Kamala Harris

UN Expert Says Impunity for Israel Must End as ‘Genocidal Violence’ Spreads to West Bank

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Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under a CC licence.

Israeli forces are pictured moving the body of a Palestinian man during a raid in the West Bank city of Hebron on September 1, 2024. (Photo: Hazem Bader/AFP via Getty Images)

“Apartheid Israel is targeting Gaza and the West Bank simultaneously, as part of an overall process of elimination, replacement, and territorial expansion,” said United Nations special rapporteur Francesca Albanese.


An independent United Nations expert warned Monday that “Israel’s genocidal violence risks leaking out of Gaza and into the occupied Palestinian territory as a whole” as Western governments, corporations, and other institutions keep up their support for the Israeli military, which stands accused of grave war crimes in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the illegally occupied Palestinian territories, said in a statement that “there is mounting evidence that no Palestinian is safe under Israel’s unfettered control.”

“The writing is on the wall, and we cannot continue to ignore it,” said Albanese, who released a detailed report in May concluding that there are “reasonable grounds to believe” Israel is guilty of genocide in Gaza.

Albanese’s new statement came as the Israeli military’s largest assault on the West Bank in decades continued into its second week. At least 29 Palestinians have been killed during the series of military raids, according to Al Jazeera, including at least five children.

“Apartheid Israel is targeting Gaza and the West Bank simultaneously, as part of an overall process of elimination, replacement, and territorial expansion,” Albanese said Tuesday. “The longstanding impunity granted to Israel is enabling the de-Palestinization of the occupied territory, leaving Palestinians at the mercy of the forces pursuing their elimination as a national group.”

“The international community, made of both states and non-state actors, including companies and financial institutions, must do everything it can to immediately end the risk of genocide against the Palestinian people under Israel’s occupation, ensure accountability, and ultimately end Israel’s colonization of Palestinian territory,” Albanese added.

Defense for Children International–Palestine noted Monday that “dozens of Israeli military vehicles” have “stormed” the West Bank city of Jenin over the past week as “Israeli forces deployed across the targeted refugee camps, seizing Palestinian homes to use as military bases and stationing snipers on the roofs of buildings, subjecting their residents to field investigations.”

“The military bulldozers began destroying the civil infrastructure in Jenin city and camp, which led to the destruction of the main water networks and power outage in several neighborhoods in Jenin and surrounding villages,” the group said. “Israeli forces besieged several hospitals in Jenin and impeded the movement of ambulances and paramedics.”

Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed more than 620 people in the occupied West Bank since October 7, on top of the roughly 40,800 killed by the Israeli military in Gaza.

Unlawful Israeli land seizures have also surged in the West Bank as settlers and soldiers wipe out entire Palestinian communities. The BBC reported Monday that, according to its own analysis, there are “currently at least 196 across the West Bank, and 29 were set up last year—more than in any previous year.”

Israel’s multi-day attack on the West Bank that began last week has intensified fears that unless there’s a permanent cease-fire, the assault on Gaza could expand to the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories and throughout the Middle East.

David Hearst, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Middle East Eye, wrote Monday that “even with the obvious reluctance of Hezbollah and Iran to get involved, all the ingredients are there for a much larger conflagration.”

“An Israel in the grip of an ultra-nationalist, religious, settler insurgency; a U.S. president who allows his signature policy to be flouted by his chief ally, even at the risk of losing a crucial election; resistance that will not surrender; Palestinians in Gaza who will not flee; Palestinians in the West Bank who are now stepping up to the front line; Jordan, the second country to recognize Israel, feeling under existential threat,” Hearst wrote.

For U.S. President Joe Biden or Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, he added, “the message is so clear, it is flashing in neon lights: The regional costs of not standing up to Netanyahu could rapidly outweigh the domestic benefits of being dragged along by him.”

James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, similarly argued Tuesday that “the U.S. must reverse course—and do so dramatically.”

“A long-overdue cut-off of U.S. arms to Israel and recognition of the Palestinian right to self-determination would provide exactly the shock to the system that is needed,” Zogby wrote. “It would force an internal debate in Israel, empowering those who want peace. It might also serve to send a message to the Palestinian people that their plight and rights are understood.”

These actions, especially if followed up with determination and concrete steps, won’t end the conflict tomorrow,” Zogby continued, “but they would surely put the region on a more productive path towards peace than the one it is on now.”

Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under a CC licence.

Zionist Keir Starmer is quoted "I support Zionism without qualification." He's asked whether that means that he supports Zionism under all circumstances, whatever Zionists do.
Zionist Keir Starmer is quoted “I support Zionism without qualification.” He’s asked whether that means that he supports Zionism under all circumstances, whatever Zionists do.
Continue ReadingUN Expert Says Impunity for Israel Must End as ‘Genocidal Violence’ Spreads to West Bank

Kamala Harris supports Israel’s Gaza genocide

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‘No,’ Kamala Harris Says to Withholding Arms From Israel

Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under a CC licence.

Bodies of Palestinians, including babies, who were killed in the Israeli army’s attack on the Nuseirat Refugee Camp are brought to the Aqsa Martyrs Hospital morgue in Deir al-Balah, Gaza on August 30, 2024. (Photo: Ali Jadallah/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“Harris is saying she will reject 77% of Democrats, 61% of Americans, international law, domestic U.S. law, and basic humanity to continue the flow of weapons to Israel while it stands accused of genocide,” said one analyst.

Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris said in a CNN interview that aired late Thursday that, if elected in November, she would not change the Biden administration’s policy of steadfast military support for Israel, rejecting widespread calls for an arms embargo to help bring about an end to the devastating assault on Gaza.

“I’m unequivocal and unwavering in my commitment to Israel’s defense and its ability to defend itself, and that’s not gonna change,” said Harris, recounting the horrors of the Hamas-led October 7 attack. “Israel had a right, has a right to defend itself.”

Acknowledging that “far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed,” the vice president responded “no” when CNN‘s Dana Bash asked whether a Harris administration would implement a “change in policy in terms of arms” and withhold even “some” weapons shipments to Israel.

Watch:

The CNN appearance marked Harris’ first major television interview since becoming the Democratic nominee, a change at the top of the party’s 2024 ticket that Palestinian rights advocates hoped would open the door to a fundamental shift away from the Biden administration’s Gaza policy—which has been to arm Israel to the teeth while tepidly pressuring the country’s far-right government to protect civilians and agree to a cease-fire deal.

“The vice president’s statement was morally indefensible and politically shortsighted as the lack of American consequences for Netanyahu’s horrific assault on Palestinian civilians in Gaza has emboldened Israel to now invade the West Bank,” Layla Elabed and Abbas Alawieh, co-founders of the Uncommitted National Movement, said in a statement Friday. “Vice President Harris must turn the page from one of the most glaring foreign policy failures of our time by aligning with the American majority that opposes sending weapons to Israel’s assault on Gaza.”

Despite Bash’s characterization of calls for an arms embargo against Israel as a demand from the “progressive left,” survey data has shown that a majority of U.S. voters oppose sending weapons to Israel as it commits appalling war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank. Since October, the U.S. has sent Israel over 50,000 tons of weaponry.

“Harris is saying she will reject 77% of Democrats, 61% of Americans, international law, domestic U.S. law, and basic humanity to continue the flow of weapons to Israel while it stands accused of genocide,” Middle East scholar Assal Rad said late Thursday, citing the results of a recent CBS News/YouGov poll.

A separate poll commissioned by the IMEU Policy Project suggested that voters in key U.S. battleground states would be more likely to vote for a Democratic nominee who pledged to withhold weapons from Israel.

The CNN interview aired as Israel continued its multi-day assault on the West Bank, a deadly military campaign that the head of the United Nations and others warned could become an extension of the nearly 11-month war on Gaza, during which Israel has killed more than 40,600 people, displaced 90% of the enclave’s population, and sparked famine across the territory.

On Thursday, Israel’s military killed five Palestinians in an airstrike on a vehicle convoy of the Washington, D.C.-based American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA) agency. It is a violation of U.S. law to provide weaponry to a country obstructing the delivery of American humanitarian aid.

The attack on the ANERA convoy came a day after Israeli forces opened fire on a World Food Program vehicle, forcing the U.N. agency to suspend employee movement in Gaza.

Harris’ refusal to express openness to an arms embargo against a military that has repeatedly targeted aid and healthcare workers, journalists, and other civilians sparked immediate backlash from Palestinian rights advocates, including at least one member of Congress.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the only Palestinian American in the U.S. Congress, said Harris’ answer signaled that “war crimes and genocide will continue.”

Yonah Lieberman, co-founder of IfNotNow, called the Democratic nominee’s answer on Gaza “terrible” and “out of touch with voters, especially those in key battleground states who Harris needs to feel motivated to go to the polls.”

“Poll after poll after poll tells us that a majority of Americans and even more key Democratic constituencies want the US to stop giving arms to Israel that it’s using to kill and displace Palestinian families,” Lieberman added. “Not sending bombs to Israel is politically expedient and—quite obviously!—the morally correct thing to do for anyone reading the daily headlines of Israeli massacres being done with U.S. weapons.”

In an op-ed for Common Dreams on Friday, RootsAction national director Norman Solomon warned that “time is running out for Kamala Harris to distance herself from U.S. policies that enable Israel to continue with mass murder and genocide in Gaza.”

“Polling shows that a pivot toward moral decency would improve her chances of defeating Donald Trump,” Solomon wrote. “But during her CNN interview Thursday night, Harris remained in lockstep with President Biden’s unconditional arming of Israel.”

This story has been updated to include a statement from the Uncommitted National Movement.

Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under a CC licence.

Continue ReadingKamala Harris supports Israel’s Gaza genocide

Israeli has received 50,000 tons of weapons from the US since October 7

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Original article republished form peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Palestine solidarity protesters on August 2 in New York City (Photo: Wyatt Souers)

The US shows no signs of implementing an arms embargo or even conditioning aid as Palestinian death toll continues to mount

On August 26, the Israeli Defense Ministry announced that it had received over 50,000 tons in shipments of arms and military equipment from the US since October 7. Israel has used these shipments in carrying out a war that has been labeled by international bodies and nations as a genocide against the people of Gaza, with over 40,000 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces thus far. The weapons deliveries are “crucial for sustaining the IDF’s operational capabilities during the ongoing war,” claim Israeli forces.

It appears that the US is no closer to an arms embargo against Israel or even to conditioning aid, despite pressure from within the country itself to do so. Only weeks ago, the Pentagon announced an arms sale of USD 20 billion to Israel. 

Last month, shortly before the US Congress gave visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a standing ovation in a special joint session of Congress, seven major labor unions, representing almost half of the combined unionized workforce, penned a letter demanding that the US end US aid to Israel. 

This demand was reiterated by “uncommitted” delegates at the Democratic National Convention last week, as well as the thousands of protesters outside of the Convention in Chicago. Vice President Kamala Harris, formally chosen as the Democratic Party nominee in the 2024 presidential election, only firmly doubled down on her Party’s support for Israel in her acceptance speech. 

“I will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself, and I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself, because the people of Israel must never again face the horror that a terrorist organization called Hamas caused on Oct. 7, including unspeakable sexual violence and the massacre of young people at a music festival,” Harris stated. 

The conditions of genocide are only becoming more dire in Gaza. On August 16, the Palestinian Ministry of Health confirmed that a 10-month-old baby in Gaza had been infected with polio, Gaza’s first case of polio in 25 years. This announcement raised alarms about the effects of war on conditions of disease and starvation, which could lead to upwards of 186,000 deaths, as estimated by a letter published in The Lancet last month. Organizations such as the WHO have emphasized that a humanitarian pause in the war are essential to carrying out an effective polio vaccination campaign. 

Original article republished form peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Continue ReadingIsraeli has received 50,000 tons of weapons from the US since October 7

Blinken Condemned for ‘Empty Words’ on Genocide as US Backs Israel’s Obliteration of Gaza

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

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks to reporters on a tarmac in Doha, Qatar on August 20, 2024. (Photo: Kevin Mohatt/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

“You are currently arming, funding, and defending a genocide in Gaza. That is how history will remember you.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was accused of stark hypocrisy on Saturday after he condemned the Myanmar military’s genocide against the Rohingya people while simultaneously aiding Israel’s genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip.

Marking the seventh anniversary of Myanmar’s vicious ethnic cleansing of the stateless Rohingya, Blinken wrote on social media that “the United States continues to honor the victims and stand with the survivors as they seek justice and accountability for these atrocities.”

Blinken also issued a statement highlighting the U.S. State Department’s “extensive documentation of the atrocities and abuses committed against Rohingya and all civilians”—a sharp contrast with the Biden administration’s reluctance to assess Israeli atrocities against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

“You are currently arming, funding, and defending a genocide in Gaza,” Middle East researcher and analyst Assal Rad wrote in response to Blinken’s statement. “That is how history will remember you, not your empty words.”

U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) also weighed in, telling Blinken to “just stop trying to act like you care about genocide or human rights.”

Under Blinken’s leadership, the U.S. State Department has approved massive arms transfers to Israel—including a recent $20 billion sale—and provided diplomatic cover for the country’s far-right government on the world stage, dismissing as “meritless” the South Africa-led genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

Israel has killed more than 40,400 people in Gaza since the October 7 Hamas-led attack. Most of those killed in Israel’s assault have been women and children—including thousands of infants and toddlers.

In addition to perpetrating horrific war crimes in Gaza—often with U.S. weaponry—Israel has sold arms to Myanmar’s military, even after the 2021 military coup.

“According to documents and sources who spoke with Haaretz,” the Israeli newspaper reported last September, “the government-owned Israel Aerospace Industries and the Israeli arms maker Elbit Systems maintained their trade with Myanmar despite an international arms embargo on the country, and despite a 2017 ruling by Israel’s High Court of Justice and the Israeli government’s own 2018 statement saying it stopped such sales.”

“Israel’s longstanding relations with the different regimes controlling Myanmar have involved arms trade since the mid-20th century,” Haaretz continued. “Even in the years in which the country was openly ruled by its military junta, Israel refused to stop the trade. The trade was maintained through the Rohingya genocide of 2016-17.”

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

Continue ReadingBlinken Condemned for ‘Empty Words’ on Genocide as US Backs Israel’s Obliteration of Gaza

Israel Launches Massive Attack on Lebanon, Heightening Fears of All-Out War

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

Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli airstrike on Zibqin in southern Lebanon on August 25, 2024. 
(Photo: Kawnat Haju/AFP via Getty Images

“Looks like Israel is now escalating in Lebanon in a major way in the hopes of kicking off a major war in the north that has thus far been kept to more limited exchanges,” warned one analyst.

Israel’s military deployed around 100 fighter jets to launch a massive bombing campaign in southern Lebanon on Sunday, endangering tens of thousands of civilians and heightening the chances of an all-out regional war.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) characterized the wave of airstrikes as an effort to preemptively “remove the threat” posed by a purportedly imminent Hezbollah attack, but observers argued the Israeli bombing marked a serious escalation that could further undermine hopes of a cease-fire deal in Gaza.

“Looks like Israel is now escalating in Lebanon in a major way in the hopes of kicking off a major war in the north that has thus far been kept to more limited exchanges,” wrote political analyst Yousef Munayyer. “Just as negotiations for a cease-fire were reportedly advancing.”

Hezbollah said Sunday that it had fired hundreds of drones and rockets at Israeli military sites in retaliation for the assassination of one of the group’s senior commanders last month. Hezbollah said the “first phase” of its response was complete and rejected the IDF’s claim that it preempted the group’s retaliatory action.

The Associated Press reported that “by mid-morning, it appeared that the exchange had ended, with both sides saying they had only aimed at military targets.”

“At least three people were killed in the strikes on Lebanon,” AP noted, “while there were no reports of casualties in Israel.”

Israel Katz, the Israeli foreign minister, wrote on social media following the attack on Lebanon that he “sent a direct message to dozens of foreign ministers worldwide, urging them to support Israel against the Iranian axis of evil and its proxies, led by Hezbollah.”

Sunday’s dangerous back-and-forth, described by one newspaper as the two sides’ biggest exchange of fire since the 2006 war, further intensified concerns that the region is moving toward the precipice of an all-out conflict as Israel’s U.S.-backed assault on the Gaza Strip continues with no end in sight.

A White House spokesperson said Sunday that U.S. President Joe Biden is “closely monitoring events in Israel and Lebanon.”

“At his direction, senior U.S. officials have been communicating continuously with their Israeli counterparts,” the spokesperson said. “We will keep supporting Israel’s right to defend itself, and we will keep working for regional stability.”

One senior U.S. official said Israel did not give the White House advance notice of the Lebanon attack.

Monica Marks, professor of Middle East politics at New York University Abu Dhabi, wrote that the White House’s claim to be promoting regional stability “lands like a bad joke” given ongoing U.S. support for Israel’s “escalatory acts.”

“Lives on the ground are at stake. So are [Democratic presidential nominee Kamala] Harris‘ chances and Biden’s legacy,” Marks added. “D.C. is playing Middle East roulette.”

Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon came after another horrific day in the Gaza Strip, where the IDF killed dozens of Palestinians in southern Gaza. “Among the dead,” according to the AP, “were 11 members of a family, including two children, after an airstrike hit their home in Khan Younis.”

The atrocities preceded a fresh round of high-level cease-fire talks, negotiations that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly thwarted with hardline demands.

The Washington Post reported Saturday that “Israel and Hamas were sending senior-level delegations to Cairo this weekend as U.S., Qatari, and Egyptian mediators prepared for a high-stakes summit they hope will break the deadlock in negotiations for a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip.”

“Hamas officials arrived in the Egyptian capital Saturday, while Israeli media reported that a team led by the head of Mossad, David Barnea, would travel there Sunday,” the Post added. “The summit, also on Sunday, will include CIA Director William J. Burns, Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel, and Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani.”

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

Continue ReadingIsrael Launches Massive Attack on Lebanon, Heightening Fears of All-Out War