Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva delivers a speech during the launching ceremony of a Petrobras cultural investment project at the Modern Art Museum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on February 23, 2024. (Photo by Pablo Porciuncula/AFP via Getty Images)
“What the Israeli government is doing to the Palestinian people is not war,” said the President of Brazil. “It’s not soldiers who are dying, but women and children who are dying inside the hospitals.”
Just days after Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was announced to be ‘person non grata’ by the Israeli government for critical comments he made about its conduct in Gaza, the leftist leader known as Lula remained outspoken over the weekend as he condemned the military onslaught that has claimed nearly 30,000 lives, mostly innocent civilians, in just over four months.
“What the Israeli government is doing to the Palestinian people is not war, it is genocide,” Lula thundered in remarks Friday during an event in Rio de Janiero. “They are killing women and children. There are thousands of children dead and thousands missing. It’s not soldiers who are dying, but women and children who are dying inside the hospitals.”
He continued: “If this isn’t genocide, I don’t know what is.”
Lula has more vigor than every center-left politican in the West put together. pic.twitter.com/3JJM70quu8
In his remarks, Lula condemned the failure of the UN Security Council to intervene in a meaningful way to stop the carnage in Gaza. On Feb. 19, the United States once again used its veto power to reject a resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire.
The UNSC “represents nothing,” he said. “It does not take any decisions, it does nothing for peace,” he added, while decrying the amount of “hypocrisy in the world today” when it comes to political leadership.
People take part in a Palestine Solidarity Campaign rally outside the Houses of Parliament, London, as MPs debate calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, February 21, 2024
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Braverman is continuing her bid to ban peace marches even though the demand for a Gaza ceasefire commands majority support in Britain and indeed right across the world, where Britain and the US stood shamefully isolated this month as the only countries not to support a ceasefire resolution at the UN security council.
Lee Anderson, in the guise of moderating Braverman’s claim (“I don’t actually believe that the Islamists have got control of our country”) actually took it a step further (“they’ve got control of [Sadiq] Khan… He’s actually given our capital city away to his mates.”)
Leftwingers will be incredulous at the implication that peace demonstrators are Khan’s “mates” — the London mayor is no socialist and enthusiastically joined in the character assassination of Jeremy Corbyn when he led Labour.
But Anderson’s subtext is clear: Palestinians are Muslims (not all are, of course, but nuance is not Anderson’s strong point), people marching for justice for Palestinians must therefore be controlled by Muslims, the big marches in London haven’t been banned, and this must be because its mayor is a Muslim.
This is incendiary stuff. So rattled are British authorities that they have repeatedly misrepresented Palestine solidarity demos: the attempt to ban the huge Armistice Day demo rested on a baseless assertion it posed a threat to the Cenotaph (which the fascist thugs riled up by Braverman’s propaganda actually did).
People take part in a Palestine Solidarity Campaign rally outside the Houses of Parliament, London, February 21, 2024
THE Prime Minister’s decision to frame the Speaker’s anti-democratic antics this week as “giving in to extremism” obscures reality.
Lindsay Hoyle’s claim he prioritised a Labour amendment over the SNP ceasefire motion because he was worried about MPs’ safety is a damage limitation bid.
But it chimes with ongoing Establishment propaganda painting peace demonstrators as extremists.
Every crisis of ruling-class legitimacy in recent years has prompted attacks on our democratic rights. Britain is racing towards an authoritarian future, with successive laws empowering police to make arrests on the vaguest grounds (such as causing a “nuisance”) and shut down protests before “disruption” even begins.
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Now the idea that protest leaves MPs unsafe is used to justify curtailing democratic processes in Parliament itself. Keir Starmer did not browbeat Lindsay Hoyle into trashing procedures because he was worried about MPs’ safety.
He was trying to avoid the embarrassment of a revolt exposing divisions in his party.
Forensic officers enter a tent containing the bodies of people who drowned while trying to cross the Channel in the boat piloted by Ibrahima Bah, who will be sentenced today under new legislation to criminalise ‘facilitating arrival’ for asylum seekers in the UK. ‘By convicting Bah of manslaughter, the jury effectively exonerated the UK of responsibility for its lethal border policies.’ | Leon Neal/Getty Images
Those who drive boats are often simply the poorest people on board. Those really at fault still walk free
Ibrahima Bah is today facing a possible life sentence for facilitating illegal entry into the UK, and for four counts of manslaughter by gross negligence. But the real culprits here remain off the hook – and this will almost certainly lead to more deaths.
Arrested in December 2022, Bah was steering an unseaworthy dinghy across the English Channel when it collapsed. The floor of the dinghy ripped when it approached the fishing vessel Arcturus and everyone stood up to try and be rescued. According to Utopia 56, a refugee charity that has announced legal action against the British coastguard and French agencies for this case, authorities failed to launch a search and rescue operation despite being alerted by Alarmphone, a hotline for migrants in distress at sea.
Eventually, four people were found dead while four were recorded missing. Some 39 survivors, most from Afghanistan, were rescued and claimed asylum in the UK.
Asylum seekers dying in the English Channel is not something new. In November 2021, 31 people, including a girl aged five and her teenage siblings, died after their dinghy sank in the Channel. And in October 2020, seven people, including five from one Iranian Kurdish family, lost their lives after a small boat carrying 20 migrants capsized off the French coast.
These are only a few examples in the long deadly history of the French-UK border. But Bah’s case marks a historic and troubling milestone: he is the first shipwreck survivor in the UK to face manslaughter charges for the deaths of fellow passengers.
A network called Captain Support that acts in solidarity with those accused of driving boats to Europe has been closely monitoring Bah’s case. Its members are right to point out the conviction marks a violent escalation in the criminalisation of migration by the UK government under its ‘stop the boats’ campaign and measures to cut net migration.
Ironically, this frontal assault on migrant rights comes at a time when polls for the first time since 2016 suggest that most British people hold positive views of immigration, exposing the ‘stop the boats’ battle for its deeply ideological nature. But other aspects of the policy, less routinely covered in the media, have been no less damaging – and these directly relate to Ibrahima Bah’s unjust conviction.
The Nationality and Borders Act came into force in June 2022, expanding the scope of immigration crimes in the UK in response to the so-called ‘small boats crisis’. This act introduced the offence of ‘illegal arrival’ with a maximum penalty of four years in jail. It also expanded the scope of the more serious offence of ‘facilitating arrival’, of which Bah was convicted, and increased the maximum penalty to life imprisonment.
Hundreds of people have since been arrested and imprisoned for simply trying to reach the UK to claim asylum, according to a forthcoming report by Victoria Taylor, published by the Centre for Criminology at the University of Oxford and Border Criminologies.
While the government repeatedly invokes the mantra of favouring ‘safe and legal routes’ when justifying this increasingly draconian legislation, existing laws don’t provide any. As Amnesty International has pointed out: “The UK government does not allow anyone to make a claim for asylum unless they are physically present in the UK… It is impossible to come to the UK for the purpose of seeking asylum in any way permitted by the government’s immigration rules.”
openDemocracy revealed last year that a toddler and a father were among those who had died while waiting vainly for officially sanctioned UN routes to take them to safety; their families remain stranded in Turkey.
Aside from two temporary visa schemes that have been beset with their own problems – for asylum seekers from Ukraine with family or hosts in the UK, and Afghans who are in danger due to having worked with the UK government – anyone wishing to apply for asylum in the UK has no choice but to travel to the UK in an unauthorised manner.
In simple terms, the UK government requires asylum seekers to endanger their lives and break the law in order to exercise their lawful right to claim asylum.
Countering this means more than debunking the myths of ‘safe and legal’ routes. It’s also about addressing the criminalisation of ‘facilitating arrival’ – often presented as a necessary measure to uproot the ‘criminal gangs’ exploiting vulnerable individuals.
In fact, human rights organisations and academic researchers have time and again shown that counter-smuggling policies and targeting of boat drivers harms migrant communities the most. These policies overlook the reality that, in many instances, those piloting boats are the poorest and least resourced among asylum seekers, agreeing to steer these vessels and take on significant legal risks in exchange for free passage.
And indeed, Ibrahima, who is from Senegal – a country still grappling with the effects of colonialism and with 40% of its population living below the poverty line – asserted that this was precisely why he agreed to pilot the boat.
Having journeyed from Senegal to Mali, then Algeria and Libya, before taking a boat from Libya to Italy with the aid of smugglers, Bah decided to pilot the vessel in exchange for free passage. During his trial, Bah said when he realised the boat was unseaworthy, he refused to drive it, but he was then assaulted by those that organised the trip who coerced him into complying. The jury not only dismissed Bah’s claims but also the testimonies of the survivors themselves, who portrayed Ibrahima as an “angel” trying to save lives.
As detailed in Captain Support’s court report, a witness statement from the captain of the Arcturus presented Bah as “mouthy” and ungrateful, both racial stereotypes. The all-white jury concluded that Bah, a Black teenager, had failed in his duty of care towards his fellow passengers. By convicting Bah of manslaughter, the jury effectively exonerated the UK of responsibility for its lethal border policies.
Britain’s emulation of these policies is both predictable and deeply alarming. British prime minister Rishi Sunak recently teamed up with Italy’s far-right leader Giorgia Meloni in her attempts to crack down on ‘illegal migration’. And in November 2023, Suella Braverman – then the UK home secretary and the architect of the ‘stop the boats’ campaign – lauded Greece’s “tough but fair migration policy” following her tour of one of Europe’s most harrowing borders. This dangerous coalition, which wields death and scapegoating as tools of deterrence, must be dismantled immediately.
Ibrahima Bah’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for Friday 23 February.Solidarity actionshave been called in response, including a call for support at 2pm at Canterbury Crown and a demonstration at 6pm at the Home Office.
People walk past the headquarters of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, which provides assistance to millions of Palestinians, in Gaza City, Gaza on February 21, 2024. (Photo: Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The warning came as a U.S. intelligence officials said they have “low confidence” that Israel’s accusations against UNRWA workers were true.
Notifying the United Nations General Assembly of numerous steps Israel has taken in the last month to dismantle a humanitarian agency that serves millions of Palestinians, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East warned Thursday that it has reached a “breaking point” as it attempts to provide shelter and other aid amid Israel’s bombardment of Gaza with sharply reduced funding.
Since Israel claimed last month without providing evidence that 12 UNRWA staff members—out of 30,000 total—had been involved in a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 16 countries including the U.S., Germany, and Canada have suspended funding for the agency, which relies on donations to operate.
The funding cuts have gone into effect as UNRWA itself faces violence from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), with 150 of the agency’s facilities having been hit by bombs or shelling that have killed more than 390 people and injured more than 1,300. Since October, the IDF has killed a total of at least 29,514 Palestinians in Gaza.
“It is with profound regret that I must now inform you that the agency has reached breaking point, with Israel’s repeated calls to dismantle UNRWA and the freezing of funding by donors at a time of unprecedented humanitarian needs in Gaza,” wrote Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of UNRWA, in a letter to the president of UNGA.
In just over four months in #Gaza, there have been more #children, more journalists, more medical personnel, and more @UN staff killed than anywhere in the world during a conflict.
Lazzarini warned that the agency’s ability to “fulfill the mandate given through General Assembly resolution 302,” the 1949 measure that created UNRWA and tasked it with providing aid to Palestinians in Gaza, “is now seriously threatened.”
UNRWA is a major employer of Palestinians in Gaza, where almost half of adults are unemployed. The agency runs schools for 300,000 children, provides housing assistance, runs health clinics, and oversees other public works such as playground and road construction.
Since Israel began its assault on Gaza in October, up to 1.9 million displaced Palestinians have found temporary housing at 154 UNRWA shelters, according to the agency.
Since Israel made its accusation against UNRWA, in addition to fueling a loss of $450 million in funding, the government has taken further steps to render it inoperable, despite Lazzarini’s immediate dismissal of the workers implicated in the allegations. Israeli officials have:
Taken steps to evict UNRWA from the headquarters it’s used for 75 years in East Jerusalem;
Limited visas for its staff to one or two months;
Announced a plan to revoke UNRWA’s tax-exempt status;
Suspended shipments of UNRWA goods;
Blocked the agency’s bank accounts;
Refused to grant hundreds of staffers access to UNRWA’s schools, health centers, and headquarters;
Tabled bills to eliminate the agency’s U.N. privileges and immunities and to prevent “any activity by UNRWA in Israeli territory”; and
Publicly accused UNRWA of being “in the service of Hamas.”
With UNRWA struggling to provide assistance to Gaza residents—about 85% of whom have been displaced and virtually all of whom are facing “crisis-level hunger“—Lazzarini warned UNGA President Dennis Francis that the agency is “on the edge of a monumental disaster with grave implications for regional peace, security, and human rights.”
“In the short term, dismantling UNRWA will undermine U.N. efforts to address Gaza’s humanitarian crisis and worsen the crisis in the West Bank, depriving over half a million children of education and deepening resentment and despair,” said Lazzarini. “In the longer-term, it will end UNRWA’s stabilizing role that is widely acknowledged, including by senior Israeli civilian and military officials and key donors, as vital to the rights and security of Palestinians and Israelis. It will also weaken prospects for a transition and a political solution to this long-standing conflict.”
Journalist Owen Jones noted on Friday that the “throttling” of Gaza’s primary humanitarian aid organization has taken place as Israel has failed to provide evidence of its claims against the UNRWA employees, with a U.S. intelligence assessment saying officials had “low confidence” that staff members had participated in the Hamas-led attack on October 7.
The clearly nonsense claims against UNRWA – the UN's Palestinian refugee agency – are falling apart.
Throttling Gaza's main humanitarian agency in the midst of a humanitarian catastrophe was a genocidal act.
The assessment noted that Israeli officials have not “shared the raw intelligence behind” the accusations that led 16 countries to pull crucial funding from UNRWA—a fact that didn’t surprise Intercept journalist Ryan Grim.
“Why would Israel provide evidence?” said Grim. “Without any evidence, the U.S. suspended UNRWA funding and then [President Joe] Biden endorsed a new law permanently banning funding. Israel would be stupid to bother to present evidence, they know they don’t need to.”
In his letter to Francis, Lazzarini asked whether UNGA would allow “the parameters of peace for Palestinians and Israelis” to be “wiped away by obstructing UNRWA’s mandate and defunding the agency outside of any political agreement and consultation with Palestinians.”
“Should the General Assembly opt to continue to sustain UNRWA in the best interests of Palestine refugees, then I further appeal for a solution that closes the gap between UNRWA’s mandate and its funding structure, which relies upon voluntary contributions that make it vulnerable to wider political considerations, such as UNRWA faces now,” wrote Lazzarini.
“I finally appeal to the General Assembly to bring human rights and international law back to the center of multilateral action,” he added, “beginning with the catastrophic situation in Gaza that has worsened by every measure in recent weeks.”
