human rights violations

Interview: Harris or Trump doesn’t matter for Gaza genocide

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Original article by Nandini Naira Archer republished from Open Democracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

Pro-Palestine protest outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August 2024. | Fatih Aktas/Anadolu via Getty Images

A year on and no end in sight to genocide – thanks to US support for Israel, which will continue beyond election

A year on from the outset of Israel’s war on Gaza, Israeli forces have killed more than 42,000 Palestinians – and this is just the confirmed death toll. A recent study by the Lancet medical journal projected that the death toll could exceed 186,000 when counting indirect deaths – from starvation and diseases due to the Israeli blockade on humanitarian aid, food, water and medicines.

To take stock of where we’re at and whether this nightmare is likely to end any time soon, openDemocracy spoke to Tariq Kenney-Shawa, a foreign policy analyst based in New York and US Policy Fellow at Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network.

openDemocracy: It’s been a year since this latest iteration of Israel’s war on Gaza commenced. Is the end in sight? What’s Israel’s end game?

Tariq: Unfortunately, I don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel here. There is no end in sight to Israel’s genocide in Gaza. And that’s mainly because Israel hasn’t faced an ounce of accountability or pressure to de-escalate from the international community (the US and other western benefactors) to end this.

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I’ve tended to be doubtful when people insist that Israel doesn’t have a plan in Gaza and is just destroying and killing for the sake of it. Israel does have a plan and it has been acting on it. It truly sees this moment in history, as well as the blank check from the US, as a golden strategic opportunity to take leaps towards its ultimate goal of ‘maximum land with minimum Palestinians’ and wider regional domination through brute force.

Israel’s end game in Gaza is erasure, and for the last 12 months, they’ve been laying the foundation for a new reality in Gaza for us all to see. In addition to “thinning out the population,” as Netanyahu said, through genocide, collective punishment, and ethnic cleansing, Israel has been effectively chopping up the Strip into smaller, more controllable enclaves that will come to represent the new “facts on the ground.”

openDemocracy: Has anything about the conflict surprised you?

Tariq: I think one of the most surprising aspects about both the genocide in Gaza and now Israel’s escalation across the region is that it has gone on uninterrupted and without international intervention for so long, despite the fact that just about every massacre has been broadcast for the world to see on social media.

As someone who is part of a generation that grew up being taught that the phrase “never again” really meant something, this is what I have found most jarring. Of course, Gaza is not the first time the international “rules-based” order has been exposed as a crutch for Western hegemony. From Vietnam to Iraq, the West’s selective application of international law has long been exposed for what it is. But Gaza is the first postwar genocide both entirely perpetrated by a Western ally and funded, facilitated, and justified by the West itself, not to mention the first to be so thoroughly recorded for the world to see.

openDemocracy: Now with recent escalations including Iran, do you think realistically we’re on the verge of all-out war in the region?

Tariq: I think we are already seeing an all-out regional war by every definition of the term. Israeli fighter jets are bombing Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran. This is not to mention the strikes the US, UK, and other Israeli benefactors have carried out on Israel’s behalf.

It boils down to this: Israel will continue to escalate across the region in hopes of achieving its extremist, expansionist goals as long as the US taxpayer continues to foot the bill and US assets and personnel are off the coast of Haifa to come to Israel’s defence if need be.

openDemocracy: It seems that the Biden administration actually gave Israel the green light to mount large-scale attacks on Lebanon. Has the US ever really been interested in stabilising the region? Does the US want an all-out war?

Tariq: The Biden Administration has either explicitly or implicitly (through uninterrupted weapons transfers and diplomatic shielding) given Israel the green light for a year of genocide and regional escalation.

I believe it is clear that the US ultimately shares the same strategic objectives as Israel, which range from silencing Palestinians once and for all to destroying groups like Hezbollah to causing significant damage to Iran. These are all outcomes that the US would celebrate (just take the public statement the US made following Israel’s assassination of Hassan Nasrallah as one example).

Does the Biden Administration wish Israel could go about some of their operations differently? Perhaps. But at the end of the day, the costs of Israel’s unparalleled violence, the mass death of Arabs and the destruction of their lands, is a price the US is willing to accept. If the US didn’t want an all-out war, they would stop giving Israel all the weapons and diplomatic space to keep escalating at will. Because while every US administration has been pro-Israel, other US presidents have stood up to Israel when they felt US interests were at risk.

openDemocracy: Do you think things will change after the US elections on November 5?

Tariq: Nothing will fundamentally change, regardless of who wins the elections on November 5. For Palestinians, the genocide will continue because neither candidate has exhibited any indication that they intend to hold Israel accountable for war crimes and genocide or use any of the ample leverage that the US has to influence Israel’s conduct.

In fact, it’s the opposite. Donald Trump insists he would let Israel “finish the job” in Gaza, while Kamala Harris promises that she will continue the Biden Administration’s policy of giving Israel “everything it needs” and continues to make it clear that she intends to be a carbon copy of the Biden Administration. The truth is, both Harris and Trump spell continued disaster for both Palestinians and the wider region, and there is no “lesser evil” here.

The truth is, the Biden administration’s resume on Israel-Palestine, even long before October 7, has in many ways mirrored that of Trump’s.

If Biden wanted to make good on his commitment to a “two-state solution,” he would have at least started by reversing the norm shattering pro-Israel policies of his predecessor. The Biden Administration has actually given Israel more military and diplomatic assistance than any previous administration.

The only substantial difference between Trump and Biden has been their rhetoric. But one could argue that Biden’s lofty, yet empty words actually does more harm than good by distracting us from the fact that he has given Israel everything it needed to get away with genocide right in front of our eyes. If Harris wins in November, it will be more of the same, and you don’t need to take my word for it, she has made it abundantly clear herself.

Original article by Nandini Naira Archer republished from Open Democracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

Continue ReadingInterview: Harris or Trump doesn’t matter for Gaza genocide

Israel’s War on Gaza and Beyond Has Cost US Taxpayers At Least $22.76 Billion: Report

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

Demonstrators calling for no funding for Israel in the conflict in Gaza are seen outside the U.S. Capitol before the House passed the foreign aid package on Saturday, April 20, 2024. (Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

“It has been difficult for the U.S. public, journalists, and members of Congress to get an accurate understanding of the amount of military equipment and financial assistance that the U.S. government has provided.”

U.S. armed aid to Israel and related spending on American militarism in the Middle East cost taxpayers at least $22.76 billion over the past year, according to new research published Monday.

The Costs of War Project at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International & Public Affairs—which has long been the premier source for statistics on the human and economic costs of ongoing U.S.-led post-9/11 wars and militarism in the Middle East and beyond—called the $22.76 billion estimate “conservative.”

“This figure includes the $17.9 billion the U.S. government has approved in security assistance for Israeli military operations in Gaza and elsewhere since October 7—substantially more than in any other year since the U.S. began granting military aid to Israel in 1959,” report authors Linda Bilmes, William Hartung, and Stephen Semler wrote. “Yet the report describes how this is only a partial amount of the U.S. financial support provided during this war.”

In addition to the repeated multibillion-dollar rounds of military aid to Israel, related U.S. operations in the region, particularly bombing and shipping defense in and near Yemen—where Houthi rebels have attacked maritime commerce and launched missiles at Israel—have cost over $2 billion since last October.

“It has been difficult for the U.S. public, journalists, and members of Congress to get an accurate understanding of the amount of military equipment and financial assistance that the U.S. government has provided to Israel’s military during the past year of war,” the report states. “There is likewise little U.S. public awareness of the costs of the United States military’s own related operations in the region, particularly in and around Yemen.”

The analysis adds that regional hostilities “have escalated to become the most sustained military campaign by U.S. forces since the 2016-19 air war” against the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

“The Costs of War project has an obligation to look at the consequences of the U.S. backing of Israel’s military operations after October 7, especially as it reverberates throughout the region,” Costs of War director Stephanie Savell said in a statement. “Our project examines the human and budgetary costs of U.S. militarism at home and abroad, and for the last year, people in Gaza have suffered the highest consequences imaginable.”

According to the Gaza Health Ministry and international agencies, Israel’s yearlong assault on Gaza has left at least 149,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing, and millions more forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened. U.S. military aid to Israel has continued in successive waves, even as the country stands trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice.

The Hamas-led October 7 attack on resulted in more than 1,100 Israeli and other deaths—at least some of which were caused by so-called “friendly fire” and intentional targeting under the Hannibal Directive—with more than 240 people kidnapped.

Although the Costs of War Project report mainly covers U.S. aid to Israel since last October, it also notes that since 1948—the year the modern state of Israel was founded, largely through the ethnic cleansing of Palestine’s Arabs—American taxpayers have contributed over a quarter trillion inflation-adjusted dollars to the key Mideast ally.

A second report published Monday by the Costs of War Project found that around 90% of Gaza’s population has been forcibly displaced by the Israeli onslaught and 96% of Gazans face “acute levels of food insecurity.” The publication cites a letter sent last week by a group of U.S. physicians to President Joe Biden—who has repeatedly declared his “unwavering” support for Israel—stating that “it is likely that the death toll from this conflict is already greater than 118,908, an astonishing 5.4% of Gaza’s population.” That figure includes 62,000 deaths due to starvation.

“In addition to killing people directly through traumatic injuries, wars cause ‘indirect deaths’ by destroying, damaging, or causing deterioration of economic, social, psychological and health conditions,” report author Sophia Stamatopoulou-Robbins wrote. “These deaths result from diseases and other population-level health effects that stem from war’s destruction of public infrastructure and livelihood sources, reduced access to water and sanitation, environmental damage, and other such factors.”

The new report comes less than two weeks after Israel secured yet another U.S. armed aid package, this one worth $8.7 billion. Meanwhile, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said it faced a nearly $9 billion shortfall for Hurricane Helene relief efforts.

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

Continue ReadingIsrael’s War on Gaza and Beyond Has Cost US Taxpayers At Least $22.76 Billion: Report

‘We’ll Come for You Next’: Israel Threatened to Kill Teen Journalist in Gaza—Then Did

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

Journalist Hassan Hamad holds a photo of Ismael al-Ghoul and Rami al-Rifi, Palestinian reporters also killed by Israel in Gaza. (Photo: Maha Hussaini/X)

“Western journalists and editors should hang their heads in shame for their outrageous silence in the face of these crimes,” said one professor.

Journalists around the world expressed outrage Monday over the Israeli military’s killing of a teenage Palestinian reporter who continued showing the world the destruction of Gaza despite threats to his life—and at the Western media’s silence on the story.

Hassan Hamad, 19, whose work appeared on Al Jazeera and other outlets, was killed Sunday in an Israeli drone strike on his home in the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, The Palestine Chronicle reported. The bombing followed multiple text messages warning Hamad to stop recording images of Israel’s assault on Gaza, which has killed or injured nearly 150,000 Palestinians and for which the close U.S. ally is on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice.

Palestinian journalist Maha Hussaini posted a photo of one threatening WhatsApp message sent to Hamad. It read, “Listen, if you continue spreading lies about Israel, we’ll come for you next and turn your family into… This is your last warning.”

Hussaini said that Hamad also received “several calls from an Israeli officer ordering him to stop filming in Gaza.”

“He didn’t comply,” she wrote. “He was killed today.”

A colleague of Hamad’s wrote on the slain journalist’s X account:

With great sadness and pain, I mourn the journalist Hassan Hamad… Hamad, the journalist who is not yet 20 years old, resisted for a whole year in his own special way. He resisted when he was away from his family so that they would not be targeted. He resisted when he was suffering to find an internet signal and would sit for an hour or two on the roof of the house to send videos that reach you in seconds. Yesterday, since 10:00, he was moving between the bombed areas and returning to search for an internet signal, then returning to cover the places of the remains, suffering from an injury he sustained in his leg. Nevertheless, he completed filming. At 6:00 am, he called me to send me the last video. After a call that did not exceed a few seconds, he was saying, “Hey, hey, it’s done,” and he hung up. This is a feeling that no human being can bear. Hassan also resisted the occupation and left a mark and left a message that we will complete after him.

Journalists and others posted graphic video footage of pieces of Hamad’s remains being collected and placed in a shoebox.

“I will never forget the silence of the media industry about this,” Al Jazeera executive producer Laila Al-Arian wrote in a social media post containing the video.

Thomson Reuters Foundation deputy editor-in-chief Barry Malone responded to Hassan’s killing by asking, “If you’re a journalist and you’re not speaking out in solidarity… why?”

Anthropology professor Jason Hickel said that “we can never unsee the images of journalist Hassan Hamad’s remains, after he was assassinated by Israeli forces.”

“Western journalists and editors should hang their heads in shame for their outrageous silence in the face of these crimes,” he added.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists says that “at least 128 journalists and media workers, all but five of them Palestinian, have been killed—more journalists than have died in the course of any year since CPJ began documenting journalist killings in 1992.”

“All of the killings, except two Israeli journalists killed in the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel, were carried out by Israeli forces,” the group added. “CPJ has found that at least five journalists were specifically targeted by Israel for their work.”

Gaza’s Government Media Office (GMO) said Sunday that 175 media workers have been killed in the embattled enclave over the past year.

The press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has filed multiple complaints at the International Criminal Court—whose chief prosecutor is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leaders—alleging “war crimes against journalists in Gaza.”

Responding to Hamad’s killing, RSF said that Israel’s “impunity must end.”

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

Continue Reading‘We’ll Come for You Next’: Israel Threatened to Kill Teen Journalist in Gaza—Then Did

‘Increasing Destruction’: Israel Continues Bombing Campaign Across Lebanon

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

Heavy black smoke billows from the site of an Israeli air raid that targeted an area in a Beirut suburb on October 5, 2024. (Photo: Marwan Naamani/picture alliance via Getty Images)

“Complete blocks are being destroyed one after another,” Al Jazeera reported.

Israeli forces continued attacks on the outskirts of Beirut and in southern Lebanon on Saturday.

There were 13 Israeli strikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut overnight and another five on Saturday, one of which may have been targeted at paramedics, according toAl Jazeera. The number of casualties is not yet clear.

“There is increasing destruction and it’s clear that complete blocks are being destroyed one after another,” Al Jazeera‘s Ali Hashem reported from Beirut.

“One strike hit near the airport, and we understand another missile hit near a paramedic team to prevent them from getting to the scene of the bigger strike,” he reported.

The Israeli military issued evacuation warnings for certain suburban areas south of Beirut on Friday night, indicating attacks would follow, The New York Times reported.

Israeli forces unleashed a “huge strike” on the same area earlier Friday in an attempt to kill Hashem Safieddine, the presumed successor to recently assassinated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, according to the Times. Al Jazeera reported that “bunker buster” bombs were believed to be used in the Friday attack, as they were in Nasrallah’s killing. It’s not clear if Safieddine was killed, though media reports indicate that he likely was.

Israel’s military also continued attacks in southern Lebanon on Saturday.

“From northern Israel, I can see dark gray clouds of dust and smoke rising above two [Lebanese] villages as warplanes zoom overhead and the sound of artillery echoes through the area,” the Times‘ Natan Odenheimer reported Saturday.

An Israeli strike in northern Lebanon killed Hamas commander Saeed Ali on Saturday, the armed Palestinian group said. Hamas has a longstanding presence in Lebanon.

According to Al Jazeera, which cited Israeli media reports, the Israeli military is planning to expand its ground incursion into southern Lebanon, which began earlier this week, and to conduct “large-scale assaults” on Lebanon, Iran, and Gaza. The media outlet didn’t provide details.

Iran fired nearly 200 ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday, principally targeting military facilities. Iran said the strikes were retaliation for Israeli assassinations of Hezbollah and Hamas leaders. Most of the strikes were intercepted by Israeli and U.S. forces.

Observers are now watching closely to see how Israel responds, and what role the U.S.—Israel’s chief diplomatic ally and military supplier—might play. President Joe Biden said Friday that he’d advise Israel to consider “alternatives” to striking Iranian oilfields.

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

Continue Reading‘Increasing Destruction’: Israel Continues Bombing Campaign Across Lebanon