Israeli soldiers move near the Israeli-Gaza border as seen from southern Israel, January 8, 2024
From working closely with Apartheid South Africa to develop its nuclear weapons to supplying the far-right terrorists in Nicaragua with their famous Uzis, Israel has always been a malevolent force internationally, writes JOHN GREEN
WHEN the state of Israel was created in 1948, albeit under dubious circumstances involving the expulsion of thousands of Palestinians from their traditional homes, it enjoyed global sympathy and goodwill.
As the horrendous facts of the Holocaust became better known at the end of the war, a haven for the Jewish people was widely seen as an appropriate and justified solution to prevent such horrors from happening again.
That goodwill has, over time, become strained and misused. Israel’s role in oppressing the Palestinians but also in aiding and abetting some of the most reactionary forces in the world has more than tarnished its image.
The latter role, though, has been kept largely hidden from the public eye. Israeli co-operation with reactionary forces began very soon after its establishment as a state.
An injured Palestinian girl is brought to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital after an Israeli airstrike hit al-Maghazi Refugee Camp in Deir al-Balah, Gaza on January 09, 2024. (Photo: Ashraf Amra/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“How many more alarm bells have to ring and how many more civilians must unlawfully suffer or be killed before governments take action?” asked one human rights expert.
Human rights advocates are ramping up pressure on nations to formally back South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice after a panel of experts determined that the Israeli military’s actions in the Gaza Strip—paired with officials’ overt statements of intent to wipe out the Palestinian population—constitute sufficient evidence that a genocide is underway.
Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) and the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) convened the expert roundtable last month, before South Africa submitted its 84-page ICJ application accusing Israel of violating its obligations under the Genocide Convention, which also requires signatories to prevent genocide.
“We have to be clear that this is a very unique case, indeed textbook, in the way that intent is articulated openly and explicitly in an unashamed way,” Raz Segal, associate professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University, said during his December presentation, pointing to remarks by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other high-ranking officials signaling genocidal war aims.
South Africa’s ICJ filing, submitted to the 15-judge United Nations court on December 29, features page after page of quotations from Israeli officials and lawmakers voicing what the document calls “genocidal intent against the Palestinian people.” The first public hearing on the case is scheduled to take place on Thursday.
“Expert analysis of Israeli government statements revealing their intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, combined with military actions on the ground, including mass killings, forced displacement, and the deprivation of items essential to life in Gaza, suggest that the crime of genocide is being committed against the Palestinian population,” Sarah Leah Whitson, DAWN’s executive director, said Tuesday. “South Africa’s charging Israel with genocide before the International Court of Justice underscores the need for decisive international action to compel a cease-fire and hold the perpetrators of these atrocities accountable.”
Experts convened by DAWN concluded Israel’s assault on Gaza, coupled with explicit declarations of intent by Israeli officials to destroy Gaza’s population, likely amount to genocide under the Convention on Prevention & Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. https://t.co/do8sdnSM4l
Francis Boyle, the first human rights lawyer to ever win an order from the ICJ under the Genocide Convention, toldDemocracy Now! last week that based on his “careful review of all the documents so far submitted” by South Africa, he believes the country “will win an order against Israel to cease and desist from committing all acts of genocide against the Palestinians.”
Thus far, at least seven national governments and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation—which includes 57 member states—have issued statements supporting South Africa’s case against Israel. But only Jordan has signaled that it plans to officially back South Africa’s case with a Declaration of Intervention.
Such declarations allow countries to “formally express their support for the case and contribute to the legal proceedings, enhancing the case’s legitimacy and impact,” DAWN explained, noting that more than 30 nations—including the U.S., Israel’s top ally and arms supplier—submitted Declarations of Intervention in Ukraine’s genocide case against Russia at the ICJ.
“South Africa’s application to the International Court of Justice, invoking the Genocide Convention against Israel, represents a pivotal moment in the pursuit of global justice and accountability,” said Raed Jarrar, DAWN’s advocacy director. “It is time for the international community to support this process and speak with one voice to stop the genocide against the Palestinian people.”
With national and grassroots support for South Africa’s case growing, Israel has been pressuring governments around the world to speak out against the filing as it continues to wage war on Gaza’s desperate and starving population. On Tuesday, as Common Dreamsreported, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken dismissed South Africa’s case as “meritless” even as the Biden administration refuses to formally assess whether Israel has adhered to international law.
Since South Africa submitted its application to the ICJ late last month, Israel has killed more than 2,100 people in the Palestinian enclave and injured thousands more, according to the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor.
“How many more alarm bells have to ring and how many more civilians must unlawfully suffer or be killed before governments take action?” Balkees Jarrah, associate international justice director at Human Rights Watch, asked Wednesday. “South Africa’s genocide case unlocks a legal process at the world’s highest court to credibly examine Israel’s conduct in Gaza in the hopes of curtailing further suffering.”
Rabbis hold a peace action at the United Nations Security Council in New York on January 9, 2024. (Photo: Jews for Racial & Economic Justice)
“The U.N. was created in the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust, with the very intention of ensuring ‘Never Again,'” said Rabbis for Ceasefire. “We are here as Jews, as rabbis, to urge the U.N. to follow through.”
After arriving at the United Nations headquarters on Tuesday, ostensibly for a scheduled tour, three dozen rabbis and rabbinical students made their way into the U.N. Security Council’s chamber to stage the latest high-profile demonstration demanding the United States end its opposition to a cease-fire in Gaza.
The rabbis—whose action was organized by Rabbis for Cease-fire, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, Jewish Voice for Peace, and IfNotNow—displayed banners with messages for U.S. President Joe Biden: “Biden: The World Says Cease-Fire,” and “Biden: Stop Vetoing Peace.”
The protest came weeks after the U.S. alone vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for Israel to end its bombardment of Gaza, which has killed at least 23,210 people, injured more than 59,100, and left thousands more missing and feared dead under rubble, as the population of the enclave faces starvation and disease stemming from Israel’s blockade.
“[President Joe] Biden and the U.S. must stop vetoing peace and end Israel’s bombing and starvation of Gaza,” said IfNotNow.
WOW. 36 rabbis led by @rodfeishalom just held a prayerful sit-in at the @UN Security Council to remind President Biden that the whole world demands a permanent #CeasefireNOW.
In addition to vetoing the Security Council measure last month, the U.S. abstained from voting on a resolution to increase humanitarian aid to Gaza and opposed a U.N. General Assembly resolution calling for a cease-fire.
The country’s isolated stance was starkly illustrated by the latter vote, with 153 nations supporting the cease-fire, including longtime U.S. allies like Canada, France, and Spain backing the resolution, and only nine countries joining the United States.
“Since the Biden administration is consistently, single-handedly blocking the U.N. from taking any meaningful action for a cease-fire, we are organizing 36 rabbis and rabbinical students from seven different states to come to the U.N. themselves, and say, ‘We’re speaking for the people, this is a moral call,'” Sophie Ellman-Golan, communications director for Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, told HuffPost.
Organizers said at a press conference after the protesters were escorted out of the building that six of the rabbis had gained access to the U.N. General Assembly floor, where they displayed one of the banners to the assembled leaders.
Members of Rabbis for Ceasefire brought our message to the @UN General Assembly to tell the U.S. to stop vetoing peace. Ceasefire now! pic.twitter.com/No21j1CeSL
HuffPost reported that one of the rabbis signaled the beginning of the protest during the tour by blowing into a traditional shofar horn, while Rabbis for Cease-fire founder and lead organizer Alissa Wise quoted the biblical Book of Isaiah.
“They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks,” said Wise. “Nation shall not lift up swords against nation. Neither shall they learn war anymore.”
Video from inside the U.N. Security Council Chamber this morning shows the beginning of a Rabbis for Ceasefire protest calling on the U.S. & int'l community to stop the Israeli military operation in Gaza. The men in suits are surprised U.N. tour guides. pic.twitter.com/egZyKsxuXs
The groups called on the U.S. and all U.N. members to:
Reaffirm and recommit to the goals of the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, taking meaningful action to stop the slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza;
Hold another Security Council vote to pass a resolution for cease-fire that includes lifting the siege and hostage exchange; and
Bring to the General Assembly a resolution calling for appropriate accountability measures in line with international law, including an immediate arms embargo.
“The U.N. was created in the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust, with the very intention of ensuring ‘Never Again,'” said Rabbis for Cease-fire. “We are here as Jews, as rabbis, to urge the U.N. to follow through on this noble mission. Never again means never again for any of us.”
5/5 @UN General Assembly already voted with an overwhelming majority for Ceasefire. But the @USUN is thwarting the efforts of the Security Council to take meantingful action for a ceasefire. The US is standing in the way of the international community taking action to save lives.
An organizer said as the rabbis assembled that “the U.N. is the appropriate place for meaningful action for cease-fire and accountability for Israel’s war crimes.”
The demonstration came two days before the International Court of Justice, the U.N.’s top judicial body, is set to hold a hearing on South Africa’s lawsuit claiming Israel has committed acts of genocide in Gaza. Turkey, Malaysia, and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation have all expressed support for South Africa’s claim, while Jordan indicated last week it had filed documents to submit a Declaration of Intervention at the court, backing the lawsuit.
More than 900 worldwide civil society groups have joined a call for other governments to submit Declarations of Intervention to bolster South Africa’s case.
The Biden administration said Tuesday that South Africa’s case is “meritless,” despite the country’s detailed, 84-page complaint highlighting specific calls from Israeli officials to wipe out the population of Gaza and force them to leave the enclave.
“The U.S.,” said Rabbis for Cease-fire, “is standing in the way of the international community taking action to save lives.”
Palestinians mourn loved ones killed by an Israeli airstrike on December 24, 2023 in Khan Younis, Gaza. (Photo: Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images)
The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times have regularly “used emotive language to describe the killings of Israelis, but not Palestinians.”
An analysis published Tuesday shows that three of the most influential newspapers in the United States—The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times—have reliably shown a bias against Palestinians in their coverage of Israel’s assault on Gaza and its reverberating consequences.
Writer Adam Johnson and researcher Othman Ali examined the three outlets’ coverage of Israel-Gaza between October 7—the day of the deadly Hamas-led attack on southern Israel—and November 24, which marked the start of a negotiated pause that ended just a week later. The Israeli bombardment has continued relentlessly since.
The pair’s analysis, published in The Intercept, found that across more than 1,000 articles, the three newspapers showed a “consistent bias” against Palestinians. Specifically, the outlets “disproportionately emphasized Israeli deaths in the conflict; used emotive language to describe the killings of Israelis, but not Palestinians; and offered lopsided coverage of antisemitic acts in the U.S., while largely ignoring anti-Muslim racism in the wake of October 7.”
As the Gaza death toll surged during the first month and a half of Israel’s assault, the three newspapers’ mentions of Palestinians in their coverage declined, Johnson and Ali found.
In the period between October 7 and November 24, the outlets used the words “slaughter” and “massacre” a combined 180 times when describing the toll of the Hamas-led attack on Israel. The newspapers used those terms just five times when describing Gazans killed by the Israeli military.
“The Washington Post employed ‘massacre‘ several times in its reporting to describe October 7,” Johnson and Ali wrote. “‘President Biden faces growing pressure from lawmakers in both parties to punish Iran after Hamas’ massacre,’ one report from the Post says. A November 13 story from the paper about how Israel’s siege and bombing had killed 1 in 200 Palestinians does not use the word ‘massacre’ or ‘slaughter’ once. The Palestinian dead have simply been ‘killed’ or ‘died’—often in the passive voice.”
Johnson and Ali previously found similar bias against Palestinians in the coverage of CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC.
Among the findings in Ali’s research is the selective use of emotive terms to describe killing—something reserved almost exclusively for Israeli deaths. It’s a sort of reverse humanization, horror only goes in one direction. The killing of Palestinians is seen as sterile/clinical https://t.co/TFvczDwTlIpic.twitter.com/oaMsObTFnK
The analysis also shows that the newspapers’ coverage of the Israeli assault’s impact on children and journalists has been relatively sparse given the unparalleled impact the war has had on kids and members of the media.
In the three weeks after October 7, Israeli forces killed more children in Gaza than were killed in all of the world’s armed conflict zones since 2019, according to Save the Children. The Committee to Protect Journalists said last month that more reporters were killed during the first 10 weeks of the war “than have ever been killed in a single country over an entire year.”
Johnson and Ali wrote Tuesday that “the lack of coverage for the unprecedented killing of children and journalists, groups that typically elicit sympathy from Western media, is conspicuous.”
“By way of comparison, more Palestinian children died in the first week of the Gaza bombing than during the first year of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, yet The New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Timesranmultiplepersonal, sympatheticstorieshighlightingtheplightofchildren during the first six weeks of the Ukraine war.”
The analysis comes days after The Intercept highlighted a longstanding CNN policy under which the outlet runs its Israel-Palestine coverage through its Jerusalem bureau, which must abide by the rules of the Israeli military’s censor.
The Western media’s slanted coverage of Israel’s devastating war on Gaza has drawn outrage from individual journalists, including some who work at The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times.
“We are renewing the call for journalists to tell the full truth without fear or favor,” reads an open letter signed by hundreds of journalists in November. “To use precise terms that are well-defined by international human rights organizations, including ‘apartheid,’ ‘ethnic cleansing,’ and ‘genocide.’ To recognize that contorting our words to hide evidence of war crimes or Israel’s oppression of Palestinians is journalistic malpractice and an abdication of moral clarity.”
After the letter was released, dozens of signatories—including journalists from The Associated Press and Washington Post—asked that their signatures be removed, fearing retaliation from their employers.
Israeli occupation forces obstructing the work of ambulances in Jenin. (Photo: Mohammad Mansour/WAFA)
Over 500 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank in 2023. Under its undeclared policy of collective punishment, Israel also destroyed a significant amount of civilian infrastructure such as roads, residential buildings, and hospitals in West Bank since October 7
Israel’s war on Gaza has entered its fourth month. It has killed over 23,000 Palestinians in the besieged enclave and injured around 60,000. Nearly 80% of all Gazans have been displaced due to the constant bombings. The amount of destruction and killing in Gaza is horrendous. The offensive has also extended to the West Bank where Palestinians have been facing a form of undeclared collective punishment both before and since the war in Gaza.
Though the West Bank has always faced violent attacks from Israeli occupation, those attacks have increased manifold since the beginning of the war in Gaza. Despite the fact that Hamas does not rule the territory, Israel used the excuse of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood to justify its unprecedented attacks on civilians and their infrastructure there.
Between October 7 and December 31, last year more than 340 Palestinians, including a large number of children, were killed in attacks carried out by both the Israeli forces and illegal settlers.
The Israeli attacks targeted Palestinian civilians, including artists from the famous Freedom Theater, while homes were demolished, hospitals and medical facilities targeted, and roads and other civilian infrastructure uprooted.
At least three Palestinian men were shot and killed by the occupying Israeli forces during the intervening period of Monday evening and Tuesday night in Tulkarm. Video footage of these attacks showed Israeli forces first shooting and killing the men and then running over the bodies of one of them with their military vehicle.
A terrifying scene of an Israeli Jeep running over a young man after shooting him along with two other young men in Tulkarm in the West Bank.
Israeli soldiers prevented paramedics from reaching the young men leaving them to bleed until they died. pic.twitter.com/Udm539Ho0D
Israeli forces reportedly conducted similar night raids in Qalqilya, Nablus, Ramallah, and Bethlehem, among several other places on Tuesday night, arresting scores of people and destroying civic infrastructure.
Israeli occupation is targeting the Palestinians in the West Bank economically as well by refusing to transfer millions of dollars in tax revenue to the Palestinian Authority, leaving it with no money to pay the salaries to its over 140,000 employees. It has also refused to allow around 150,000 workers from the territory to return to their jobs in Israel since October 7.
Deadliest Year since 2005
Israeli forces similarly attacked the Jenin refugee camp a couple of days ago and killed at least 7 Palestinians. They have targeted the camp repeatedly since October 7, killing over 60 Palestinians there and deliberately destroying most of the roads and other civil infrastructure. According to Al-Jazeera, Tulkarm too has been a center of Israeli attacks with at least 60 Palestinians killed since October 7.
In August, the UN had already declared 2023 to be the deadliest year for the West Bank as the number of Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks had crossed 200, more than the previous high of 167 in 2022.
According to the latest data, the total number of Palestinians killed in 2023 has crossed 500 with over 13,000 more injured in the attacks carried out by both illegal settlers as well as Israeli soldiers.
More than 70 of the Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks were children. This is the highest number of the Palestinian children ever killed in the occupied West Bank in a year. Some sources say the death toll among children is even higher.
Settler Violence
According to Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din, 2023 was also the most violent year for the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank in terms of the number of attacks carried out by the illegal settlers. According to it, at least 10 Palestinians were killed in 2023 just in those attacks.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), at least 1,225 cases of settler violence were recorded in 2023.
The figure presented by the Palestinian officials for the same is almost double at 2,410. It also claims that the number of Palestinians killed in settler violence in 2023 was 22.
There are around 500,000 Israeli settlers living illegally inside the occupied West Bank. Most of these illegal settlers participate in attacks on nearby Palestinian villages under security cover provided by the Israeli occupation forces.
The settlers attack the villages, burn Palestinian houses, their farms and other properties, and attack people trying to prevent those attacks with the objective of terrorizing people to leave their villages and farms.
Record number of Palestinians detained
More than 11,000 Palestinians were also arrested or detained by Israel in the last year in the occupied West Bank alone, which is almost three times higher than the total number of Palestinians inside Israeli prisons before the beginning of the year.
Some of them were later released after a brief period of detention. Some others were released as part of the prisoner exchange deal between Hamas and Israel. Still the number of Palestinian prisoners inside Israeli jails has jumped from around 4,500 before the beginning of the year to over 7,000 at the end of it.
A joint statement issued by Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs Commission, the Palestinian Prisoners Society, Addameer, and others stated that 1,085 of those detained by the Israeli occupation forces from the West Bank in 2023 were children.
As per reports, scores of Palestinian prisoners have been killed inside Israeli jails with large number of them reporting torture and abuse by the prisoner authorities.
