Zionism

Failed US Military Pier Offered ‘Humanitarian Gloss’ as Israel Starved Gaza

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

U.S. troops prepare components of the Gaza aid pier on March 15, 2024. (Photo: United States Naval Institute)

“The entire operation was a failed exercise in public relations by the Biden administration,” said one observer.

After failing to re-anchor its “humanitarian pier” in Gaza, the Pentagon said Thursday that the much-ballyhooed project—which critics dismissed as a “public relations ploy” that did next to nothing to stop the deadly starvation spreading in the besieged Palestinian enclave—would shut down indefinitely.

Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder said U.S. troops had failed to reconnect the floating Trident Pier to Gaza’s shore due to “technical and weather-related issues,” according to The Washington Post.

The $320 million project—which consists of a floating offshore barge and 1,800-foot causeway to the shore—was touted as eventually being able to accommodate up to 150 aid trucks per day. Instead, it facilitated the shipment of the equivalent of about a single day’s worth of prewar food deliveries while operating for a total of less than three weeks.

“As a pier, it’s shutting down. As a metaphor, it will live forever,” said Tom Philpott, a senior researcher at Johns Hopkins University’s Center for a Livable Future.

Stephen Semler, co-founder of the Security Policy Reform Institute, welcomed the project’s demise.

“The U.S. pier was never supposed to work. It was designed to give a humanitarian gloss to [U.S. President Joe] Biden’s pro-genocide policy in Gaza,” he said on social media. “Good riddance to this failed PR stunt.”

However, during a Thursday press conference, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan defended the pier, arguing that it “has made a difference in trying to deal with the heartbreaking humanitarian situation in Gaza.”

“I see any result that produces more food, more humanitarian goods getting to the people of Gaza, as a success,” he asserted. “It is additive. It is something additional that otherwise would not have gotten there when it got there. And that is a good thing.”

Even if the pier had achieved its expected capacity, it would still have been far fewer than the prewar daily mean of more than 500 truckloads that U.S. and United Nations officials said are required to meet the needs of a population facing critical shortages of food, water, medicine, and other lifesaving supplies.

The pier was in operation for only about 20 days in May before it broke apart during stormy conditions. The structure was subsequently repaired, but then was dismantled just a week after reopening in June due to more rough seas.

It is also likely that the pier was used for military purposes during the June raid by Israel Defense Forces troops, who killed or wounded hundreds of Palestinians—including many women and children—during the rescue of four Israelis kidnapped by Hamas militants on October 7.

“It seems clear that the entire operation was a failed exercise in public relations by the Biden administration, which has sat on its hands while the extremist Netanyahu cabinet, full of the Israeli equivalent of neo-Nazis, has half-starved or in some instances whole-starved the Palestinians of Gaza,” Middle East expert Juan Cole wrote Friday, referring to the far-right government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

At least dozens of Palestinians, mostly children, have died in Gaza due to a lack of food, water, and medical treatment. Palestinian and international agencies say that Israel’s 280-day war on Gaza has left at least 137,500 people dead, maimed, or missing; around 90% of the embattled strip’s population forcibly displaced; and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians starving.

“A U.S. administration has to have an answer when reporters ask it why it is allowing Palestinian children to become emaciated, and the pier was an attempted answer,” Cole added. “The other possibility was for the Biden administration to man up and just tell Netanyahu and his rogues’ gallery cabinet that they cannot starve innocent civilians as part of their campaign against Hamas, and that if they do not cut it out there will be hell to pay. But Biden is in the tank for the Israeli government.”

U.N. experts and others have called Israel’s forced starvation of Palestinians in Gaza “a form of genocidal violence and has resulted in famine.”

The International Court of Justice—which is weighing whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza—has ordered Israel to prevent genocidal acts in the embattled enclave, to “immediately halt” its offensive in Rafah, and to stop blocking humanitarian aid from entering Gaza in the face of worsening “famine and starvation.” Israel is accused of flouting all three ICJ orders.

Meanwhile, International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan accused top Israeli officials of using “starvation as a weapon of war” and “extermination” in his May application for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Khan is also seeking to arrest three Hamas leaders for alleged crimes including extermination and rape.

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

Continue ReadingFailed US Military Pier Offered ‘Humanitarian Gloss’ as Israel Starved Gaza

Israeli snipers accused of killing fleeing Palestinian civilians in Gaza City

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/israeli-snipers-accused-killing-fleeing-palestinian-civilians-gaza-city. Many articles from the Morning Star today.

Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike in the central Gaza Strip, July 10, 2024

ISRAELI snipers were accused of killing fleeing Palestinian civilians in Gaza City today.

This comes as the United States announced the resumption of 500-pound bomb shipments to Israel.

Palestinians who fled Gaza City after the latest Israeli evacuation order say snipers shot dead civilians near Yarmouk stadium.

Exact numbers of the dead are as yet unclear but the shooting comes after Palestinians were ordered by the Israelis to evacuate to the south as it steps up its offensive across the enclave.

…

Multiple people said they saw a man walking in the street shot in the head by a sniper in a tower. Several people later managed to retrieve the body.

Israeli authorities have repeatedly ordered hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to leave areas they had previously declared were safe to return to — in both northern and southern Gaza.

This is not the first time Israeli forces have been accused of sniper fire against civilians.

…

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/israeli-snipers-accused-killing-fleeing-palestinian-civilians-gaza-city. Many articles from the Morning Star today.

Continue ReadingIsraeli snipers accused of killing fleeing Palestinian civilians in Gaza City

Critics of US Complicity in Gaza Genocide Slam State Department Report

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

Injured Palestinians, including children, are brought to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital for treatment after an Israeli attack on July 9, 2024 in Deir Al-Balah, Gaza.
 (Photo: Ashraf Amra/Anadolu via Getty Images)

While the report stresses that “Israel has an inherent right to defend itself,” a related press release doesn’t mention Gaza. One expert said, “I guess they left out the genocide they’re arming and funding.”

The Biden administration broadly and the State Department in particular have faced intense criticism throughout the U.S.-backed Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, and Wednesday was no exception, as an annual genocide report was sent to Congress.

The State Department report is required under the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act of 2018, named for a Holocaust survivor who wrote about his experiences at the Auschwitz and Buchenwald Nazi concentration camps.

A department press release explains that the report “details U.S. interagency efforts to address genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity around the world. It also chronicles whole-of-government work over the past year to promote atrocity prevention programs, protect civilians at risk, and hold perpetrators accountable in places where some of the most heinous crimes have been committed.”

“Our government cannot continue cherry-picking what war crimes and genocide they choose to acknowledge.”

The Intercept‘s Prem Thakker shared the department’s full three-paragraph statement about the report on social media and pointed out that the two nations mentioned are Sudan, where there is a civil war, and Ukraine, which is battling a Russian invasion.

Notably missing—though mentioned in the report—is Israel’s nine-month assault on Gaza, which has been enabled by U.S. diplomatic and weapons support, and is the subject of a South Africa-led genocide case before the International Court of Justice.

Responding to Thakker’s posts, Assal Rad, an expert in Middle East history, said, “I guess they left out the genocide they’re arming and funding.”

Justice Democrats declared: “This is shameful. Our government cannot continue cherry-picking what war crimes and genocide they choose to acknowledge—especially not when we’re the ones funding it.”

The 23-page report includes three paragraphs on Israel and Gaza:

Hamas is a brutal terrorist organization that has vowed to annihilate Israel and repeat the October 7, 2023 massacre, during which it murdered almost 1,200 Israelis, took more than 240 people hostage, and committed horrific acts of sexual violence. In response, Israel has engaged in military actions in Gaza with the stated intent of defending itself against future Hamas attacks. By the end of the reporting period, tens of thousands of Palestinians were killed and over a million displaced as a result of Israel’s military actions.

Israel has an inherent right to defend itself consistent with international law, in response to the October 7 attack, and the United States has made clear that Israel has a moral obligation and a strategic imperative to protect civilians, investigate allegations of any wrongdoing, and ensure accountability for any abuses or violations of international human rights law and violations of [international humanitarian law, or IHL]. As President [Joe] Biden stated in his 2024 State of the Union address: “Israel has an added burden because Hamas hides and operates among the civilian population. But Israel also has a fundamental responsibility to protect innocent civilians in Gaza. This war has taken a greater toll on innocent civilians than all previous wars in Gaza combined.” Secretary [of State Antony] Blinken has urged Israel to do everything possible to avoid civilian casualties and has consistently reiterated at the highest levels that Israel’s military operations in Gaza must comply with IHL.

The Department of State provides a variety of assistance for those impacted in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza through U.N. Women, U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, U.N. Development Program, U.N. Population Fund, U.N. Children’s Fund, Office for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, other U.N. agencies, and international organizations that operate in Israel and Gaza. Additionally, the Department of State hosted U.N. Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict Pramila Patten in March to discuss her report and recommendations following her fact-finding visit to Israel and the West Bank regarding allegations of [gender-based violence].

As of Wednesday, Israel’s war has killed at least 38,243 people in Gaza and injured another 88,243, according to health officials in the Hamas-governed Palestinian enclave. Thousands more remain missing and presumed dead. Israeli forces have devastated civilian infrastructure, leaving a trail of bombed-out homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.

In a letter published in the medical journal The Lancet last week, three public health experts wrote that “applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death to the 37,396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza.”

Israel has also limited the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza. Although the United Nations has not formally declared a famine, 10 top U.N. experts said Tuesday that “we declare that Israel’s intentional and targeted starvation campaign against the Palestinian people is a form of genocidal violence and has resulted in famine across all of Gaza.”

Since October, multiple U.S. government employees, including State Department officials, have resigned over the administration’s complicity in genocide, including weapons support—which the department previously addressed in a May report to Congress.

The May report—the release of which was blasted as a “Friday news dump”—says that it “is reasonable to assess” that U.S. weapons “have been used by Israeli security forces since October 7 in instances inconsistent with its IHL obligations or with established best practices for mitigating civilian harm,” but concludes that Israel can continue receiving arms support.

The earlier report also expresses “deep concerns” about Israel’s actions regarding relief efforts but states that “we do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance within the meaning of Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act.”

Later that month, Stacy Gilbert, one of the State Department officials who resigned, said that “there is consensus among the humanitarian community” that Israel has obstructed relief efforts, adding: “That’s why I object to that report saying that Israel is not blocking humanitarian assistance. That is patently false.”

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

Continue ReadingCritics of US Complicity in Gaza Genocide Slam State Department Report

Despite Gaza War Crimes Accusations, Biden Sends Israel More 500-Pound Bombs

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

A U.S. soldier secures a load of 500-pound bombs in this undated photo. (Photo: U.S. Army)

Since October, the U.S. has sent Israel more than 20,000 heavy bombs, which have been used in some of the deadliest massacres in Gaza.

The Biden administration has ended a two-month pause on the shipment of 500-pound bombs to Israel despite the frequent use of U.S.-supplied weapons by Israeli forces to commit alleged war crimes and genocide in Gaza.

Citing an unnamed Biden administration official, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that the bombs “are in the process of being shipped” to Israel and should arrive in the coming weeks.

In May, the Biden administration suspended transfers of 500- and 2,000-pound bombs manufactured by aerospace giant Boeing over fears the devastating munitions would be used in airstrikes on Rafah, the southern Gaza city where more than a million Palestinians had sought refuge.

By that time, Israel had already dropped hundreds of 2,000-pound bombs—which the U.S. military avoids using in civilian areas because they can destroy entire city blocks—on Gaza, including in an October 31 attack on the densely populated Jabalia refugee camp that killed more than 120 civilians.

“This is what U.S. funding and weapons do.”

Last month, the United Nations Human Rights Office said Israel’s use of 2,000-pound bombs and other U.S.-supplied weapons likely violated international law by deliberately targeting civilians in disproportionate attacks. Israeli military commanders have also been criticized for using artificial intelligence-based target selection to approve bombings they know will cause high civilian casualties.

The Biden official told the Journal that the pause on 2,000-pound bomb shipments will remain in effect.

“Our main concern had been and remains the potential use of 2,000-pound bombs in Rafah and elsewhere in Gaza,” they said. “Because our concern was not about the 500-pound bombs, those are moving forward as part of the usual process.”

But Israeli forces have killed many civilians with smaller bombs too. The New York Times reported Wednesday that multiple weapons experts including a a former U.S. Army explosive ordnance disposal technician identified a fragment from a Boeing-made GBU-39 250-pound bomb used in Tuesday’s attack on a refugee tent encampment outside the al-Awda school in southern Gaza that killed and wounded scores of civilians, including many women and children.

Palestinian and international agencies say Israel’s 278-day Gaza assault and siege have left at least 137,500 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing. Israel’s conduct in the war is the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case. International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan is also seeking to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders for crimes including extermination.

Despite overwhelming evidence of Israeli war crimes, the Biden administration remains Israel’s most steadfast supporter, providing billions of dollars in military aid, approving more than 100 arms shipments, and offering diplomatic cover in the form of United Nations Security Council vetoes and what critics call genocide denial.

Reuters reported last month that since October the U.S. has sent Israel 14,000 2,000-pound bombs, 6,500 500-pound bombs, 3,000 Hellfire missiles, 1,000 bunker-buster bombs, 2,600 air-dropped small-diameter bombs, and other munitions.

Citing the al-Awda massacre, Jewish Voice for Peace Action said Wednesday that “this is what U.S. funding and weapons do.”

“Arms embargo NOW,” the group added.

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

Continue ReadingDespite Gaza War Crimes Accusations, Biden Sends Israel More 500-Pound Bombs

Morning Star Editorial: Starmer in Washington continues a calamitous drive to war

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/editorial-starmer-washington-continues-calamitous-drive-war

Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his wife Victoria board a plane at Stansted Airport in Essex, England, July 9, 2024 as they head to Washington DC to attend a Nato summit

LABOUR has spent its first week in power signalling a changed approach from the Tories — a national wealth fund for infrastructure projects, a reset to devolution with a new council of the regions.

In Washington Keir Starmer’s purpose is different — to show his “cast-iron commitment” to continue the last government’s subordination to US foreign policy, co-ordinated through the Nato military alliance.

This was never in doubt — Starmer is merely affirming Britain’s role in the US-led imperialist bloc as every postwar Labour prime minister has before him.

There are good reasons, though, to regard British foreign policy as every bit as disastrous as domestic policy in recent decades.

On one level the Morning Star can agree with Starmer’s lines at the Nato summit — yes, the world is getting more dangerous.

Two current major wars, in Palestine and Ukraine, show a real capacity to expand into wider conflicts and drag in other powers.

Both relate, in different ways, to the major fault line in international relations, that between the US and the old European colonial powers on one side, and the rest of a world in which that transatlantic bloc carries less and less weight.

Starmer’s speech, calling on Nato members to spend more on their militaries, follows the Western convention of presenting the alliance as guarantors of a “rules-based international order” which is under threat from rising “authoritarian states.”

In reality, the arms race is driven by Nato. Not only does the United States spend more on its military than the next 10 countries put together, the Nato bloc taken together is responsible for 75 per cent of all military spending worldwide, though it comprises just 12 per cent of the world population and 30 per cent of its GDP.

Three-quarters of all arms spending is not, in Starmer’s eyes, enough. Though Labour opts to stick to arbitrary Tory spending rules overall, it promises billions more for the military: raising the defence budget to 2.5 per cent of GDP entails a rise from £64.6bn to £87.1bn, a £22.5bn increase in spending annually. By contrast, axing the two-child benefit cap to lift hundreds of thousands of kids out of poverty is something Labour says it cannot afford: the Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates this would cost £3.4bn a year.

Nor can Nato’s claim to spend this money defending a “rules-based order” stand scrutiny. Last month saw Julian Assange secure his freedom after years of persecution in British jails for exposing the war crimes of “the empire,” as the US bloc is widely known in the global South.

Britain has been alongside the US in ripping up international law with wars of aggression against Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, conflicts whose consequences persist in ongoing conflicts and refugee crises today. Today’s militarism risks igniting a new world war with China, the principal economic and technological rival to the US. All in the name of upholding a global system of unfair trade treaties and unfettered corporate access to resources that keeps a majority of the human race in poverty, is wrecking ecosystems at an accelerating rate and is destabilising the climate into the bargain.

Nothing could be more important than stopping this war. Those who claim the troop build-ups are a deterrent ignore history, not just that of the first world war but recent history: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine followed the expansion of Nato to its borders, its encirclement by US bases and a whole series of enormous Nato military manoeuvres — the “Defender Europe” exercises — simulating war against it. Unsurprisingly, frightening Russia did not prevent war but provoked it, feeding a parallel rise in nationalist militarism there.

The drive to World War III will not be challenged by the opposition Conservatives, or by more than a handful of MPs. But its consequences if unchallenged are unthinkable. So a real opposition must be built outside Westminster.

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/editorial-starmer-washington-continues-calamitous-drive-war

Continue ReadingMorning Star Editorial: Starmer in Washington continues a calamitous drive to war