Daily Archives: 3 December 2024

‘Unhinged’ Trump Vows ‘There Will Be All Hell to Pay’ If Hostages Not Released

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Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

A woman holding a girl reacts after Israeli airstrikes hit the Ridwan neighborhood of Gaza City, Gaza on October 23, 2023.  (Photo: Ali Jadallah/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“Someone tell Trump that Israel already unleashed hell on Gaza, and hostages were not released.”

In an early signal of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s foreign policy plans for when he returns to office next month, the Republican said Monday “there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East” if Hamas does not release hostages taken from Israel, the occupying military force in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Trump demanded hostages seized during the October 7 attack of last year be released or his promised retribution would follow. Nearly 45,000 Palestinians have already been killed—mostly civilian men, women, and children—since Israel launched a full-scale invasion of Gaza in the wake of the Hamas-led operation.

Of the 251 people taken captive last year, 63 are believed to be still alive in Gaza, according toThe Washington Post‘s tracker, which was updated last week. So far, 117 others have been freed or rescued and 71 have been confirmed killed.

After dining with Sara Netanyahu, the wife of Israel’s prime minister, at the Trump International Golf Club in Florida Sunday night, the U.S. president-elect made his threat about the hostages on his Truth Social platform Monday afternoon.

“Everybody is talking about the hostages who are being held so violently, inhumanely, and against the will of the entire World, in the Middle East,” Trump wrote. “But it’s all talk, and no action! Please let this TRUTH serve to represent that if the hostages are not released prior to January 20, 2025, the date that I proudly assume Office as President of the United States, there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East, and for those in charge who perpetrated these atrocities against Humanity.”

“Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America,” Trump added. “RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW!”

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Stephen Pollard, editor-at-large The Jewish Chronicle, responded that “this is the message the president of the USA should have sent on October 8, 2023.”

Noting Pollard’s comments, Rohan Talbot, director of advocacy and campaigns at the U.K.-based Medical Aid for Palestinians, said: “Genuinely interested to know what Stephen thinks the U.S. could have supported Israel to do in Gaza beyond what it currently has. Nukes?”

“This statement is unhinged—’there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East,'” Talbot added.

Andreas Krieg, a senior lecturer in the School of Security Studies at King’s College London, said, “Someone tell Trump that Israel already unleashed hell on Gaza, and hostages were not released.”

Drop Site News highlighted that “Trump’s statement—which follows a video released over the weekend by Hamas’ armed wing featuring U.S.-Israeli captive Edan Alexander and explicitly addressing Trump—does not acknowledge that Netanyahu has repeatedly sabotaged cease-fire deals that could have freed Israeli hostages. It also appears timed to position himself to claim credit for any progress in cease-fire talks, as negotiations between Hamas and Egyptian mediators are already underway.”

As the American Jewish outlet Forward reported Monday:

The White House is attempting a final push to get… a deal done. President Joe Biden said last week that the cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon had created an opportunity to reignite stalled negotiations for a similar deal in Gaza. “We will use every day we have in office to try to generate as much progress towards that end as possible,” Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, said Sunday morning on ABC‘s “This Week.”

Given the failed efforts in the past, the families of the American hostages are hoping Trump could leverage his popularity in Israel and his relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take immediate action during the transition period. “Trump must not wait until he is inaugurated to help reach a deal that secures the freedom for Edan, six other Americans, and the rest of the hostages,” Adi and Yael Alexander, the parents of Edan, said on Saturday.

Despite an abundance of evidence showing how Israel is using U.S. weapons to slaughter civilians in Gaza and severely restricting the flow of humanitarian aid while claiming to target Hamas, Biden and Congress have refused to cut off arms to Netanyahu’s government. In fact, just hours after the cease-fire between the Israeli government and Hezbollah took effect—a deal that Israel has since violated approximately 100 times—the Financial Times reported last week that “Biden has provisionally approved a $680 million weapons sale to Israel.”

Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

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‘Frontlines of a Crisis We Did Not Create’: Low-Lying Nations Make Climate Case to ICJ

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Original article by Eloise Goldsmith republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Ralph Regenvanu (left), Vanuatu’s special envoy on climate change and the environment; Arnold Kiel Loughman (center), attorney general of Vanuatu; and Ilan Kiloe (right), legal advisor to the Melanesian Spearhead Group attend the advisory opinion sessions at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, Netherlands on December 2, 2024. (Photo: Selman Aksunger/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“What started in the Pacific is now a historic climate justice campaign, as the world’s most urgent problem of climate change reaches the worlds highest court,” said one campaigner.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) heard arguments Monday in the largest climate case ever brought before it as a coalition of low-lying and developing nations demanded larger polluting nations be held to account under international law for causing “significant harm to the climate system and other parts of the environment” with runaway fossil fuel emissions over recent decades.

In the first day of hearings in The Hague that could last weeks, multiple representatives from the Pacific island of Vanuatu, which is leading the coalition of over 100 countries and allied organizations, laid the blame for the climate crisis at the feed of a small number of states that are large emitters of greenhouse gases.

“We know what the cause of climate change is: a conduct of specific States … Vanuatu’s contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions is negligible, and yet we are among those most affected by climate change,” said Arnold Kiel Loughman, attorney general of the Republic of Vanuatu.

“We find ourselves on the frontlines of a crisis we did not create,” said Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu’s special envoy for climate change and environment, told the court.

Monday’s historic moment at The Hague follows years of work on the part of Pacific Island nations, particularly Vanuatu, to push for the ICJ to take up the issue of global warming and human rights. The stakes of the planetary emergency are particularly high for these countries, which are under threat from rising seas and other climate impacts.

Ilan Kiloe, legal counsel for the Melanesian Spearhead Group, a regional subgroup that includes Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu, issued a stark warning during his remarks to the court: “Climate change is now depriving our peoples, again, of our ability to enjoy our right to self-determination in our lands. The harsh reality is that many of our people will not survive.”

Last year, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution calling on the ICJ to issue an advisory opinion on climate change and human rights. The measure, which was introduced by Vanuatu and co-sponsored by more than 130 governments, requested that the world’s highest court outline countries’ legal responsibilities for combatting fossil fuel-driven climate change and the legal consequences of failing to meet those obligations.

Over the next two weeks, the court will hear statements from nearly 100 nations, including wealthy developed countries such as the United States. Advisory opinions, unlike judgments, are not binding—but Vanuatu and other supporters hope that a forthcoming opinion would accelerate action around the climate emergency.

The country began pushing for the ICJ resolution in 2021, following a campaign launched in 2019 by a group of students from the University of the South Pacific.

“What started in the Pacific is now a historic climate justice campaign, as the world’s most urgent problem of climate change reaches the world’s highest court,” said Shiva Gounden of Greenpeace Australia Pacific.

“The next two weeks of hearings are the culmination of collective campaigning from 2019, powerful advocacy, and mobilizing the world behind this landmark campaign, to ensure the human rights of current and future generations are protected from climate destruction, and the biggest emitters are held accountable.”

Polly Banks, Vanuatu country director for Save the Children, who travelled to The Hague for the proceedings, said that “the hearing before the Court goes to questions about the efficacy, equity and fairness of the current responses to climate change, which are particularly relevant for children, who have contributed the least to climate change but will be most affected by its consequences.”

“Currently, only 2.4% of climate finance from multilateral funding sources is child-responsive. Even without the Court’s opinion, we know that states need to do far more to protect children from the worst impacts of this crisis, by significantly increasing climate finance to uphold children’s basic rights and access to health, education and protection,” Banks added.

The start of hearings at The Hague come on the heels of a COP29 climate summit that was heavily criticized. The summit focused heavily on climate finance, but the resulting deal was panned by critics as rich nations agreed to voluntarily provide just $300 billion to help developing nations decarbonize and deal with the impacts of the climate emergency. Poor nations and climate campaigners had demanded over a trillion dollars in funding in the form of debt-free grants and direct payments.

Original article by Eloise Goldsmith republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
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Trump Picks ‘Deeply Strange’ Kash Patel—Who Vowed to ‘Come After People in the Media’—for FBI Director

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Original article by Jon Queally republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Former Chief of Staff to the United States Secretary of Defense Kash Patel speaks during a Turning Point Action ‘United for Change’ campaign rally for former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in Las Vegas, Nevada, on October 24, 2024. (Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images) Photo by Patrick T. Fallon / AFP

Kash’s nomination to lead the FBI, said one watchdog, “represents the cronyism that is coming to define the second Trump administration. Loyalty to President-elect Trump is what matters above all else.”

Watchdog critics are sounding the alarm over president-elect Donald Trump’s choice of Kashyap “Kash” Patel to be the next director of the FBI, calling the MAGA ultra-loyalist—who even former Republican colleagues describe as “dangerous” and unqualified—to be running the nation’s top law enforcement agency.

Patel, who served in the previous Trump administration as chief of staff in the Department of Defense and a counterterrorism adviser on the National Security Council, was characterized by the Associated Press earlier this year as “trusted aide and swaggering campaign surrogate who mythologizes the former president while promoting conspiracy theories and his own brand.”

Journalist Medhi Hasan, co-founder of Zeteo, said that while previously working for MSNBC he had done a deep-dive on Patel, during which he discovered just what “a deeply strange and alarming and sycophantic figure” Trump’s pick is.

“Yes, we’re going to come after people in the media.” —Kash Patel, 2023

As the New York Timesreports, Patel founded a nonprofit that provides legal assistance to individuals prosecuted for involvement in the January 6, 2021 insurrection and also runs a merchandise business which sells flashy pro-MAGA gear under the “K$H” label.

Patel, the Times notes, “sells pro-Trump T-shirts and other items as well as a series of his children’s books that pay homage to ‘King Donald.’ Mr. Patel also collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting fees from the 2024 Trump campaign and from Friends of Matt Gaetz, the campaign committee for the former House Republican from Florida, who withdrew from consideration as Mr. Trump’s attorney general after criticism over allegations of sex trafficking and drug use.”

According to the watchdog group Accountable.US, Patel is just the latest unqualified choice by a president-elect will to put “political loyalty above national security.” As the group noted in a statement:

While Patel joined the previous Trump administration in its last year and quickly rose through the ranks thanks to his hard-nosed style and fawning devotion to Donald Trump, other Trump officials reportedly regarded Patel as “dangerous” including General Mark Milley who feared he would break the law for Trump, and former Trump Attorney General Bill Barr who said “Over my dead body” when Trump entertained naming Patel deputy director of the FBI. Recently, Patel has threatened to prosecute journalists and political opponents of Trump. Patel has also reportedly spread baseless Qanon conspiracy theories and “earned hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from his own business dealings with Trump-related entities.”

Last year, during an appearance on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast, Patel vowed that Trump’s enemies would be targeted if the former president returned to power. “We will go out and find the conspirators not just in government, but in the media,” Patel said at the time.

“Yes, we’re going to come after people in the media,” Patel explained to Bannon, talking about journalists and others who he claimed “help Joe Biden rig elections.”

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Tony Carrk, Accountable’s executive director, warned Kash’s nomination to lead the FBI “represents the cronyism that is coming to define the second Trump administration. Loyalty to President-elect Trump is what matters above all else.”

“Even former Trump officials have questioned Patel’s qualifications and ability to adhere to the rule of law after he has threatened to prosecute journalists and Trump’s political opponents,” Carrk added. “Patel’s financial entanglements with the president-elect also present potential conflicts of interest. He has turned his gushing idolization of Trump into a money-making opportunity, enriching himself by promoting the Trump brand alongside his own. It says it all about Donald Trump’s priorities to once again reward a devout political crony even if it means America’s national security interests come a distant second.”

“Even in an administration full of loyalists, Patel was exceptional in his devotion.”

Writing Saturday in The Atlantic, staff writer Elaina Plott Calabro described Kash as “exactly the kind of person who would serve in a second Trump administration,” based on his personality as much as his record.

Why was he seen as “dangerous,” even among Trump administration insiders at the time?

“It wasn’t a question of ideology,” according to Calabro. “He wasn’t a zealot like Stephen Miller, trying to make the bureaucracy yield to his agenda. Rather, Patel appeared singularly focused on pleasing Trump. Even in an administration full of loyalists, Patel was exceptional in his devotion.”

Original article by Jon Queally republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue ReadingTrump Picks ‘Deeply Strange’ Kash Patel—Who Vowed to ‘Come After People in the Media’—for FBI Director

Top aid group accuses Israel of ‘suffocating’ humanitarian support into Gaza

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/top-aid-group-accuses-israel-suffocating-humanitarian-support-gaza

An Israeli armoured vehicle sits on an Israeli army position at the Israel-Gaza border, as seen from southern Israel, December 1, 2024

A TOP aid group accused the Israelis today of “suffocating” humanitarian support for the Palestinians in Gaza.

Spokesperson for the Norwegian Refugee Council, Ahmed Bayram, said the people of Gaza are suffering from a massive shortage of humanitarian supplies.

Mr Bayram said: “I think, at this rate, Israel is suffocating the support for these people,” adding that Gaza needs 25 supply trucks to enter each week instead of the “10 or 11” that bring aid into the enclave now.

He said the Israelis are not “only constraining access, the roads and the safety of the people and the aid workers, but also there is a systematic attempt here to keep people in the cold and keep them starving.”

In the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, the Israeli army has reportedly continued to target agricultural plots which has caused widespread destruction and worsened the already dire humanitarian situation facing the Palestinian people.

The World Health Organisation reported on Sunday that it had managed to drop off some food, fuel and medical supplies to the besieged Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza.

…

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/top-aid-group-accuses-israel-suffocating-humanitarian-support-gaza

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F-35 components sent to Israel from UK airbase 14 times

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https://www.declassifieduk.org/f-35-components-sent-to-israel-from-uk-airbase-14-times/

Benjamin Netanyahu welcomes a delivery of F-35s at Nevatim. (Photo: Kobi Gideon / GPO)

Exclusive: Twice as many supplies for Israel’s “most lethal” fighter jets were sent from Britain than previously known.

F-35 components have been shipped from an RAF base to Israel fourteen times amid the Gaza genocide, it can be revealed.

At least two of the deliveries took place this summer shortly after Keir Starmer became UK prime minister.

The shipments were dispatched from a Royal Air Force base in Marham, Norfolk. They were transferred to Nevatim airbase which houses the Israeli air force’s squadrons of F-35 jets.

Declassified previously revealed that seven shipments of F-35 parts had been transported from RAF Marham to Israel since the Gaza bombing began.

The Ministry of Defence has now admitted that there were in fact “14 transfers of F-35 components from RAF Marham to Israel between October 2023 and August 2024”.

There have been no further “exports of F-35 parts direct to Israel via RAF Marham since the licensing suspension” announced by the Labour government in September 2024.

It released the data in response to a parliamentary question tabled by Clive Lewis, the MP for Norwich South.

The revelation could implicate British ministers in war crimes. An Israeli F-35 fighter jet was used to bomb a designated safe zone in Gaza, killing 90 people, in July. 

Sam Perlo-Freeman of Campaign Against Arms Trade told Declassified: “The F-35 plays a key role in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. By not merely permitting but actively facilitating the supply of F-35 components to Israel from RAF bases, UK ministers have made themselves parties to war crimes, and risked making UK military personnel complicit”

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https://www.declassifieduk.org/f-35-components-sent-to-israel-from-uk-airbase-14-times/

Continue ReadingF-35 components sent to Israel from UK airbase 14 times