Zionism

‘This Genocide Must End Now’: Jewish-Led Protests Demand Gaza Cease-Fire

Spread the love

Original article by Jake Johnson at Common Dreams shared under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Jewish activists and allies hold a protest demanding a cease-fire in Gaza on December 14, 2023 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo: Jewish Voice for Peace)

“As the descendant of people who have survived pogroms, I know my ancestors would want me to do everything in my power to stop the U.S.-funded genocide unfolding in Gaza,” said one activist.

On the eighth night of Hanukkah, Jewish activists and allies took to the streets of eight U.S. cities on Thursday to demand an end to the bloodshed in Gaza, blocking traffic on bridges and highways in a show of opposition to the Biden administration’s continued support for the Israeli military’s atrocities.

“It is horrifying to watch the U.S. government fully fund the Israeli government’s relentless bombing campaign and the destruction of the people of Gaza,” said Sara Bollag of the Washington, D.C. chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), which helped organize the protests in Seattle; Philadelphia; Los Angeles; Portland, Oregon; Washington, D.C.; Chicago; Minneapolis; and Atlanta.

“I am here, as the great-granddaughter of a victim of the Holocaust, doing everything in my power to stop another genocide unfolding before our eyes,” Bollag added.

In the nation’s capital, demonstrators holding signs that read “Cease-Fire Now” and “Never Again for Anyone” and singing Hanukkah prayers shut down an overpass.

In Chicago, more than a dozen Jewish demonstrators were arrested for obstructing the Washington Street bridge.

“As the descendant of people who have survived pogroms, I know my ancestors would want me to do everything in my power to stop the U.S.-funded genocide unfolding in Gaza,” said Millie Hartenstein of JVP Chicago.

The nationwide demonstrations came amid growing domestic and international outrage over the Biden administration’s decision to keep arming the Israeli government and opposing global efforts to secure a lasting cease-fire as the humanitarian crisis in Gaza spirals out of control, leaving most of the territory’s population without adequate food, clean water, humane living conditions, and sufficient medical treatment.

“Everywhere you look is congested with makeshift shelters. Everywhere you go, people are desperate, hungry, and terrified,” Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, said in a speech on Thursday. “People—and this is also something completely new—people are stopping aid trucks, taking the food, and eating it right away. This is how desperate and hungry they are. I witnessed this firsthand.”

President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, met with Israeli leaders on Thursday and reportedly urged them to “switch to more precise tactics in about three weeks” in an attempt to “communicate that American patience with widespread civilian deaths is running out.” According to one human rights monitor, more than 90% of the people killed so far by Israel’s latest aerial and ground assault on Gaza have been civilians.

A U.S. intelligence assessment reported by CNN on Wednesday found that nearly half of the munitions Israel has dropped on Gaza since October 7 have been so-called “dumb bombs,” unguided weapons whose use in densely populated areas could violate international law.

The U.S. has provided Israel with both guided and unguided munitions, as well as artillery shells and other weaponry. Just last Friday, the State Department bypassed a congressional review process to push through the sale of 13,000 rounds of tank ammunition to Israel.

Earlier this week, top humanitarian aid leaders implored the U.S. government to urgently change its approach to halt Gaza’s “apocalyptic free fall” and dozens of Biden administration staffers held a vigil outside the White House demanding an immediate cease-fire, the latest sign of mounting internal dissent.

“We have seen refugee camps, hospitals, schools, and entire neighborhoods bombed,” Josh Paul, a former State Department official who resigned in October over the Biden administration’s unconditional arms transfers to Israel, said during Thursday’s vigil. “We have seen dead men, women, and children pulled from the rubble in their pajamas. We have seen harassment, humiliation, and degradation of many kinds. This is unacceptable.”

Original article by Jake Johnson at Common Dreams shared under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Warren Demands Facebook-Instagram Explain Censorship of Pro-Palestinian Content

Largest Health Union in US Calls for Cease-Fire in Gaza

Union Leaders Join Progressive Lawmakers in Demanding Gaza Cease-Fire Now

IDF Admits to Firing on and Killing Three Israeli Hostages in Gaza

Continue Reading‘This Genocide Must End Now’: Jewish-Led Protests Demand Gaza Cease-Fire

Jury retires in trial of ‘Elbit Eight’ who shut down Israeli arms factories

Spread the love

Original article by Anita Mureithi at OpenDemocracy shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

Activists say their actions in 2020 and 2021 were lawfully justified amid Israeli attacks on Palestinian civilians

The ‘Elbit Eight’ – Jocelyn Cooney, Nicola Deane, Caroline Brouard, Emily Arnott, Huda Ammori, Richard Barnard, Genevieve Scherer and Robin Refualu – at Snaresbrook Crown Court last month  | Guy Smallman/Getty Images

Jurors have begun deliberations in the trial of the ‘Elbit eight’, a group of activists with Palestine Action accused of offences relating to the shutdown of UK operations by Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms producer.

The eight have been on trial for four weeks at Snaresbrook Crown Court in north-east London. They do not deny the charges of burglary, criminal damage, encouraging offences of criminal damage, possessing articles with intent to cause criminal damage, and threatening to damage property belonging to Jones Lang LaSalle – a company that provides services in relation to one of Elbit’s UK sites – but they have argued that they were lawfully justified in their actions.

Over the past month, jurors have heard how the activists, in the years 2020 to 2021, deployed tactics such as rooftop occupations, window smashing, and spray painting to force Elbit out of the UK and cease the production of lethal weapons used against Palestinian civilians.

Though the prosecution has described their actions as “wanton criminality”, defence barristers have placed great emphasis on the fact that the defendants acted under the belief that if decision-makers at Elbit UK, UAV Systems and Jones Lang LaSalle understood the true extent of the atrocities committed using Elbit manufactured systems, then they would have consented to their actions.

Richard Barnard, Huda Ammori, Robin Refualu, Genevieve Scherer, Milly Arnott, Caroline Brouard, Jocelyn Cooney and Nicola Deane are charged in various combinations on 13 counts relating to a series of incidents in London, Kent, Oldham and Staffordshire.

As barristers for each of the defendants delivered their closing speeches on Tuesday, a number of them reminded jurors that many historical rights movements were once vilified – including the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, and the civil rights movement in the US.

Barnard’s lawyer said: “It’s no good if in a few weeks’ or months’ time, if you’re pushing your trolley around Tesco, and you think: ‘Oh, I’m not sure we did get that right.’ That’s the heavy responsibility you have.”

He added: “People are allowed, in the free society that you represent as jurors, to hold strong beliefs. Some hold them more strongly than others. Not many would don an adult nappy [a reference to protests that saw activists stay in place for long periods of time]. It takes a certain type of person to do that. A certain strength of belief.

“But these people are important. [They] bring issues perhaps that most of us are content to read about or listen to from the comfort of our own homes.

“Times change, opinions change, and sometimes it takes others to bring matters to our attention which change our opinion. It’s almost laughable to think that women once didn’t have the right to vote.”

All defendants except Scherer and Cooney are charged with at least one count of criminal damage, while all except Brouard, Cooney and Deane are charged with at least one count of burglary. Cooney is charged only with encouraging offences of criminal damage and possessing articles with intent to cause criminal damage.

Original article by Anita Mureithi at OpenDemocracy shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

Continue ReadingJury retires in trial of ‘Elbit Eight’ who shut down Israeli arms factories

‘We Are Complicit’: Sanders Urges Biden to Curb Israel Military Aid

Spread the love
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders speaking with attendees at the Presidential Gun Sense Forum hosted by Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines, Iowa. Image by Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ shared under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders speaking with attendees at the Presidential Gun Sense Forum hosted by Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines, Iowa. Image by Gage Skidmore shared under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

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

Israeli atrocities in Gaza are being carried out by “bombs and equipment produced and provided by the United States and heavily subsidized by American taxpayers,” the Vermont senator wrote.

Calling the Netanyahu government’s ongoing assault on the Gaza Strip “immoral” and illegal under international law, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday urged President Joe Biden to drop his support for the portion of a supplemental foreign aid package that would give the Israeli military more than $10 billion in unconditional assistance.

Sanders (I-Vt.), who has faced backlash from Palestinian rights advocates for rejecting calls for a permanent cease-fire in Gaza, also pushed Biden to “support efforts at the United Nations to end the bloodshed, such as the recent resolution, vetoed by the United States, that would have demanded an immediate humanitarian cease-fire, the unconditional release of all hostages, and full humanitarian access.”

The senator’s letter to Biden was made public a day after the U.S. joined just nine other nations in voting against a U.N. General Assembly resolution calling for a cease-fire. The nonbinding resolution passed overwhelmingly, leaving the U.S. “increasingly isolated in its steadfast support of a war that seems to have no rules and no limits,” as the executive director of Doctors Without Borders put it following Tuesday’s vote.

“The U.S. must not provide $10 billion in military aid for Netanyahu’s right-wing government to conduct their horrific war against innocent Palestinians.”

Sanders argued in his letter that “while there is a moral case for a military response against a brutal terrorist attack, it is clear that the Netanyahu government’s current campaign is being conducted in a deeply immoral way.”

“Israel’s reliance on widespread and indiscriminate bombardment, including with massive explosive ordinance in densely populated urban areas, is unconscionable,” Sanders wrote. “This constitutes not just a humanitarian cataclysm, but a mass atrocity. And it is being done with bombs and equipment produced and provided by the United States and heavily subsidized by American taxpayers.”

“Tragically, we are complicit in this carnage,” the senator added, pointing to a recent Amnesty International investigation showing that the Israeli military used U.S.-made munitions to bomb two family homes in the Gaza Strip in October, killing 43 members of two families—including 19 children.

Sanders went on to criticize the Biden administration’s timid response to Israel’s massacres in Gaza, writing that the U.S. has “done little but ask nicely while continuing to enable” the Netanyahu government’s devastating military campaign.

“While it is appropriate to support defensive systems that will protect Israeli civilians against incoming missile and rocket attacks,” Sanders argued, “it would be irresponsible to provide an additional $10.1 billion in military aid beyond these defensive systems as contained in the proposed supplemental foreign aid package.”

Sanders asked Biden to “withdraw” his support for that element of the larger aid package to stop fueling “the continuation of the Netanyahu government’s widespread, indiscriminate bombardment.”

Biden said Tuesday that Israel’s “indiscriminate bombing” of the Gaza Strip is costing the country support on the world stage, but administration officials made clear Wednesday that the U.S. “has no plans to shift its position and draw any red lines around the transfer of weapons and munitions to Israel,” CNN reported.

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

Continue Reading‘We Are Complicit’: Sanders Urges Biden to Curb Israel Military Aid

More than 1,000 trade unionists block four Israeli weapons factories

Spread the love

https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/more-1000-trade-unionists-block-four-israeli-weapons-factories

Activists blockade Eaton Mission Systems in Bournemouth Photo:  Workers for a Free Palestine

FOUR arms factories producing parts for Israeli fighter jets were shut down in protests by more than 1,000 trade unionists today.

Campaigners calling for an end to Britain’s complicity in war crimes being committed in Gaza blockaded sites at Bournemouth, Glasgow, Brighton and Lancashire.

The demonstrations were organised by campaign group Workers for a Free Palestine in co-ordination with workers in France, Denmark and the Netherlands, involving members from trade unions including Unite, Unison, GMB, the NEU, the BMA, UCU, Bectu and BFAWU.

The campaign group said they targeted sites run by defence giant BAE Systems which produces parts for the F-35 stealth combat jet currently being used by Israel to bombard Gaza.

More than 600 blockaded Eaton Mission Systems in Bournemouth alone.

A spokeswoman for Workers for a Free Palestine said: “The fighter jets these factories help to produce are being used to imprison the people of Gaza in a death trap.

“Workers all over Britain are rising up for Palestine, saying we will not allow arms used in a genocide to be supplied in our name and funded by our taxes.

…

https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/more-1000-trade-unionists-block-four-israeli-weapons-factories

Craig Murray discusses the positive legal obligation to prevent genocide.

Every single state in the world has a positive duty to intervene to prevent the Genocide in Gaza now, not after a court has reached a determination of genocide. This is made crystal clear in para 431 of the International Court of Justice judgment in Bosnia vs Serbia:

This obviously does not mean that the obligation to prevent genocide only comes into being when perpetration of genocide commences ; that would be absurd, since the whole point of the obligation is to prevent, or attempt to prevent, the occurrence of the act. In fact, a State’s obligation to prevent, and the corresponding duty to act, arise at the instant that the State learns of, or should normally have learned of, the existence of a serious risk that genocide will be committed. From that moment onwards, if the State has available to it means likely to have a deterrent effect on those suspected of preparing genocide, or reasonably suspected of harbouring specific intent (dolus specialis), it is under a duty to make such use of these means as the circumstances permit.

This case was specifically on the application of the Genocide Convention. That the ICJ has ruled there is a positive duty on states to act to prevent genocide makes it even more astonishing to me that no state has invoked the Genocide Convention over the blatant genocide being committed by Israel in Gaza.

…

Continue ReadingMore than 1,000 trade unionists block four Israeli weapons factories

Warren Leads Letter Pressing Biden on Israel’s Use of US Arms

Spread the love

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

An Israeli soldier carries a 155mm artillery shell near a self-propelled howitzer deployed at a position near the border with Lebanon in the upper Galilee region of northern Israel on October 18, 2023. (Photo: Jalaa Marey/AFP via Getty Images)

The senators—who are seeking improved oversight—sounded the alarm on the “staggering number of civilian deaths” caused by Israeli bombing with U.S.-supplied ordnance.

As the number of Gazans killed, maimed, or left missing by Israeli bombs and bullets—many of them manufactured in the United States— tops 60,000, a group of U.S. senators on Tuesday urged President Joe Biden to boost oversight of how American arms are used against Palestinian civilians.

Noting that Israel’s response to the Hamas-led attacks of October 7 “has killed over 15,000 Palestinians in Gaza, the vast majority of whom are civilians,” Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) asked the White House for “information on the accountability and oversight measures that ensure any use of U.S. weapons is in accordance with U.S. policy and international law.”

“U.S. allies and human rights groups have argued many of these deaths were preventable,” the senators wrote in their letter. “In its campaign, Israel has also repeatedly targeted areas it previously designated as ‘safe zones,’ after telling Palestinians to move to these locations for safety.”

“[Israel Defense Forces] airstrikes have also hit the densely populated Jabalia refugee camp multiple times,” the lawmakers noted. “The first strike killed ‘more than 100 people’ and injured ‘hundreds’ more. The second strike left dozens wounded and rescuers said those killed included ‘whole families’… Other strikes and operations have targeted hospitals.”

A growing number of legal, human rights, and other experts have called Israel’s war on Gaza a genocide.

The senators’ letter continues:

While these strikes were aimed at Hamas, we have concerns that strikes on civilian infrastructure have not been proportional, particularly given the predictable harm to civilians. The United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has said these strikes are ‘clear violations of international humanitarian law.’ Even Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has admitted that his government’s efforts to minimize civilian casualties to date are ‘not successful.’

The letter singles out 155mm artillery shells, unguided explosive rounds with a “kill radius” of about 50 meters, with shrapnel able to kill and wound people hundreds of meters away.

“The IDF requires its ground forces to stay 250 meters away to protect its own forces,” the letter states. “The IDF has previously used these shells to ‘hit populated areas including neighborhoods, hospitals, schools, shelters, and safe zones,’ causing a staggering number of civilian deaths.”

“Over 30 U.S.-based civil society organizations warned against providing Israel 155mm shells in an open letter to [U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd] Austin calling the shells ‘inherently indiscriminate’ and ‘a grave risk to civilians,'” the lawmakers added.

Claiming that “civilian harm prevention is a cornerstone of American foreign policy”—a curious assertion given that the United States has killed more foreign civilians by far than any other armed force on the planet since the end of World War II—the senators argued that “we must ensure accountability for the use of U.S. weapons we provided to our ally.”

“As you have acknowledged, Israel’s military campaign has included ‘indiscriminate bombing,'” they wrote. “Your administration must ensure that existing guidance and standards are being used to evaluate the reports of Israel using U.S. weapons in attacks that harm civilians in order to more rigorously protect civilian safety during Israel’s operations in Gaza.”

To that end, the senators ask Biden to answer 13 questions, including:

  • Are U.S. officials aware of the IDF’s current policy on preventing civilian harm?
  • What insights does the U.S. government have into how the Israeli military assesses issues of proportionality?
  • What systems does the Israeli government have in place to investigate allegations of civilian harm?
  • Does the U.S. Defense Department or State Department plan to provide Israel with guidance on how 155mm shells should be
    used when civilians are nearby?
  • Are you aware of any requests for inspector general reviews or audits of U.S. military assistance provided to Israel?

The senators’ letter came ahead of Wednesday’s procedural vote on whether to begin debating a $106 billion “national security” spending package requested by Biden, which includes more than $10 billion in additional U.S. military aid to Israel atop the nearly $4 billion it receives each year from Washington.

On Tuesday, Sanders—who has angered progressives by failing to demand a Gaza cease-fire—said he opposes sending billions of dollars in unconditional U.S. armed aid to the “right-wing, extremist” Israeli government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“Israel must dramatically change its approach to minimize civilian harm,” he said, “and lay out a wider political process that can secure lasting peace.”

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

Human Rights Monitor Says 90% Killed by Israel in Gaza Were Civilians

US Official Won’t Call Forced Abandonment of Gaza Newborns a War Crime

‘Apocalyptic’ Horror in Gaza Called ‘Total Failure of Our Shared Humanity’

Continue ReadingWarren Leads Letter Pressing Biden on Israel’s Use of US Arms