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Cop28 president says his firm will keep investing in oil

 The president of the Cop28 climate summit will continue with his oil
company’s record investment in oil and gas production, despite
coordinating a global deal to “transition away” from fossil fuels.
Sultan Al Jaber, who is also the chief executive of the United Arab
Emirates’ national oil and gas company, Adnoc, told the Guardian the
company had to satisfy demand for fossil fuels.

 Guardian 15th Dec 2023

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/15/cop28-president-sultan-al-jaber-says-his-firm-will-keep-investing-in-oil

December 16, 2023 Posted by | climate change, United Arab Emirates | Leave a comment

Why can’t the US ever say no to Israel?

The American UN veto on a Gaza ceasefire is a low point of wag-the-dog international politics

Rt.com, Tarik Cyril Amar, 13 Dec 23

December 8, 2023, is a day that will live in infamy. The United States made history of the worst kind by using its permanent seat on the UN Security Council to veto a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. The resolution was advanced by the United Arab Emirates (a US partner) and supported by more than 90 member states. It also had preponderant backing in the global organization’s privileged “upper chamber,” the Security Council, where 13 of its 15 members were in favor (while the UK abstained, abdicating its sovereignty to the US, again).

The American veto directly defied UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Not a natural-born rebel, the UN chief had deployed a rarely used procedure to promote the ceasefire, putting his authority on the line. Referring to Article 99 of Chapter 15 of the UN Charter, he already implied that “international peace and security” were in danger. His spokesperson was explicit that Guterres was making a “dramatic constitutional move.” While maintaining diplomatic balance by also highlighting the Hamas attack on Israel, Guterres’ letter to the Security Council depicted the catastrophic suffering of the Palestinians under the ongoing Israeli attack and concluded that “nowhere” was safe in Gaza.

All to no avail. The US could not be swayed and maintained its de facto unconditional support for Israel, even while the latter is conducting an intensifying genocidal assault on Gaza and its civilian population. This is no longer up for debate, and is no secret either; Israeli leaders have repeatedly made statements that signal the kind of intent that is a crucial element in the crime of genocide, while their actions and those of their forces on the ground speak even louder than their words.

The world has taken note. It took no special bias for the Palestinian leadership – the one derived from the PLO, as well as Hamas – to identify the veto as “disastrous” and “a disgrace and another blank cheque given to the occupying state to massacre, destroy and displace.” China and Russia have denounced American double standards and the “death sentence” Washington has handed down on future Palestinian victims of the Israeli assault.

Amnesty International says Washington has “brazenly wielded and weaponized its veto to strongarm the UN Security Council… undermining its credibility” and displaying a “callous disregard for civilian suffering in the face of a staggering death toll.” Doctors without Borders did not mince its words either, accusing the US of standing “alone in casting its vote against humanity,” with America “complicit in the carnage in Gaza” and undermining not only its own credibility but also that of international humanitarian law. 

Craig Mokhiber – an authority on international law and former head of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights office in New York – tweeted that “on the eve of the 75th Anniversary of the Genocide Convention, the US has again vetoed a ceasefire in the UN Security Council… demonstrating its further complicity in the #genocide in #Palestine.”

This list of censure and condemnation could be prolonged almost ad infinitum, especially if we add voices from the Global South. The key point, however, should be clear already: The US stands isolated and disgraced by its very own, easily avoidable – or so it would seem – decision. This was, after all, not a vote asking for justice and restitution for the victims, or – perish that radical thought! – for prosecution of the perpetrators. All this was about was the barest of bare minimums, just a ceasefire, not even a peace deal. Still, that was too much to ask of the US……………………………..

Future historians will ask how this happened. How could the single most powerful nation in the world, which claims to lead not only by force but by “values,” side with the Israeli perpetrators of such an outrageous and open crime, while openly contravening much of the international community? Some will even ask the more cynical question how America, even if its elites are entirely bereft of ethics, could do so much harm to itself.

The simplest, almost technical answer to that question has to do with a historical irony. America owes its veto power – as one of the five permanent members of the Security Council – to what happened in World War II. And while World War II and the German Holocaust against the Jews of (mostly) Europe are not the same, they are part of the same history. Much US pride has been invested in being among the powers that brought down the Holocaust perpetrator state Germany. And yet, here we are: The same US is now using that very veto not only to shield another genocidal state but to help it continue its crime.

There are, of course, broader reasons for this great American failure. Many have been discussed before. Israel serves the function of an enforcer and imperial outpost in the Middle East and sometimes beyond. As current US President Joe Biden – by now often trending on X as #GenocideJoe – stated in 1986, when still an ambitious and pandering senator, if there were no Israel, America would have to invent one. Let’s set aside that even the callous realpolitik behind such thinking is flawed: If it ever was an asset, Israel is turning into a liability. Let’s just note that the American elite claims to believe that Israel is so useful that the commitment to it must be, in Vice President Kamala Harris’ words, “ironclad.”

But so it was for Ukraine only, as it were, yesterday. And yet Kiev is about to be dropped, as so many US clients before. What makes Israel different? Clearly, it is the long-standing top recipient of US financial and military support. Is it sunk cost fallacy then? Is America so over-committed to Israel that it simply won’t walk away?

Yet that hypothesis does not explain the striking one-sidedness of the US-Israel relationship. If there has ever been a case of wag-the-dog, this is it: One thing that the American veto on the Gaza ceasefire resolution shows is that it is Israel that is dominating US foreign policy, not the other way around. Otherwise, Washington would have sought to find a compromise between preserving its own credibility and interests by allowing at least this very modest resolution to pass, while still supporting Israel in multiple other ways.

Clearly, one thing that is determining this American dependence on another, much smaller country is the massive success of lobbying and foreign influence operations on behalf of Israel. Indeed, it is Israel that has run the most invasive and effective such attack on US politics in history. And for the avoidance of any misunderstandings: Noting this obvious fact has nothing to do with “anti-Semitism.” Indeed, trying to smear those who dare bring it up with that accusation is part of how that influence operation works. It’s time to entirely disregard such cheap tricks.

………………………………………………………………. If only we could return, at least, to a world where Americans could forget a little about their Russia obsession when thinking about foreign influence on their country and focus that concern where it matters, namely on Israel. If in addition they could think a little more about Russia as a viable partner – at least occasionally – in helping resolve severe international crises, we would all be much better off. We might even be able to stop a genocide here or there. https://www.rt.com/news/588952-us-israel-un-veto/

December 15, 2023 Posted by | Israel, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Bernie Sanders Votes No on Giving Israel Aid to Continue ‘Inhumane War’ on Gaza

“I do not believe that we should give the right-wing extremist Netanyahu government an additional $10.1 billion with no strings attached.”

By Jake Johnson / Common Dreams, more https://scheerpost.com/2023/12/13/bernie-sanders-votes-no-on-giving-israel-aid-to-continue-inhumane-war-on-gaza/

Sen. Bernie Sanders was the lone member of the Senate Democratic caucus to oppose advancing a $110.5 billion supplemental foreign aid measure on Wednesday, expressing opposition to the bill’s unconditional military assistance for the Israeli government.

“I voted NO on the foreign aid supplemental bill today for one reason,” Sanders (I-Vt.) said in a statement. “I do not believe that we should give the right-wing extremist Netanyahu government an additional $10.1 billion with no strings attached to continue their inhumane war against the Palestinian people.”

“Israel has the absolute right to defend itself against the Hamas terrorists who attacked them on October 7,” Sanders added. “They do not have the legal or moral right to kill thousands of innocent Palestinian men, women, and children.”

The aid package, which also includes billions in military assistance for Ukraine, failed to clear a procedural hurdle Wednesday, with every Republican voting no over the absence of immigration policy changes that progressives have condemned as draconian. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) flipped his initial yes vote to no in a maneuver that will allow him to bring the bill forward again at a later date.

According to a summary released by the Senate Appropriations Committee, the supplemental package contains over $10 billion in military aid for Israel, which already receives roughly $4 billion in assistance from the U.S. per year and has gotten tens of thousands of bombs, artillery shells, and other weaponry since the Hamas-led October 7 attack.

The measure is largely in line with a request issued in October by the Biden White House, which has sought to expedite U.S. arms shipments to Israel even as the nation’s military is using American-made weaponry to commit heinous war crimes in the Gaza Strip.

One human rights monitor estimated earlier this week that at least 90% of the people killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since October 7 have been civilians.

Sanders, who has faced progressive criticism and outrage for rejecting calls for a permanent cease-fire in Gaza, said in a Senate floor speech on Monday that Israel “must dramatically change its approach to minimize civilian harm and lay out a wider political process that can secure lasting peace.”

The senator conceded during his remarks that there is no evidence Israel has altered its approach in response to light pressure from top U.S. officials, pointing to recent bombings of United Nations schools and other civilian infrastructure.

“Israel’s indiscriminate approach is, in my view, offensive to most Americans, it is in violation of U.S. and international law, and it undermines the prospects for lasting peace and security,” said Sanders.

December 15, 2023 Posted by | Israel, politics, USA | Leave a comment

Gaza Is Deliberately Being Made Uninhabitable


CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, DEC 13, 2023  https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/gaza-is-deliberately-being-made-uninhabitable?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=139740561&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&utm_medium=email

Infectious diseases are tearing through Gaza, whose healthcare system has been rendered almost nonexistent, and people are beginning to starve in massive numbers. All of this is due to concrete policy decisions made by Israel in its horrific assault on the Gaza Strip.

In an article titled “Gaza’s health system is ‘on its knees’ as Israel pushes into Khan Younis,” The Washington Post reports that the mass displacement of nearly two million Palestinians in Gaza has led to overcrowding and unsanitary living conditions that are rapidly giving rise to disease.

“Meanwhile, the Gaza Health Ministry and other medical workers said they were recording new cases of acute hepatitis, scabies, measles and upper respiratory infections, mostly among children,” the Post reports. “Infectious diseases are spreading fast, said Imad al-Hams, a physician at the Kuwaiti Hospital in Rafah, as people crowd into tiny slivers of land to escape advancing Israeli forces.”

In a recent interview with CNN, Doctors Without Borders emergency coordinator Marie-Aure Perreaut described conditions in Gaza as “apocalyptic”, saying living conditions at the Al-Aqsa Hospital she’s working from “can barely be described as living conditions anymore.” 

“The healthcare system is completely collapsed at the moment,” Perreaut told Al Jazeera.

The UN World Food Programme reports that half of Gaza’s population is now starving due to Israeli siege warfare and the collapse of civilian infrastructure. In northern Gaza that figure goes up to nine in ten.

All of this aligns perfectly with Israeli policies of massive forced evacuations, attacking healthcare facilities, and laying complete siege to the Gaza Strip.

A doctor named Hafez Abukhoussa writes the following in a new article for Time titled “What I’ve Seen Treating Patients in Gaza’s Remaining Hospitals”:

Gaza’s health care system has almost completely collapsed as a result of Israel’s ongoing bombardment. Hospitals and ambulances have been repeatedly attacked. According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, more than 250 medical workers have been killed so far, including two of my colleagues from Doctors Without Borders, who died while performing their duties in Al-Awda hospital in northern Gaza. Of Gaza’s 36 hospitals, only 11 are still functioning in any capacity, according to the World Health Organization. Hospitals in the north like Al-Shifa are barely functioning at all, as basic medicines and fuel have run out. My colleagues have been performing amputations by flashlight and without anesthesia. When Israeli soldiers raided Al-Shifa a few weeks ago — a move the head of the WHO called ‘totally unacceptable’ — doctors and staff were forced to abandon patients too sick or injured to evacuate. Some of those who refused to leave, including the hospital’s director, were arrested, alongside dozens of others. At Al-Nasr Children’s hospital, soldiers ordered staff to leave the patients, including four premature babies who required oxygen, who were later found dead.”

This all also aligns perfectly with the Netanyahu government’s reported agenda to “thin” the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip “to a minimum,” and with all the other calls for ethnic cleansing we keep seeing pushed by Israeli officials and thought leaders over and over again.

It also aligns perfectly with the suggestions made last month by an influential Israeli national security leader named Giora Eiland, a retired major general for the IDF.

“The international community warns us of a humanitarian disaster in Gaza and of severe epidemics,” Eiland wrote. “We must not shy away from this, as difficult as that may be. After all, severe epidemics in the south of the Gaza Strip will bring victory closer and reduce casualties among IDF soldiers.”

Eiland was completely dismissive of the idea that there are innocent people in Gaza, a sentiment we’re seeing pushed harder and harder as Israel draws nearer and nearer to a very, very dark chapter in the history of human civilization.

“They are not only Hamas fighters with weapons, but also all the ‘civilian’ officials, including hospital administrators and school administrators, and also the entire Gaza population that enthusiastically supported Hamas and cheered on its atrocities on October 7th,” Eiland wrote, adding, “Who are the ‘poor’ women of Gaza? They are all the mothers, sisters or wives of Hamas murderers.”

“Behind every terrorist stand dozens of men and women, without whom he could not engage in terrorism,” Eiland adds. “Now this also includes the mothers of the martyrs, who send them to hell with flowers and kisses. They should follow their sons, nothing would be more just. They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there.”

When people talk about genocide in Gaza, they’re not just talking about the thousands of civilians who’ve been killed in Israeli airstrikes. The policies Israel has been deliberately putting in place have the potential to kill many, many more people than that in the coming months, and if Netanyahu and his goons get their way, that’s exactly what will happen.

December 14, 2023 Posted by | Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

America’s War for the Greater Middle East (Continued)

Here We Go Again

SCHEERPOST, By Andrew Bacevich / TomDispatch, December 13, 2023

One way of understanding the ongoing bloodbath pitting Israel against Hamas is to see it as just the latest chapter in an existential struggle dating back to the founding of the Jewish state in 1948. While the appalling scope, destructiveness, and duration of the fighting in Gaza may outstrip previous episodes, this latest go-around serves chiefly to reaffirm the remarkable intractability of the underlying Arab-Israeli conflict. 

Although the shape of that war has changed over time, certain constants remain. Neither side, for instance, seems capable of achieving its ultimate political goals through violence. And each side adamantly refuses to concede to the core demands of its adversary. In truth, while the actual fighting may ebb and flow, pause and resume, the Holy Land has become the site of what is effectively permanent conflict.

For several decades, the United States sought to keep its distance from that war by casting itself in the role of regional arbiter. While providing Israel with arms and diplomatic cover, successive administrations have simultaneously sought to position the U.S. as an “honest broker,” committed to advancing the larger cause of Middle Eastern peace and stability. Of course, a generous dose of cynicism has always informed this “peace process.”

On that score, however, the present moment has let the cat fully out of the bag. The Biden administration responded to the gruesome terrorist attack on October 7th by unequivocally endorsing and underwriting Israeli efforts to annihilate Hamas, with Gazans thereby subjected to a World War II-style obliteration bombing campaign. Meanwhile, ignoring tepid Biden administration protests, Israeli settlers continue to expel Palestinians from parts of the West Bank where they have lived for generations. If Hamas’s October assault was a tragedy, proponents of a Greater Israel also saw it as a unique opportunity that they’ve seized with alacrity. As for the peace process, already on life support, it now seems altogether defunct. Prospects of reviving it anytime soon appear remote.

More or less offstage, the fighting is having this ancillary effect: as Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) employ U.S.-provided weapons and munitions to turn Gaza into rubble, the “rules-based international order” touted by the Biden administration as the latest organizing principle of American statecraft has forfeited whatever slight credibility it might have possessed. Russia’s assault on Ukraine appears almost measured and humane by comparison.

As if to emphasize Washington’s own limited fealty to that rules-based order, President Biden’s immediate response to the events of October 7th focused on unilateral military action, bolstering U.S. naval and air forces in the Middle East while shoveling even more weapons to Israel. Ostensibly tasked with checking any further spread of violence, American forces in the region have instead been steadily edging toward becoming full-fledged combatants.

In recent weeks, U.S. forces have sustained dozens of casualty-producing attacks, primarily from rockets and armed drones. Attributing those attacks to “Iran-affiliated groups,” the U.S. has responded with air strikes targeting warehouses, training facilities, and command posts in Syria and Iraq.

According to a Pentagon spokesman, the overall purpose of American military action in the region is “to message very strongly to Iran and their affiliated groups to stop.” Thus far, the impact of such messaging has been ambiguous at best. Certainly, U.S. retaliatory efforts haven’t dissuaded Iran from pursuing its proxy war against American military outposts in the region. On the other hand, the scale of those Iran-supported attacks remains modest. Notably, no U.S. troops have been killed — yet.

For the moment at least, that fact may well be the administration’s operative definition of success. As long as no flag-draped coffins show up at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, Joe Biden may find it perfectly tolerable for the U.S.-Iran subset of the Israel-Hamas war to simmer indefinitely on the back burner.

This pattern of tit-for-tat violence has received, at best, sporadic public attention. Where (if anywhere) it will lead remains uncertain. Even so, the U.S. is at risk of effectively opening up a new front in what used to be called the Global War on Terror. That war is now nearly dormant, or at least hidden from public view. The very real possibility of either side misinterpreting or willfully ignoring the other’s “messaging” could reignite it, with an expanded war that directly pits the U.S. against Iran making the Israel-Gaza war look like a petty squabble………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Alarm Bells, American-Style

Now, however, in the wake of the atrocities committed on October 7th and Washington’s tacit acquiescence in Israel’s maximalist war aims, the dubious notion that vital American interests are still at stake in the Greater Middle East has taken on new life. Dating from the 1980s, Washington had cycled through a variety of arguments for why that part of the world was worthy of spending American blood and treasure: the threat of Soviet aggression, U.S. reliance on foreign oil, radical Arab dictators, Islamic jihadism, weapons of mass destruction falling into hostile hands, potential ethnic cleansing and genocide. All of those were pressed into service at one time or another to justify continuing to treat the Middle East as a strategic U.S. priority.

…………………………………………  allowing Israel’s conflict with Hamas to draw the United States into a new Middle Eastern crusade would be the height of folly. In fact, however, with little public attention and even less congressional oversight, that is precisely what may be happening. The Global War on Terror seems on the verge of absorbing the Gaza War into its current configuration.

………………………………….. In 1796, George Washington warned his countrymen of the dangers of allowing a “passionate attachment” to another nation to affect policy. That warning remains relevant today. The Gaza War is not and should not become America’s war.  https://scheerpost.com/2023/12/13/americas-war-for-the-greater-middle-east-continued/

December 14, 2023 Posted by | MIDDLE EAST, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Graphic Videos and Incitement: How the IDF Is Misleading Israelis on Telegram

The IDF unit responsible for psychological warfare operations operates a Telegram channel called ’72 Virgins – Uncensored,’ which targets local audiences with ‘exclusive content from the Gaza Strip’

The IDF Operations Directorate’s Influencing Department, which is responsible for psychological warfare operations against the enemy and foreign audiences, operates a Telegram channel called 72 Virgins – Uncensored, which targets Israeli audiences and shows the bodies of Hamas terrorists with the promise of “shattering the terrorists’ fantasy.”…………………………………………… (subscribers only) more https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/security-aviation/2023-12-12/ty-article/.premium/graphic-videos-and-incitement-how-the-idf-is-misleading-israelis-on-telegram/0000018c-5ab5-df2f-adac-febd01c30000

December 14, 2023 Posted by | Israel, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

US casts sole vote in UN to continue the annihilation of Gaza

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL ,10 Dec 23

December 8th now makes 2 consecutive calendar Days of Infamy for America. But this one, coming 92 years and a day after the first, is not from an attack on America. It comes from America’s descent into madness, enabling and supporting Israel’s genocidal ethnic cleansing of Gaza after the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel.

The UAE sponsored the UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. Within 24 hours they garnered nearly a hundred co-sponsors from the UN’s 193 members.  UN Secretary-General Antonio Gutierrez invoked rarely used Article 99 of the UN Charter to bring the resolution to the Security Council for immediate consideration over “threats to international peace and “humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza”.

But the US blocked the resolution with a dastardly veto. Thirteen other members voted for it, including some of America’s staunch allies. Even our most lockstep ally Britain abstained. The US now stands alone in supporting Israel’s campaign making Gaza uninhabitable.

Ministers from Egypt, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey came to D.C. to plead with Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to support the ceasefire. But Blinken put them off till after the after the UN vote.

When questioned about the devastation in Gaza, Biden, Blinken just nod and mutter something about imploring Israel to try harder not to annihilate all the Palestinians there. Meanwhile Netanyahu tells his war cabinet “We need 3 things from the US: munitions, munitions, and munitions.” And he gets them PDQ

How bad is that annihilation? Roughly 70% of the 70,000 deaths and injuries are women and children. UN chief Gutierrez cited Article 99 for the first time since 1971 in calling the emergency session to address the “humanitarian nightmare Gaza is facing.” He cited endless bombings that have hit 339 schools, 26 hospitals, 56 health care facilities, 88 mosques and three churches.

Besides Gaza being destroyed, President Biden is ensuring that America’s standing in the world is being destroyed as a beacon of peace and freedom.

Yes, mark December 8th on the calendar as another American Day of Infamy.

Besides Gaza being destroyed, President Biden is ensuring that America’s standing in the world is being destroyed as a beacon of peace and freedom.

Yes, mark December 8th on the calendar as another American Day of Infamy.

December 13, 2023 Posted by | Israel, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Civilian deaths in Gaza highest of all world conflicts in 20th Century, including World Wars, Israeli study reveals

 https://www.sott.net/article/486726-Civilian-deaths-in-Gaza-highest-of-all-world-conflicts-in-20th-Century-including-World-Wars-Israeli-study-reveals 10 Dec 23

The Guardian newspaper saysThe aerial bombing campaign by Israel in Gaza is the most indiscriminate in terms of civilian casualties in recent years, a study published by an Israeli newspaper has found.

The analysis by Haaretz came as Israeli forces fought to consolidate their control of northern Gaza on Saturday, bombing the Shejaiya district of Gaza City, while also conducting airstrikes on Rafah, a town on the southern border with Egypt where the Israeli army has told people in Gaza to take shelter.

The full death toll from the past 24 hours was unclear but the main hospital in central Gaza, at Deir al-Balah, reported it received 71 bodies, and 62 bodies were taken to Nasser hospital in the main southern city of Khan Younis, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

The Haaretz analysis found that in three earlier campaigns in Gaza, in the period from 2012-22, the ratio of civilian deaths to the total of those killed in airstrikes hovered around 40%. That ratio declined to 33% in a bombing campaign earlier this year, called Operation Shield and Arrow.

In the first three weeks of the current operation, Swords of Iron, the civilian proportion of total deaths rose to 61%, in what Haaretz described as “unprecedented killing”. The ratio is significantly higher than the civilian toll in all the conflicts around the world during the 20th century, in which civilians accounted for about half the dead.

Comment: Andalou Agency, quoting the Palestinian Health Ministry – whose figures have repeatedly been shown by independent agencies to be accurate – report the following:

The Palestinian death toll from the ongoing Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip has mounted to 17,177 since Oct. 7, the Health Ministry in the enclave said Thursday.

“Around 70% of the victims are children and women,” ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra told a press conference.

He said 46,000 other people were injured in the Israeli onslaught on the blockaded Palestinian territory.

“At least 290 medics were killed, 102 ambulances destroyed and 160 health care centers targeted in the Israeli attacks, while 20 hospitals and 46 primary care centers were forced out of service,” al-Qudra said.


“The broad conclusion is that extensive killing of civilians not only contributes nothing to Israel’s security, but that it also contains the foundations for further undermining it,” Haaretz concluded. “The Gazans who will emerge from the ruins of their homes and the loss of their families will seek revenge that no security arrangements will be able to withstand.”

Comment: This reaction by even the Israeli press perhaps reveals why Israel, and those facilitating the genocide in the US, and UK, are escalating the slaughter and destruction, because it’s only a matter of time before unrest at home, and a response from those abroad, will hamper their nefarious agenda.

It also serves to distract from the rapidly deteriorating situation in their own economies and societies, whilst at the same time setting the Middle East alight which, they seem to think, will provide justification for their sinister actions.

The figures will make uneasy reading for the Biden administration, which is facing global criticism and isolation for vetoing a UN security council vote for a ceasefire on Friday.

Since the start of the war, triggered by the deadly 7 October attack on Israel by Hamas, the US has been seeking to persuade Israeli forces to be more discriminate in choosing targets, and has repeatedly claimed the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are “receptive” to American advice, despite the consistently high civilian death toll.

Comment: The Guardian has been exposed as being compromised by the UK’s intelligence agencies, and that’s perhaps one reason why it fails to mention that strong evidence, along with logic, has since revealed that not only was the attack known about well in advance; the IDF was forced to stand down; that Israel was responsible for killing a significant number of its own people; as well as destroying evidence.

The US national security spokesperson, John Kirby, repeated that claim while briefing reporters on Air Force One on Friday, but added: “We certainly all recognise more can be done to try to reduce civilian casualties, and we’re going to keep working with our Israeli counterparts to that end.”

Kirby was speaking as the Biden administration faced allegations of abetting war crimes for vetoing the security council resolution.

Human Rights Watch said the US risked “complicity in war crimes” by continuing to provide Israel with weapons and diplomatic support. Paul O’Brien, the executive director of Amnesty International USA, said: “With this veto, the US government is shamefully turning its back on immense civilian suffering, a staggering death toll, and unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.”

Comment: In a vote for a ceasefire at the UN today, the US voted against, the UK abstained, the rest of the UN voted for:

The Saudi foreign minister, Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, met the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, in Washington on Friday night to maintain pressure for “urgent steps” to establish a ceasefire so humanitarian aid could be delivered.

In the face of the global criticism, US officials stressed the role the US has played in pushing for humanitarian deliveries to Gaza through the Rafah crossing point. Kirby said a US military transport plane had landed in Egypt on Friday carrying nearly 26,000kg (57,000lbs) of food, water, and medicine bound for Gaza.

Comment: Meanwhile the US & UK also provides the weapons, the funds, and the veto powers, without which there would be no need for them to send humanitarian aid.

“We’re certainly mindful of the suffering of the people of Gaza, and we’re doing everything we can to not just get stuff in there but to lead an actual international effort to get stuff in there,” he said.

Kirby said fewer than 100 trucks had crossed through the Rafah gate on Friday, about half the daily volume that entered Gaza during a week-long humanitarian ceasefire at the end of last month.

“Obviously that’s not at the level that we want it to be at,” he said, noting that Israel was preparing to open an additional inspection facility at Kerem Shalom on the Israel-Gaza border, which is expected to ease the most significant bottleneck, inspection capacity.

However, the UN and other aid agencies say that even when trucks enter the Gaza Strip at Rafah, the ground offensive in southern Gaza and the general lack of security is preventing the supplies from being distributed, at a time of a high and rising threat of starvation and disease.

Comment: The UN has also sounded the alarm that 130 of their own staff have been murdered; that their staff are taking their children with them to work in the hopes that, if they can’t be safe at home, they can at least ‘die together’.

They’re also warning that, with the conditions in Gaza being so dire – with 700 people sharing 1 toilet and 25 babies a day being born with little medical supplies – it won’t be long before disease and viral outbreaks ravage those that managed to escape the death from above:

The IDF said it had failed in a hostage rescue attempt on Friday. The chief spokesperson, R Adm Daniel Hagari, said: “The forces raided a Hamas site and eliminated terrorists who had taken part in the abduction and captivity of hostages.”

He said two Israeli soldiers had been seriously wounded in the mission, and no hostages had been rescued. He did not confirm Hamas claims that one hostage, 25-year-old Sahar Baruch, had been killed in the rescue attempt, but his home kibbutz at Be’eri announced Baruch had died.


Comment: See also: Israel’s ground war conundrum

December 13, 2023 Posted by | Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Is Biden taking the Iran nuclear deal off life support?

If the JCPOA really is dead, as a top State Department appointee declared last week, that’s an own goal for the US and a huge risk for regional security

ELDAR MAMEDOV, DEC 12, 2023, Responsible Statecraft

When Joe Biden was running for U.S. president, he promised to reverse many of his predecessor’s decisions on foreign policy, generally hewing towards more restraint and diplomacy, and less bluster, militarism, and unilateralism. That included restoring the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) from which Donald Trump withdrew in 2018 — despite evidence, shared even by his own officials, that the deal was delivering on its core objective to block Iran’s pathways to a nuclear weapon. On December 7, 2023, Biden’s nominee for deputy secretary of state, the current National Security Council Coordinator for Indo-Pacific Affairs, Kurt Campbell, effectively declared the JCPOA dead………………………………..

Although the prospects for a revived JCPOA have been dim since at least 2022 — for which Iran carries a fair share of blame — officials from the Biden administration until now have largely refrained from using such threatening language against Iran. Conclusively abandoning any effort to revive the JCPOA does not serve U.S. interests and is in fact counterproductive.

Addressing students at Tehran University a few days after Campbell’s Senate testimony, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian downplayed the relevance of the JCPOA by reportedly saying that the “more we move forward, the more JCPOA becomes pointless. We will not force ourselves to remain in the narrow tunnel of the JCPOA forever.”

So, the Biden administration finds itself in the rather awkward position of effectively agreeing with Tehran, but this was a self-inflicted problem: by refusing, for three years now, to engage with its critics and the broader public on the agreement’s benefits to the U.S. and global security, it has allowed the notion that the JCPOA was some kind of reward for Iran, rather than a deal that strictly curbed Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, to become conventional wisdom. As is evident in Abdollahian’s remarks, Iranians today certainly do see the JCPOA as a “narrow tunnel” that limits their options………………………………………….

If ever there was a mechanism that would prove effective in preventing Iran from acquiring a bomb, it was the JCPOA. In light of Abdollahian’s remarks (which clearly reflect a growing skepticism about the JCPOA in Iran), the Biden administration, by publicly disowning the deal, is in fact removing obstacles to further Iranian nuclear escalation.

Unless Biden is prepared to accept the advice of the late international relations scholar Kenneth Waltz, who, in an influential 2012 Foreign Affairs article, argued that an Iranian bomb would stabilize the Middle East, it is not clear what his administration would do in place of a revived JCPOA to check additional Iranian nuclear advances.

Campbell emphasized the “current environment” as an additional factor rendering a JCPOA revival infeasible. In fact, if he was referring to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, then it is precisely such a conflict that makes some sort of a direct dialogue between Washington and Tehran — on nuclear, but also regional security issues — all the more urgent if a wider war is to be avoided. Substituting such a dialogue with military threats at a moment when the U.S. is providing Israel virtually unconditional support, including the lavish replenishment of its arms stocks, the deployment of marines and two aircraft carrier task forces to the region, and the veto of a U.N. Security Council Resolution calling for a ceasefire, could do more to incentivize Iranians to seek a nuclear deterrent than anything else.

Vows to isolate Iran “internationally and diplomatically” are also unwarranted as Iran, despite its rhetorical support for Hamas, has so far demonstrated considerable restraint. While hardline ideological hostility to Israel is wired into the Islamic Republic’s identity, the actual position Tehran adopted towards the Israel-Palestine conflict is much more nuanced, more in line with the Arab and Islamic (and indeed broad international) mainstream consensus that insists on a viable two-state solution. Instead of building on these shifts, however modest and tentative, Washington seems to prefer to double down on confrontation.

The sad irony is that this explosive situation could have been avoided had Joe Biden had the courage and wisdom to deliver on his own election campaign promise to restore the nuclear agreement with Iran. ………. https://responsiblestatecraft.org/biden-iran-nuclear-deal/

December 13, 2023 Posted by | Iran, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Ralph Nader on Israeli Government’s War Crimes – Enabled & Defended by Biden & Congress

By Ralph Nader / Nader.org, more https://scheerpost.com/2023/12/10/ralph-nader-on-israeli-governments-war-crimes-enabled-defended-by-biden-congress/

The humiliation of the U.S. government, which is actively complicit in providing the weaponry, funding, and UN vetoes backing the Israeli government’s attack on the civilian Palestinians/Arabs in tiny Gaza, is in plain view daily. All in the name of the unasked American people and taxpayers.

Earlier this week, at a House of Representatives’ hearing, Trump toady Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) repeatedly assailed three University presidents with the question of would they discipline students calling for the genocide of Jews, without any evidence that this hateful speech is prevalent on campus.

Pursuing her fulminations, Stefanik was cruelly oblivious to the real ongoing genocide in Gaza with her support of unconditional shipment of American F-16s, 155mm. missiles and other weapons of mass destruction used to kill children, women and the elderly who had nothing to do with the preventable October 7th Hamas violence.

Meanwhile, a State Department spokesman continues to say that the Israeli government does not intentionally target civilians. With U.S. drones over Gaza daily, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has visual proof that the overwhelming bombing on civilian structures is killing innocent civilians.

The evidence is in the rubble of hospitals, health clinics, ambulances, schools, libraries, places of worship, marketplaces, water mains, homes, apartment buildings, and piles of unburied corpses being eaten by stray dogs.  All this information is in the possession of bomber Biden’s regime.

The Bidenites and their bloodthirsty cohorts in Congress were forewarned when the Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant and other Israeli officials on October 8th shouted these chilling genocidal orders to their army: “No electricity, no food, no fuel, no water.… We are fighting human animals and will act accordingly.” (See, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide). Add an already illegal 16-year Israeli blockade of 2.3 Palestinians suffering from dire poverty, with 40% of their children down with anemia.

Now, about half of Gaza’s population are children, 85% of the entire population is homeless, wandering helplessly into nowhere, afflicted with pending starvation, sickened by spreading infectious diseases and dirty drinking water.  There is little or no medicines for diabetics and cancer patients. No surgery, no anesthesia, no emergency transport, no shelter from cold weather, only American-made bombs and missiles blowing up Palestinians into bits with Israeli snipers everywhere.

The Palestinians cannot flee from their open-air prison.  They cannot surrender – the Israeli government wants them gone. Bear in mind, the population that is not yet blown up is sick and dying, denied needed outside humanitarian aid. Defying feeble Biden’s wishes, Netanyahu only allows a trickle of aid trucks to enter Gaza, and those that do enter can scarcely reach their destinations.

All this raises the issue of the gross undercount of casualties. The Hamas Health Authority has restricted its count to the names of the deceased and injured supplied by hospitals and morgues. These locations are now largely rubble or inoperative. Bodies under the rubble, many of them children, can’t be counted. Thousands of missing people cannot be counted. The Ministry’s suspended count is over 17,000 fatalities, plus 45,000 injuries. With the far larger carnage unable to be tabulated, the actual fatality toll may reach 100,000 soon.

Nonetheless, about two weeks ago, the New York Times reported the death undercount of children in Gaza in two months was ten times greater than the deaths of Ukrainian children in nearly two years of Russian bombings. One of its headlines – “Smoldering Gaza Becomes a Graveyard for Children.”

There are about 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza and about 5,500 of them are due to give birth. Where are they going to do that? How can they be cared for and be nurtured? These mothers are sick and starving. Add the babies to the terrorists toll.

Gaza’s area is about the size of Philadelphia. How many dead, injured, and dying people would there be if 20,000 bombs were dropped on civilians and civilian structures in Philadelphia? Philadelphians trapped without food, water, medicine or any escape route. Imagine 85% of 1.5 million residents homeless, wandering in the streets and alleys. And with virtually no humanitarian aid coming from outside the city. There wouldn’t be any fire trucks or water to extinguish spreading fires.

There are courageous Jewish groups (e.g., Jewish Voice for Peace and If Not Now) and rabbis calling for an end to the slaughter, demanding a ceasefire. There are protestors at all of Biden’s public events/trips reminding him of next November.

Veterans for Peace and other veteran groups are engaged in non-violent civil disobedience in front of the Scranton, Pennsylvania factory producing 155mm missiles for Israel. (Scranton is Biden’s hometown.) Public opinion is turning against the Biden/Israel war without limits on the Palestinians.

Biden wouldn’t want to poll the American people about his $14.3 billion genocide tax, charging American taxpayers to further prosperous Israel’s war of extermination in Gaza. They’ll likely tell Biden that poor children, unaffordable health facilities and other necessities in America need that money first.

There are some 30 Democratic Senators demanding that this Biden bill contain conditions and safeguards so that the money is not used to blow up more Palestinian children and women. But what else are these funds for other than to expand Israel’s military budget? The Israeli extremist ruling coalition under Netanyahu has made no secret of wanting to take over all of remaining Palestine as part of their “Greater Israel” mission to include what they call Judea and Samaria. As Israel’s Founder, David Ben-Gurion, frankly declared referring to the Palestinians, “We have taken their country.” (As quoted in The Jewish Paradox(1978) by Nahum Goldmann.)

It is a cruel irony of history that Israeli state terrorism is producing a Palestinian Holocaust. Netanyahu’s regime has killed over 60 journalists—three of them Israelis—120 United Nations relief workers and instituted total blackouts to keep the grisly events in Gaza out of the news in real time. Netanyahu, to shield his colossal failure to defend Israel on October 7thand to keep his job, is making sure that his country joins the world community of savage, slaughtering regimes, exemplified by the Bush/Cheney unlawful criminal destruction of Iraq and Afghanistan, followed by Hillary Clinton toppling Libya into permanent violence and chaos since 2011. (Obama later called his conceding to Hillary’s demands as his worst foreign policy decision).

Capitol Hill and the White House don’t wait for any blood-guilt to be recognized. That will surely come later with the judgment of history and the nightmarish visions of innocents being vaporized because of Washington’s unconditional backing of the Israeli blitzkrieg against what the Israeli newspaper Haaretz has repeatedly called the “totally defenseless people” of Gaza.

December 12, 2023 Posted by | Israel, politics international, Reference, secrets,lies and civil liberties, weapons and war | Leave a comment

US Blocks Gaza Peace Proposal at UN for 3rd Time, Holding World Hostage

The US government has paralyzed the United Nations, voting against the rest of the world and preventing peace in Gaza by vetoing three different resolutions in the Security Council. Meanwhile, Washington continues giving weapons to Israel.

By Ben Norton / Geopolitical Economy Report

The United States has used its veto power in the United Nations Security Council three times in less than two months to kill resolutions calling for peace in Gaza.

Meanwhile, Washington is sending billions of dollars worth of weapons to Israel, directly assisting the country as it commits war crimes against Palestinian civilians.

On December 8, the Security Council voted on a resolution that called for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” and the unconditional release of all hostages.

The United States was the only country on the 15-member council that voted against the measure.

Close US ally the United Kingdom was the only country to abstain in the vote.

The United States helped to design the United Nations after World War II, concentrating power in the Security Council and giving permanent seats with veto power to the victors: the US, UK, France, USSR (now Russia), and China.

Many countries in the Global South have called to expand the Security Council and to eliminate the veto.

China and Russia have repeatedly expressed support for expanding the council. But Washington has adamantly opposed the initiative.

Global South leaders are particularly frustrated by the fact that the UK and France, each of which has a population of fewer than 70 million people, both have permanent seats on the Security Council, but not many of the most populous countries on Earth, such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nigeria, or Brazil.

Brazil’s left-wing President Lula da Silva stressed this November that the failure of the UN to bring peace to Palestine demonstrates that the system is “broken” and has a “lack of credibility”.

“The UN needs change”, Lula said, calling to expand the Security Council and remove the veto.

“The UN of 1945 does not work in 2023”, the Brazilian leader added.

US rebukes UN secretary-general’s historic invocation of article 99

UN Secretary-General António Guterres has publicly called for a ceasefire in Gaza, but was rejected by Washington.

Guterres took the extraordinary measure of invoking article 99 of the UN Charter, for the first time in five decades.

Article 99 states, “The Secretary-General may bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security”.

The Associated Press noted, “Article 99 is extremely rarely used. The last time it was invoked was during fighting in 1971 that led to the creation of Bangladesh and its separation from Pakistan”.

In the case of the Bangladeshi national liberation war of 1971, Pakistan’s right-wing military regime ethnically cleansed and committed genocide against Bengalis, with the support of the US government – specifically President Richard Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger.

The genocidal situation in Palestine is strikingly similar today.

This November, top UN experts warned that “grave violations committed by Israel against Palestinians… point to a genocide in the making”.

The UN experts wrote:

[Israeli officials] illustrated evidence of increasing genocidal incitement, overt intent to “destroy the Palestinian people under occupation”, loud calls for a ‘second Nakba’ in Gaza and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory, and the use of powerful weaponry with inherently indiscriminate impacts, resulting in a colossal death toll and destruction of life-sustaining infrastructure.

The Wall Street Journal reported on December 1 that the “U.S. has provided Israel with large bunker buster bombs, among tens of thousands of other weapons and artillery shells”.

In less than two months, Washington sent Israel approximately 15,000 bombs and 57,000 artillery shells.

In fact, Gaza is now one of the most heavily bombed areas in history, according to a report in the Financial Times.

US vetoed two other Security Council resolutions on Gaza

The United States voted against two similar resolutions in October.

On October 16, the US and its allies the UK, France, and Japan voted against a measure introduced by Russia that called for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.

Two days later, the US unilaterally vetoed a resolution introduced by Brazil that urged “humanitarian pauses” in Gaza.

The UK abstained in that vote. Russia did too, but as a form of protest, arguing that the resolution was too weak, instead urging a ceasefire.

At the Security Council meeting on December 8, Russia’s UN representative, Dmitriy Polyanskiy, warned that the United States was “leaving scorched earth in its wake”.

China’s ambassador, Zhang Jun, stated, “The task required of the Council is very clear and definitive – act immediately, achieve a ceasefire, protect civilians and avoid a human catastrophe on a larger scale”.

139 of the 193 members of the United Nations recognize Palestine as a sovereign state, but it is not officially a UN member state – because the United States has prevented it from becoming one.

Palestine does however have observer status in the UN (along with the Vatican).

The representative of the observer state of Palestine, Riyad Mansour, participated in the December 8 Security Council session.

“Millions of Palestinian lives hang in the balance, every single one of them is sacred and worth saving”, he cautioned.

By failing to approve a ceasefire, the Security Council is ensuring that Israeli “war criminals are given more time to perpetrate their crimes”, Mansour added.

The Palestinian representative asked, “How can this be justified? How can anyone justify the slaughter of an entire people?”

December 12, 2023 Posted by | Israel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The Chris Hedges Report: The Weapons Israel Tests on Palestinians Will Be Used Against All of Us

byEDITORDecember 11, 2023

As Antony Loewenstein explains, Palestine has been a testing ground for repressive technologies exported around the world, from spy software to killer drones.

By Chris Hedges / The Real News Network

Whether it’s drone technology or the infamous Pegasus spy software, Israel has long developed and refined repressive technologies used by governments around the world by testing them on Palestinians. Antony Loewenstein, journalist and author of The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World, joins The Chris Hedges Report for a deep dive into the disturbing links between Israeli Apartheid, the arms industry, and global repression of civilian populations.

December 12, 2023 Posted by | Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Israel’s genocide in Gaza has Biden’s green light

The White House’s circumvention of Congressional review is consistent with its refusal to follow US law, which bars weapons transfers to countries that commit serious human rights abuses.

The Biden administration has evaded this requirement by simply pretending that it is a helpless bystander, rather than willing accomplice.  

Ignoring US laws and its own token promises, the Biden administration protects Israel’s extermination campaign in Gaza.

AARON MATÉ, DEC 12, 2023

As Israeli warplanes resumed bombing Gaza on December 1st, putting an end to a seven-day pause, Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s motorcade “sped out of his hotel in Israel on its way to the Tel Aviv airport,” the Washington Post reported.

Before exiting Israel, Blinken claimed that he had pressed its government to prioritize “minimizing harm to innocent civilians.” But according to Axios, “Blinken didn’t ask Israel to stop the operation but… said the longer the high-intensity military campaign goes on, the more international pressure will build on both the U.S. and Israel to stop it.”

Additionally, Blinken asked Israel to “make sure that a military operation in southern Gaza doesn’t lead to an even higher amount of civilian casualties.” To Blinken, “minimizing harm” to the people of Gaza apparently means murdering slightly fewer of them.

After more than one week of relentless Israeli attacks on civilian targets, Blinken has been forced to acknowledge that even his token requests were ignored. When it comes to Israel’s assault, Blinken said Thursday, “there does remain a gap between exactly what I said when I was there — the intent to protect civilians — and the actual results that we’re seeing on the ground.”

There is not merely a gap between what Blinken and his colleagues say out loud and the reality on the ground, but an endless chasm.

One month ago, the Biden administration claimed that it was pressuring Israel to use smaller bombs against the densely populated Gaza Strip. “If the United States can get those smaller munitions to Israel, American officials hope Israel will use them to mitigate the risk to civilians,” the New York Times reported on Nov. 4th. That talking point is long forgotten. “In the first month and a half, Israel dropped more than 22,000 guided and unguided bombs on Gaza that were supplied by Washington,” according to US intelligence figures obtained by the Washington Post. During this same period, the US has given Israel at least 15,000 bombs, including 2,000-pound bunker busters. So much for “smaller bombs.”

The Wall Street Journal characterizes the current US approach as “urging its top ally in the region to consider preventing large-scale civilian casualties while supplying many of the munitions deployed.” The US position is therefore akin to an accomplice continuing to re-arm a school shooter’s assault rifle while asking him to consider slaughtering fewer students. The Biden administration is so committed to fueling the carnage in Gaza that it has even invoked rare emergency powers for transferring tank ammunition without Congressional review. “The arms shipment has been put on an expedited track, and Congress has no power to stop it,” the New York Times reports.

The White House’s circumvention of Congressional review is consistent with its refusal to follow US law, which bars weapons transfers to countries that commit serious human rights abuses. The Biden administration has evaded this requirement by simply pretending that it is a helpless bystander, rather than willing accomplice.  

As the first phase of Israel’s military campaign expanded to multiple hospitals in mid-November, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted to CNN that his military “is doing an exemplary job trying to minimize civilian casualties,” and “fighting according to international law.”……………………………………………………………………….. more https://www.aaronmate.net/p/israels-genocide-in-gaza-has-bidens?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=100118&post_id=139684163&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&utm_medium=email

December 12, 2023 Posted by | Israel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The View from Washington: Let the Killing in Gaza Continue

As this farcical theatre of constipated morality unfolded, the Biden administration was happy to beef up the Israeli war machine by asking Congress to urgently approve the sale of 45,000 shells for the IDF’s Merkava tanks to aid its offensive in Gaza. The sale, worth around $500 million, does not form part of Biden’s $110.5 billion supplemental request that covers funding for both Ukraine and Israel.

In pursuing such a course of action, be it defending Israel’s policies in the Security Council, or via armaments, the US is effectively colluding in the perpetration of crimes against humanity.

December 10, 2023, https://theaimn.com/the-view-from-washington-let-the-killing-in-gaza-continue/ by: Dr Binoy Kampmark

Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion. The ongoing campaign in Gaza by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction. But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge for the propaganda outlets: How to justify it? Fortunately for Israel, the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence.

Such cover also takes the form of false fairness and forced balance. “We don’t have to choose between defending Israel and aiding Palestinian civilians,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrote inanely in the Washington Post on October 31. “We can and must do both. That is the only way to stand firmly by one of our closest allies, protecting innocent lives, uphold the international rules of the road that ultimately benefit the American people, and preserve the sole viable path to lasting peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians: two states for two peoples.” Given that innocent lives are being taken with mechanistic ruthlessness, international laws broken with impunity, and any remnant of a Palestinian state being liquidated, Blinken seemingly inhabits a parallel universe of mind-bending cynicism.

The latest attempt to halt hostilities came in the form of an intervention by UN Secretary-General António Guterres under the auspices of Article 99 of the UN Charter. The article grants the secretary-general the liberty to “bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion, may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security.”

In his December 6 letter to the members of the Security Council, Guterres gives a brief account of the conflict, commencing on October 7. After noting the death of 1,200 Israelis and 250 abductions (130 are still being held in captivity in Gaza), the focus shifts to the death of over 15,000 individuals in the strip itself, “more than 40 per cent of whom were children.” Somewhere in the order of 80 per cent of the population of 2.2 million residents in Gaza had been displaced, with 1.1 million seeking refuge in UNRWA facilities across the strip “creating overcrowded, undignified, and unhygienic conditions.” The provision of viable health care had all but ceased, with 14 hospitals of 36 facilities “partially functional.” Overall, Gaza was facing “a severe risk of collapse of the humanitarian system.”

The secretary-general concludes his note by urging the Security Council members “to press to avert a humanitarian catastrophe” and seek a “humanitarian ceasefire”. But on December 8, Washington predictably sabotaged the passage of the follow up resolution, which had been proposed by the United Arab Emirates. (Thirteen countries voted for the measure; with the United Kingdom abstaining.) The resolution demanded an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza and the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages and ensuring humanitarian access.

The US deputy ambassador to the UN Robert A. Wood, claimed that he and the delegation had “engaged in good faith on the text.” But “nearly all” of Washington’s recommendations had been ignored, resulting in “an unbalanced resolution divorced from reality on the ground.” Again, a sticking point was the omission in the draft of any reference to Hamas’s attack on October 7, Israel’s right to self-defence, and reference to any permission for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to access and provide medical treatment to the hostages still being held by Hamas.

With the gloves off, Wood made it clear that, in solidarity with Israel, the US will not countenance the continued existence of Hamas. “The resolution retains a call for an unconditional ceasefire – this is not only unrealistic but dangerous; it will simply leave Hamas in place, able to regroup and repeat what it did on 7 October.”

While Israel’s UN ambassador, Gilad Erdan, was not present to address the Security Council, he subsequently affirmed the blood curdling, unending mission his country has embarked upon. “A ceasefire will only be possible only with the return of all the hostages and the destruction of Hamas.”

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As this farcical theatre of constipated morality unfolded, the Biden administration was happy to beef up the Israeli war machine by asking Congress to urgently approve the sale of 45,000 shells for the IDF’s Merkava tanks to aid its offensive in Gaza. The sale, worth around $500 million, does not form part of Biden’s $110.5 billion supplemental request that covers funding for both Ukraine and Israel.

In pursuing such a course of action, be it defending Israel’s policies in the Security Council, or via armaments, the US is effectively colluding in the perpetration of crimes against humanity. This was certainly the view of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who said in a statement released by his office that “the American position is aggressive and immoral, a flagrant violation of all humanitarian principles and values, and holds the United States responsible for the bloodshed of Palestinian children, women and elderly people in the Gaza Strip.”

Amnesty International’s Secretary General, Agnès Callamard also expressed the view that the US, in vetoing the resolution, had “displayed a callous disregard for civilian suffering in the face of a staggering death toll, extensive destruction and an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe happening in the occupied Gaza Strip.” Washington had “brazenly wielded and weaponized its veto to strongarm the UN Security Council, further undermining its credibility and ability to live up to its mandate to maintain international peace and security.” Not that it had much credibility to begin with.

December 12, 2023 Posted by | Israel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Iran Dismisses Fears Over Its Nuclear Program

Iran has dismissed global concern over its “peaceful nuclear program, claiming it poses “no threat” and does not require a new treaty deal.

Iran International 12 Dec23

Foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani spoke of Iran’s “commitment to peaceful endeavors within international frameworks” in response to rising international concern over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear activities.

He told a press briefing in Tehran: “This has been recognized and confirmed in fifteen reports by the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency], highlighting Iran’s missile activities as part of its deterrent capabilities. Our activities in this regard are transparent and pose no threat to anyone.”

Kanaani rejected suggestions that the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear treaty should be revived, saying: “Iran no longer considers the JCPOA necessary.”

Addressing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “robust disapproval” over Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s recent unannounced visit to Moscow, Kanaani said: “We do not pay attention to the statements of specific parties in bilateral relations between Iran and friendly countries. Such statements will not affect our efforts to deepen relations with partners in various fields.”………………………. https://www.iranintl.com/en/202312114383

December 12, 2023 Posted by | Iran, politics international | Leave a comment

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