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  • EU Gaza Resolution Slammed as ‘Green Light for Butchery to Continue’

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

    European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell gestures as he speaks during a debate on the humanitarian situation in Gaza, at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, eastern France on November 22, 2023.  (Photo by Frederick Florin/AFP via Getty Images)

    The final text advocated for a “permanent cease-fire and to restart efforts towards a political solution provided that all hostages are immediately and unconditionally released and the terrorist organisation Hamas is dismantled.”

    For the first time since Israel’s assault on Gaza began on October 7, the European Parliament called for a cease-fire Thursday—but not without significant conditions that critics said strip the resolution of all meaning.

    The measure passed 312 to 131, with 72 abstaining.

    Instead of endorsing an unconditional cease-fire, the text backed “a permanent cease-fire and to restart efforts towards a political solution provided that all hostages are immediately and unconditionally released and the terrorist organisation Hamas is dismantled,” as Agence France-Pressereported

    “It is not a call for a cease-fire. It is an open-ended license for genocide, and will be understood by Israel as such.”

    The Members of European Parliament (MEPs) expressed sorrow over all civilian deaths.

    “While condemning in the strongest possible terms the despicable terrorist attacks committed by Hamas against Israel, they also denounce the disproportionate Israeli military response, which has caused a civilian death toll on an unprecedented scale,” the parliament said in a statement.

    Hamas’ October 7 attack on southern Israel killed about 1,100 people and resulted in the taking of 240 hostages. Israel’s bombardment and invasion of Gaza has now killed 24,620 people and wounded 61,830, according to Thursday’s update from Gaza’s Ministry of Health.

    The resolution also called for humanitarian access to the Gaza Strip, restarting the peace process with a goal of implementing a two-state solution, ending Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories, and accountability for all who carried out terrorist attacks or violated international law.

    The vote comes the week after South Africa presented a case to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) arguing that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The text reiterates the E.U.’s support for the work of both the ICJ and the International Criminal Court.

    The resolution was the result of a compromise between different parties in the parliament. The socialist, centrist, and green parties had all supported a resolution calling for a cease-fire, a political solution to the conflict, the release of the hostages, and the dismantling of Hamas, Reuters explained. However, the largest party in the body—the European People’s Party (EPP)—hesitated to join them and added an amendment that conditioned the cease-fire and restarting of the peace process on the release of hostages and the dismantling of Hamas.

    “Sustainable peace cannot exist as long as Hamas and other terrorist groups hijack the Palestinian cause and threaten the existence of Israel, the only democracy in the region,” EPP MEP Antonio López-Istúriz told the body on Tuesday, as Euronews reported.

    However, Manus Carlisle, the policy and press officer for Green MEP Grace O’Sullivan, said on social media that EPP had “sabotaged” the resolution by making the cease-fire conditional on the ending of Hamas, “which arguably makes the call entirely meaningless.”

    O’Sullivan herself wrote on social media that EPP’s amendment “hands Israel a blank cheque to continue the massacre for as long as they want.”

    “We need a braver E.U. than this,” she said.

    Independents 4 Change MEPs Mick Wallace and Clare Daly denounced the text of the resolution.

    “Reporting characterizing it as ‘the European Parliament calls for a permanent ceasefire’ is a misrepresentation of the text that has actually been passed,” they wrote in a statement. “Under no circumstances should it be allowed to go unchallenged.”

    The MEPs pointed out that the parliament’s conditions for a cease-fire were the same as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s.

    “This is Israel’s repeatedly stated pretext for genocide, plain and simple, adopted by the European Parliament,” Wallace and Daly wrote in a statement. “It is not a call for a cease-fire. It is an open-ended license for genocide, and will be understood by Israel as such. The people of Gaza who are being murdered in their thousands by Israel are not responsible for the actions of Hamas.”

    “In every respect, this resolution is the opposite of what is needed,” they added. “While the text claims to be a call for a cease-fire, it is a green light for butchery to continue.”

    The resolution as a whole is non-binding, Reuters explained, though European Parliament resolutions can sometimes have an influence on foreign governments. The final text will be sent to other E.U. institutions, E.U. members, Israel, Palestinian officials, Egypt, and the United Nations.

    Previously, the parliament had called for a humanitarian pause to allow aid into Gaza, but had not gone further and demanded a cease-fire, according to Euronews. The leaders of E.U. member states have not agreed to call for a cease-fire as a bloc and still endorse “humanitarian pauses and corridors.”

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

  • ‘Banker of the Climate Crisis’: Lawsuit Targets ING in the Netherlands

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

    “Whether you are drilling for oil yourself, or have paid for the drill, in both cases you are contributing to and bear responsibility for the climate crisis we are currently experiencing,” one campaigner said of the suit against the Dutch banking giant.

    Friends of the Earth Netherlands, which won a historic climate case against Shell in 2021, announced a new lawsuit on Friday against ING, the country’s largest bank.

    The environmental group, known as Milieudefensie in Dutch, is demanding that the bank bring its climate policy in line with the Paris agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C, slash its carbon dioxide emissions by 48% of 2019 levels by 2030 and its carbon-dioxide equivalent emissions by 43%, take measures to ensure its clients are not destroying the Earth, and begin a dialogue with Milieudefensie about meeting these demands.

    “The bank finances oil and gas companies, deforestation, and heavy industry, all of which add to the climate crisis,” Milieudefensie director Donald Pols said in a statement. “Whether you are drilling for oil yourself, or have paid for the drill, in both cases you are contributing to and bear responsibility for the climate crisis we are currently experiencing.”

    In 2022, ING emitted at least 61 megatons of climate pollution, more than Ghana, Switzerland, or Sweden. Almost all of ING’s emissions come through the companies it invests in and does business with, and it emits more than any other bank in the Netherlands.

    “He who pays the piper calls the tune. Due to ING’s financing of, e.g., oil and gas companies, ING is the banker of the climate crisis,” Pols said.

    In a letter to ING, Milieudefensie outlined several steps the bank should take to reduce the climate footprint of its investments. These included requiring all clients to develop a Paris-compliant climate plan and refusing large clients that don’t develop one within a year, requiring all fossil fuel clients to stop expanding fossil fuels and develop a plan to phase them out entirely, and cutting ties with clients who refuse after one year.

    “Large polluters like ING and Shell have to seriously get to work.”

    In the letter, Miliedefensie said that ING had eight weeks from Friday to respond to its demands.

    “If ING does not present a positive answer to Milieudefensie’s claims within the requested period of time, Milieudefensie will assume that ING is unwilling to comply with this request,” the group wrote in the letter. “Milieudefensie will in such case see no other option than to issue summons against ING with the goal of obtaining a court order instructing ING to take the aforementioned measures.”

    The environmental group said that the legal argument behind its victory against Shell would also apply against ING, namely that large corporations must comply with the Paris agreement.

    “Since the climate agreements in Paris, it is clear what the world needs to do: reduce the CO2 emissions to limit the warming of the Earth to 1.5°C,” the group’s attorney Roger Cox said in a statement. “This means that large polluters like ING and Shell have to seriously get to work. It is evident that they are not doing enough, and I am therefore confident that we will win this case too.”

    While ING has made some progress on its internal climate goals, Mileudefensie believes it is not moving fast enough, as it plans to continue funding oil and gas projects through 2040 and has not set any goals for reducing its total emissions.

    “We young people are not in charge, but companies like ING, with their fossil fuel financing, are helping to ruin our world and future,” Winnie Oussoren, a 21-year-old who chairs Young Friends of the Earth Netherlands, said in a statement.

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

  • Damning poll reveals what the public really think about the Rwanda scheme

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    https://leftfootforward.org/2024/01/damning-poll-reveals-what-the-public-really-think-about-the-rwanda-scheme/

    Rishi Sunak has staked his political future on getting the Rwanda scheme off the ground. Under the proposals, asylum seekers who arrive in the UK other than through an existing asylum scheme would be deported to Rwanda where their claim would then be processed.

    …

    Polling from YouGov found that if Labour were to win the next election, 40% of voters would want Keir Starmer to scrap the plan. That compares to 34% who think it should be kept.

    Asking a slightly different question, YouGov more recently found that just one in five voters think the Rwanda scheme should be pushed through in its current form. Again, 40% of the public think it should be scrapped altogether.

    …

    https://leftfootforward.org/2024/01/damning-poll-reveals-what-the-public-really-think-about-the-rwanda-scheme/

  • Shell urged to improve environmental targets in biggest climate resolution to date, as activists hold ‘Go To Hell Shell’ event in London

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    https://leftfootforward.org/2024/01/shell-urged-to-improve-environmental-targets-in-biggest-climate-resolution-to-date-as-activists-hold-go-to-hell-shell-event-in-london/

    ‘The time is over for oily corporations to operate with impunity.’

    A group of 27 investors, owning around 5 percent of Shell’s shares, is demanding the multinational improves its environmental targets. The resolution is the biggest such drive to date and was coordinated by the activist group Follow This.

    Similar motions have been organised by the group at Shell meetings since 2016. Last year, a resolution put forward by Follow This won the backing of 20 percent of shareholders in what was an eventful AGM where protesters tried to storm the stage.

    However, support for the upcoming resolution has drawn the largest number of investment managers, said Mark van Baal, founder of Follow This. It includes Europe’s largest asset manager, Amundi. 

    The group calls on Shell to align its ‘medium term’ greenhouse gas emission target with the Paris Agreement, to limit global warming. The resolution will be brought to a vote at Shell’s annual general meeting later this year.

    The bid to shore up pressure on Shell’s climate commitments comes as its CEO, Wael Sawan, aims to boost the company’s profits, partly by increasing fossil fuel production and slowing down investments in renewables. In October 2023, Shell announced it was to cut at least 15 percent of its low-carbon solutions division workforce and scale back on its hydrogen business.

    …

    https://leftfootforward.org/2024/01/shell-urged-to-improve-environmental-targets-in-biggest-climate-resolution-to-date-as-activists-hold-go-to-hell-shell-event-in-london/

  • Barrister slams ‘poisonous’ Tory rhetoric about refugees on BBC Question Time

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    https://leftfootforward.org/2024/01/barrister-slams-poisonous-tory-rhetoric-about-refugees-on-bbc-question-time/

    “They are dividing a society. They are making us feel like refugees are the scum”

    The government’s attempts to get the controversial Rwanda scheme off the ground have been dominating the news cycle this week. As such, it was a major topic of debate on this week’s edition of the BBC‘s flagship political debate show Question Time.

    Hashi Mohamed – a barrister and author – appeared on the show, which was broadcast from Peterborough. During the show, he condemned the government’s Rwanda scheme in response to a question from the audience which asked: ‘Is the Rwanda plan worth all the money, time and resignations?’

    Mohamed began his response by saying: “First things first, it’s important to acknowledge that people are really concerned about the boat crossings and so many people are dying and something has to be done. I think any rational person agrees on that level.”

    He then went on to point out that a similar scheme to that proposed by the Tories has been in place between the Israeli and Rwandan governments, something absent from much of the conversation about the proposed plan.

    Mohamed said: “Two years ago, I travelled to Dresden, the German town, and I met an Eritrean man who had been deported from Israel to Rwanda. He’d been paid to go to Rwanda. Rwanda had a reciprocal arrangement with Israel to take refugees.

    “When he got there, the Rwandans said: ‘You don’t need to stay. There’s the door.’ And he used the money that he was given to make his way back – that treacherous journey – and he made his way to Dresden where he sought asylum again.

    …

    https://leftfootforward.org/2024/01/barrister-slams-poisonous-tory-rhetoric-about-refugees-on-bbc-question-time/