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Another State Department Official Resigns Over Biden Gaza Policy

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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken (L) and U.S. President Joe Biden (top C) listen as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) reads a statements before their meeting in Tel Aviv on October 18, 2023.  (Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

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

“I wasn’t able to really do my job anymore,” said Annelle Sheline. “Trying to advocate for human rights just became impossible.”

Saying her job at a State Department office that advocates for human rights in the Middle East has become “impossible” as the Biden administration continues to back Israel’s assault on civilians in Gaza, foreign affairs officer Annelle Sheline resigned from her position on Wednesday in protest of President Joe Biden’s policy in the region.

Sheline noted in an interview with The Washington Post that quitting her job in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor was not something she took lightly, with “a daughter and a mortgage”—but said her day-to-day work on human rights had become ineffectual “as long as the U.S. continues to send a steady stream of weapons to Israel.”

Despite the fact that U.S. law prohibits the government from arming countries that violate human rights—as Israel has long been accused by the United Nations of doing in its policy toward the occupied Palestinian territories—the Biden administration has approved the transfer of bombs and other weapons to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) since the military began its relentless bombardment of Gaza and blockade on nearly all humanitarian aid.

Sheline told the Post that as the news out of Gaza has grown more dire since October—with at least 32,490 Palestinians killed, at least 74,889 wounded, and parts of northern Gaza now facing famine conditions due to Israel’s blocking of aid—some of her bureau’s partners in the Middle East have stopped engaging with the State Department.

“If they are willing to engage, they mostly want to talk about Gaza rather than the fact that they are also dealing with extreme repression or threats of imprisonment,” Sheline told the Post of the activists and civil society groups her office routinely worked with to further human rights in the region before Israel’s assault began. “The first point they bring up is: How is this happening?”

“I wasn’t able to really do my job anymore,” Sheline added. “Trying to advocate for human rights just became impossible.”

Sheline is just the latest official to resign in protest of Biden’s approach to Israel and Gaza.

In October Josh Paul resigned from his position as director of congressional and public affairs for the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, where he oversaw weapons transfers to U.S. allies.

Paul told the Post that Sheline’s decision “speaks volumes about the Biden administration’s disregard for the laws, policies and basic humanity of American foreign policy that the bureau exists to advance.”

A policy adviser in the Education Department, Tariq Habash, also stepped down from his role in January, saying he could no longer be “quietly complicit” in the killing of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians.

The State Department’s internal dissent channel has also been used by numerous officials to voice outrage over the Biden administration’s continued defense of Israel’s actions.

Stephen Walt, professor of international affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School, called Sheline’s resignation “courageous.”

Feds United for Peace, a group of government workers across nearly two dozen federal agencies which organized a daylong fast in January to protest the U.S.-backed slaughter of Palestinians, expressed solidarity with Sheline.

“That decision comes at a personal and real cost to her, and is a loss of a patriotic and deeply qualified employee for the Department of State,” said the group in a statement. “Every arms shipment to Israel by the Biden administration and every one of the three vetoes of U.N. cease-fire resolutions has enabled Israeli impunity in its rampage across Gaza… Thousands of innocent lives are in President Biden’s hands; the time has come to translate gentle requests for the protection of civilians into concrete action to stop the killing.”

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

Feds United For PeaceGazaHuman RightsIsrael-Gaza WarJoe BidenPalestinePalestiniansU.S. State DepartmentIsrael

Continue ReadingAnother State Department Official Resigns Over Biden Gaza Policy

Labour members flee party over Gaza

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/labour-members-flee-party-over-gaza

Labour Party leader Keir Starmer, March 11, 2024

LABOUR membership is plummeting according to figures reported to the party’s national executive committee this week.

It has dropped by 25,000 in the first two months of 2024 alone, doubtless as a consequence of the Starmer leadership’s full support for Israeli aggression in Gaza.

The total is now 355,000, more than 200,000 down on its Corbyn-era peak.

This contrasts with the ascending membership figures in the period before Labour won the 1997 general election.

The financial impact of the drop will be mitigated, at the very least, by the party’s increasing reliance on large donations from rich backers.

In a further setback for Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, an attempt to bounce the executive into endorsing a new undemocratic structure for Labour BAME members failed, despite prior commitments to establish a democratic and self-organising body.

…

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/labour-members-flee-party-over-gaza

Zionist Keir Starmer supports Israel's Gaza genocide.
Zionist Keir Starmer supports Israel’s Gaza genocide.

Continue ReadingLabour members flee party over Gaza

‘Crucial’ UN Report on Gaza Genocide Must Spur Global Action, Says Amnesty

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

A wounded person receives treatment at a local hospital in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah on March 24, 2024.
 (Photo: Khaled Omar/Xinhua via Getty Images

U.N. member states must “use their influence” to push Israel to halt its bombardment of Gaza and blocking of humanitarian aid, said the group’s secretary general.

“The time to act to prevent genocide is now,” Amnesty International’s secretary general said Tuesday, a day after the United Nations Human Rights Council released a draft report detailing how the panel found that there are “reasonable grounds to believe” that Israel is already committing genocidal violence in Gaza.

Amnesty’s Agnes Callamard called the 25-page report a “crucial body of work that must serve as a vital call to action to states,” many of which have called for a cease-fire in Gaza for several months.

After the U.N. report found that “the overwhelming nature and scale of Israel’s assault on Gaza… reveal an intent to physically destroy Palestinians as a group,” Callamard said “states must now focus their efforts on making these calls a reality.”

“Third states must apply political pressure on the warring parties to implement the U.N. Security Council resolution adopted yesterday demanding an immediate cease-fire, use their influence to insist that Israel abides by the resolution, including by stopping the shelling and lifting restrictions on humanitarian aid,” said Callamard. “They must impose a comprehensive arms embargo against all parties to the conflict. They must also pressure Hamas and other armed groups to free all civilian hostages.”

The U.N. report was released the same day that the U.N Security Council adopted a resolution demanding an immediate, temporary cease-fire for the remainder of the month of Ramadan—the first cease-fire resolution to pass at the council following three that failed due to the U.S. vetoing the measures.

The U.S., which gives Israel $3.8 billion in annual military aid and has continued to provide support throughout the bombardment, abstained from voting on Monday’s resolution and infuriated human rights experts by baselessly claiming the vote was “nonbinding.”

The U.N. report, titled Anatomy of a Genocide, detailed actions Israel has taken since beginning its bombardment of Gaza in October that could violate Article II of the Genocide Convention, including killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction, and imposing measures intended to prevent births.

Along with killing at least 32,414 Palestinians in Gaza—73% of whom have been women and children, and the remaining 27% were not proven to have been Hamas members—Israel has also imposed mass starvation on the population, killing “10 children daily,” according to the report. Israel has detained thousands of Palestinian men and boys in undisclosed locations; injured 70,000 people; forced medical personnel to perform “hazardous health procedures, such as amputations without anesthetics, including on children”; and “destroyed or severely damaged most life-sustaining infrastructure.”

Callamard noted on Tuesday that the report came two months after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) announced an interim ruling that Israel is “plausibly” committing a genocide in Gaza and ordered the country to take action to prevent genocidal violence by its forces.

“In that time, the situation in Gaza has grown exponentially worse, with thousands more Palestinians killed and Israel continuing to refuse to comply with the ICJ ruling to ensure provision of sufficient humanitarian aid to Palestinians as human-made famine edges closer each day and more people starve to death,” said Callamard.

The secretary general echoed a call in the report, which was compiled by Francesca Albanese, special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, for the full funding of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

Israel said Sunday it will no longer permit UNRWA aid trucks to deliver humanitarian relief in northern Gaza, where one-third of children under age 2 are now suffering from acute malnutrition. The U.S. officially suspended UNRWA funding through March 2025 on Monday after President Joe Biden signed a new spending package into law.

The U.S. led several countries in cutting funding to the agency in January after Israel claimed 12 of UNRWA’s 13,000 employees in Gaza had been involved in the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel in October. Countries including Finland, Canada, and Australia have since reinstated funding.

Callamard also called on all states, particularly powerful Western countries that are allied with Israel, including the U.S., to support international authorities as they try to hold Israeli officials to account for the mass killing and starving of civilians in Gaza. Israel has refused to allow U.N. experts and other independent human rights monitors access to Gaza.

“Helping to prevent genocide also means supporting accountability efforts including the ongoing investigation by the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and exercising universal jurisdiction to bring those suspected of crimes under international law to justice,” said Callamard.

The secretary general noted that momentum has grown in recent days around international calls for a cease-fire, but said a desperately needed halt in fighting requires a concerted push by influential states to become a reality.

“An enduring cease-fire,” said Callamard, “remains the best way to enforce the ICJ’s provisional measures to prevent genocide and further crimes and civilian suffering.”

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

Continue Reading‘Crucial’ UN Report on Gaza Genocide Must Spur Global Action, Says Amnesty

US Under Fire for Downplaying Security Council Resolution as ‘Nonbinding’

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Oriignal article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller speaks to reporters during a press briefing on March 25, 2024. 
(Photo: Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu via Getty Images)

One expert accused the U.S. of working to “undermine and sabotage the U.N. Security Council, the ‘rules-based order,’ and international law.”

Biden administration officials attempted Monday to downplay the significance of a newly passed United Nations Security Council resolution, drawing ire from human rights advocates who said the U.S. is undercutting international law and stonewalling attempts to bring Israel’s devastating military assault on Gaza to an end.

The resolution “demands an immediate cease-fire for the month of Ramadan respected by all parties, leading to a lasting sustainable cease-fire.” The U.S., which previously vetoed several cease-fire resolutions, opted to abstain on Monday, allowing the measure to pass.

Shortly after the resolution’s approval, several administration officials—including State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, and U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield—falsely characterized the measure as “nonbinding.”

“It’s a nonbinding resolution,” Kirby told reporters. “So, there’s no impact at all on Israel and Israel’s ability to continue to go after Hamas.”

Josh Ruebner, an adjunct lecturer at Georgetown University and former policy director of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, wrote in response that “there is no such thing as a ‘nonbinding’ Security Council resolution.”

“Israel’s failure to abide by this resolution must open the door to the immediate imposition of Chapter VII sanctions,” Ruebner wrote.

Beatrice Fihn, the director of Lex International and former executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, condemned what she called the Biden administration’s “appalling behavior” in the wake of the resolution’s passage. Fihn said the administration’s downplaying of the resolution shows how the U.S. works to “openly undermine and sabotage the U.N. Security Council, the ‘rules-based order,’ and international law.”

In a Monday op-ed for Common Dreams, Phyllis Bennis, a senior fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, warned that administration officials’ claim that the resolution was “nonbinding” should be seen as “setting the stage for the U.S. government to violate the U.N. Charter by refusing to be bound by the resolution’s terms.”

While all U.N. Security Council resolutions are legally binding, they’re difficult to enforce and regularly ignored by the Israeli government, which responded with outrage to the latest resolution and canceled an Israeli delegation’s planned visit to the U.S.

Israel Katz, Israel’s foreign minister, wrote on social media Monday that “Israel will not cease fire.”

The resolution passed amid growing global alarm over the humanitarian crisis that Israel has inflicted on the Gaza Strip, where most of the population of around 2.2 million is displaced and at increasingly dire risk of starvation.

Amnesty International secretary-general Agnes Callamard said Monday that it was “just plain irresponsible” of U.S. officials to “suggest that a resolution meant to save lives and address massive devastation and suffering can be disregarded.”

In addition to demanding an immediate cease-fire, the Security Council resolution calls for the unconditional release of all remaining hostages and “emphasizes the urgent need to expand the flow of humanitarian assistance.”

Israel has systematically obstructed aid deliveries to Gaza, including U.S.-funded flour shipments.

Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for the U.N. secretary-general, stressed during a briefing Monday that “all the resolutions of the Security Council are international law.”

“They are as binding as international laws,” Haq said.

Oriignal article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

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Sanders Rips ‘Absurd’ US Claim That Israel Is Not Violating International Law

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

Children in Rafah, Gaza gather to receive food distributed by aid organizations on March 15, 2024.
 (Photo: Jehad Alshrafi/Anadolu via Getty Images

“The State Department’s position makes a mockery of U.S. law and assurances provided to Congress,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday said the U.S. State Department’s determination that Israel is not violating international law with its assault on the Gaza Strip is “absurd on its face,” pointing to the mass death, destruction, and starvation that Israeli forces have inflicted on the territory’s population over the past six months.

“Thirty-two thousand Palestinians in Gaza have been killed and almost 75,000 injured, two-thirds of whom are women and children,” Sanders (I-Vt.) said in a statement. “Some 60% of the housing units have been damaged or destroyed, and almost all medical facilities have been made inoperable. Today, hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children are facing starvation because [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu won’t let in sufficient humanitarian aid, while thousands of trucks are waiting to get into Gaza.”

“The State Department’s position,” said Sanders, “makes a mockery of U.S. law and assurances provided to Congress.”

The senator’s statement came after State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters during a press briefing earlier Monday that the Biden administration has not found Israel “to be in violation of international humanitarian law, either when it comes to the conduct of the war or when it comes to the provision of humanitarian assistance.”

Miller was responding to a question about assurances the administration has received from the Israeli government that its use of American weaponry has complied with international law and that it has permitted U.S. humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, where the entire population is facing acute hunger.

Under a new Biden administration policy known as NSM-20, recipients of American military aid are required to provide the U.S. government with “credible and reliable” written assurances that they are using such assistance “in a manner consistent with all applicable international and domestic law and policy.”

Late last week, a group of U.S. senators—including Sanders—warned the Biden administration that deeming Israeli assurances credible would “be inconsistent with the letter and spirit of NSM-20” and “establish an unacceptable precedent” for the application of the policy “in other situations around the world.”

“Until Biden is ready to impose real policy consequences on Netanyahu’s government, the famine will continue.”

It is a violation of U.S. law to continue sending military assistance to a country that is obstructing the delivery of American humanitarian aid. Last month, far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich blocked a U.S.-funded flour shipment from entering the Gaza Strip, and Israeli forces have repeatedly fired on convoys attempting to deliver aid to desperate Gazans.

Prominent human rights groups have been calling on the U.S. to impose an arms embargo on Israel for months, pointing to documented examples of the Israeli military using American weaponry to commit atrocities in Gaza.

But the Biden administration has refused to even apply concrete restrictions on American military aid. Over the weekend, U.S. President Joe Biden signed into law a measure that approves $3.8 billion in unconditional military assistance for the Israeli government and imposes a one-year ban on funding for the primary humanitarian aid organization in Gaza.

Jeremy Konyndyk, the president of Refugees International and a former USAID official, said Monday that Israel’s assurances to the U.S. are “not remotely credible” and argued the Biden administration is undermining efforts to combat the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza by accepting the Israeli government’s claims.

The U.S., he said, is “talking a big game about fighting the famine that its bombs and diplomatic cover have helped create.” Resorting to “gimmicky” efforts such as airdrops and temporary ports while a U.S. ally obstructs humanitarian aid “is not how you fight a famine,” Konyndyk argued.

“Fundamentally Biden must choose: between continuing to enable Netanyahu, or ending the famine. There’s no way to split the difference,” said Konyndyk. “Until Biden is ready to impose real policy consequences on Netanyahu’s government, the famine will continue.”

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

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Continue ReadingSanders Rips ‘Absurd’ US Claim That Israel Is Not Violating International Law