………………………………………………………………………..

Apartheid rule……………………………………………………………………………………….

Acts of aggression……………………………………………………

Complicit in war crimes

But the implications don’t just apply to Israel………………………………………………………

The fog clears

Israel’s supporters will take comfort from the fact that an earlier judgment from the World Court on Israel was roundly ignored by both Israel and its western patrons.

Asked for an advisory opinion, the judges ruled in 2004 that, under cover of security claims, Israel was illegally annexing swaths of territory by building its 800km-long “separation wall” on Palestinian land………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Words have power. They are our route to understanding reality. And the World Court has just cleared away the fog. It has wiped clean the mist on the window.

The West will do its level best once again to shroud Israel’s crimes. But the World Court has done the Palestinians and the rest of mankind a service in unmasking Israel for what it is: a rogue, criminal state.  https://www.unz.com/jcook/the-world-court-has-cleared-the-fog-hiding-western-support-for-israels-crimes/

July 28, 2024 Posted by | Israel, Legal | Leave a comment

Hundreds protesting Netanyahu visit arrested at US Capitol

The protesters belonged to the Jewish Voice for Peace activist group

News Desk, JUL 24, 2024,  https://thecradle.co/articles/hundreds-protesting-netanyahu-visit-arrested-at-us-capitol

Around 200 pro-Palestine protesters were detained on Capitol Hill on 23 June, ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to the US Congress the day after. 

The protest took place in the Canon House Office Building. The demonstrators, wearing shirts with the slogan “Not in our name,” were organized by the Jewish Voice for Peace group. 

According to police, the protesters were warned that demonstrating in the Canon House Office Building was illegal. 

Executive Director of Jewish Voice for Peace, Stefanie Fox, said the Israeli premier’s speech in Congress on Wednesday was the reason for the demonstration. 

“For nine months, we’ve watched in horror as the Israeli government has carried out a genocide, armed and funded by the US. Congress and the Biden administration have the power to end this horror today. Instead, our president is preparing to meet with Netanyahu and Congressional leadership has honored him with an invitation to address Congress,” she said. 

Republican representative Mike Lawler called the protest an “embarrassment” and accused the Jewish Voice for Peace activists of being “pro-Hamas.”

Netanyahu’s address to Congress was announced in late May by Mike Johnson, Republican Speaker of the US House of Representatives. At the time, the International Criminal Court (ICC) had announced its decision to seek arrest warrants against Netanyahu and his defense minister. 

Johnson threatened during his announcement in May that the US “should punish” the ICC for its decision. 

The Israeli prime minister arrived in Washington on Monday, ahead of his speech at Congress on 24 May and a meeting with US President Joe Biden, scheduled for the following day. 

The ICC said on Tuesday that it has accepted 64 filings by states, individuals, and organizations to intervene regarding arrest requests against Netanyahu and others, including Hamas leaders. 

It is highly expected that Netanyahu’s address will focus on the idea of continuing the war in Gaza until Hamas’ defeat – in line with his government’s stated goals and in stark contradiction to efforts to reach a ceasefire deal.

The premier’s much-anticipated address in Congress comes on the 292nd day of Israel’s genocidal war against the Gaza Strip, which has killed over 39,000 people – mainly women and children – and has injured over 90,000. 

July 28, 2024 Posted by | Israel, Legal, politics | Leave a comment

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