Amnesty International

Politicians facilitating, complicit in war crimes and genocide

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This is the Coming soon article, may get revised or elaborated.

Our recent ancestors – parents, grandparents and great-grandparents – likely fought a war against the realization of an evil, racist ideology called Fascism. Most of the World fought Fascism in the Second World War with Russia paying the far heaviest price in killed soldiers. German Nazi Fascists murdered many people: political opponents like Communists or Anarchists, homosexuals or those they considered inferior due to disability or race e.g. Slavs, Roma and Jews. The concept of subhuman (Untermensch) was employed by Nazi Fascists to rationalise or justify their systematic mass murders.

Image of Fascists Mussolini and Hitler
Image of Fascists Mussolini and Hitler

I would point out that race is a fake, synthetic construct and that people of geographical regions will have a similar mix of genes. You are welcome to disagree is you’re a racist in which case I challenge you to prove me wrong ;) It follows that a heirarchy of races is not possible since races don’t exist. There can be no superior races if there are no races.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations

[ The United Nations ] “was established after World War II with the aim of preventing future world wars, and succeeded the League of Nations, which was characterized as ineffective. On 25 April 1945, 50 nations met in San Francisco, California for a conference and started drafting the UN Charter, which was adopted on 25 June 1945. The charter took effect on 24 October 1945, when the UN began operations. The organization’s objectives, as defined by its charter, include maintaining international peace and security, protecting human rights, delivering humanitarian aid, promoting sustainable development, and upholding international law. At its founding, the UN had 51 member states; as of 2023, it has 193 – almost all of the world’s sovereign states.”

The war to defeat Fascism and the United Nations have failed in the sense that war crimes and the mass murder of civilians regarded as racially inferior and less than human occurs and is witnessed today. There is complicity in war crimes by Biden, Sunak, Starmer and European leaders. Human rights are not protected, international law is not upheld. Prosecutions for war crimes and complicity should but I expect are unlikely to happen. There is a democratic deficit: ordinary people worldwide are witnessing genocidal atrocities which their governments often facilitate or are complicit in. We need to prosecute, get rid of those evil politicians and try to ensure that no more are elected.

THE ICC MUST INVESTIGATE BRITISH MINISTERS FOR GAZA WAR CRIMES. HERE’S HOW.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is the only permanent global court to have jurisdiction to prosecute individuals for the international crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. It recently issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

Karim Khan, the ICC’s chief prosecutor, has said the court has “active investigations ongoing” in relation to Gaza and the West Bank going back to 2014.

During its current campaign against Gaza, Israel has violated Article 31 of the Geneva Convention on Protection of Civilians by imposing collective punishment on 2.3m people by withdrawing all water, food and electricity. 

By targeting civilian infrastructure such as hospitals and schools, Israel has also violated the same convention. Amnesty International has referred to Israel’s “killing of civilians on a mass scale” and documented “indiscriminate” attacks on civilians. 

A team of UN experts has said Israel’s campaign in Gaza involves “crimes against humanity”.

…

SUNAK TAKES BRITISH SUPPORT FOR ISRAEL TO NEW EXTREME

Rishi Sunak has given Britain’s full approval to the flattening of Gaza.

Late on 7 October, the prime minister tweeted “we stand unequivocally with Israel”. Sunak had expressed “full solidarity” to Benjamin Netanyahu, the tweet added.

As Netanyahu had promised “mighty vengeance” following the Hamas-led offensive that morning, there was no room for doubt about the signal which Sunak was sending.

In a few words, Sunak took Britain’s foreign policy to a new extreme.

Israel’s “mighty vengeance” is shaping up to be its most destructive bombardment ever of Gaza and its 2.3 million inhabitants.

A “mighty vengeance” endorsed by 10 Downing Street.

There is a long history of the UK supporting Israel’s wars. 

…

11 Nov 23 11.55 It is the same democratic deficit where politicans fail to address the climate crisis and the transition to net zero. By sucking up to the rich and powerful and actively undermining such a transition politicians such as Joe Biden and Rishi Sunak make that democratic deficit clear to all. They’re representing twisted and evil vested interests instead of the interests of their electors and constituents.

18 Nov 23. I am disappointed with Bernie Sanders, Jon Lansman and the likes. They’re unable to call for a ceasefire despite the obvious atrocities committed by Israel on a largely defenceless population. Like Starmer, they are siding with Israel.

Continue ReadingPoliticians facilitating, complicit in war crimes and genocide

UN Rights Chief Says Israel’s Collective Punishment in Gaza Is a War Crime

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Palestinians inspect the damage following an Israeli airstrike on the El-Remal aera in Gaza City on October 9, 2023. Israel continued to battle Hamas fighters on October 10 and massed tens of thousands of troops and heavy armour around the Gaza Strip after vowing a massive blow over the Palestinian militants' surprise attack. Photo by Naaman Omar apaimages. licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Palestinians inspect the damage following an Israeli airstrike on the El-Remal aera in Gaza City on October 9, 2023. Israel continued to battle Hamas fighters on October 10 and massed tens of thousands of troops and heavy armour around the Gaza Strip after vowing a massive blow over the Palestinian militants’ surprise attack. Photo by Naaman Omar apaimages. licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

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

“We have fallen off a precipice. This cannot continue.”

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk declared Wednesday that “the collective punishment by Israel of Palestinian civilians amounts… to a war crime, as does the unlawful forcible evacuation of civilians.”

Israel’s monthlong war on Gaza has killed over 10,500 Palestinians, wounded thousands more, displaced 70% of the strip’s 2.3 million residents, and decimated civilian infrastructure, including homes, religious buildings, and hospitals.

Türk’s comments came after he visited the Rafah border crossing that connects Egypt to Gaza, which he described as “the gates to a living nightmare—a nightmare where people have been suffocating, under persistent bombardment, mourning their families, struggling for water, for food, for electricity and fuel.”

Long before October 7, when a Hamas-led attack killed over 1,400 Israelis and triggered Israel’s retaliation, Gaza was “described as the world’s biggest open-air prison… under a 56-year occupation and a 16-year blockade by Israel,” he highlighted.

“Even in the context of a 56-year-old occupation, the current situation is the most dangerous in decades, faced by people in Gaza, in Israel, in the West Bank, but also regionally.”

The U.N. rights chief also stressed that “the atrocities perpetrated by Palestinian armed groups… were heinous, brutal, and shocking. They were war crimes—as is the continued holding of hostages.” Israeli officials say there are about 240 hostages.

“We have fallen off a precipice. This cannot continue,” he warned. “Even in the context of a 56-year-old occupation, the current situation is the most dangerous in decades, faced by people in Gaza, in Israel, in the West Bank, but also regionally.”

Türk emphasized that “parties to the conflict have the obligation to take constant care to spare the civilian population and civilian objects,” and as an occupying power, Israel is required “to ensure a maximum of basic necessities of life can reach all who need it.”

“I call—as a matter of urgency—for the parties now to agree [to] a cease-fire on the basis of three critical human rights imperatives: We need urgent delivery of massive levels of humanitarian aid, throughout Gaza,” he declared.

The official also called for all hostages to be freed without condition and said that “crucially, we need to enable the political space to implement a durable end to the occupation, based on the rights of both Palestinians and Israelis to self-determination and their legitimate security interests.”

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres—who has also been pushing for a cease-fire—called out Israel’s aerial and ground operations for their impact on civilians during a Reuters conference on Wednesday.

“There are violations by Hamas when they have human shields. But when one looks at the number of civilians that were killed with the military operations, there is something that is clearly wrong,” he said.

“We have in a few days in Gaza thousands and thousands of children killed, which means there is also something clearly wrong in the way military operations are being done,” the U.N. leader added.

According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, the Israeli war against Hamas has killed over 4,300 children.

“It is also important to make Israel understand that it is against the interests of Israel to see every day the terrible image of the dramatic humanitarian needs of the Palestinian people,” Guterres said. “That doesn’t help Israel in relation to the global public opinion.”

While French President Emmanuel Macron’s plans to hold a Gaza-focused “humanitarian conference” in Paris on Thursday, the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is refusing to participate in the event.

Ahead of the conference, 13 human rights and relief groups called on attendees “to do everything in their power to achieve an immediate cease-fire; take concrete steps to free civilian hostages and protect all civilian populations; and ensure the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza and respect for international humanitarian law.”

Among them was Amnesty International—which, over the past month, has compiled “damning evidence of war crimes as Israeli attacks wipe out entire families.” Some global experts and critics have demanded action from the International Criminal Court on “escalating Israeli war crimes and genocide of the Palestinian people” in Gaza.

In a resignation letter to Türk last month, Craig Mokhiber, who was serving as the New York director for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, condemned Israel’s war as “a textbook case of genocide.”

“In the immediate term,” Mokhiber wrote, “we must work for an immediate cease-fire and an end to the long-standing siege on Gaza, stand up against the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, Jerusalem, and the West Bank (and elsewhere), document the genocidal assault in Gaza, help to bring massive humanitarian aid and reconstruction to the Palestinians, take care of our traumatized colleagues and their families, and fight like hell for a principled approach in the U.N.’s political offices.”

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

Continue ReadingUN Rights Chief Says Israel’s Collective Punishment in Gaza Is a War Crime

Government has ‘no plans’ to stop arms sales to Israel despite civilian deaths

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Original article by Adam Bychawski republished from OpenDemocracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

Human rights groups say UK is ignoring its own rules on arms exports after hundreds of Palestinians killed

Campaigners block the road in East London outside the DSEI arms fair Photo: @CAATuk / Twitter
Campaigners block the road in East London outside the DSEI arms fair Photo: @CAATuk / Twitter

The UK government has no plans to suspend arms sales to Israel, despite human rights campaigners warning its exports have been used to kill civilians, openDemocracy has been told.

The UK has approved millions of pounds worth of licences for military equipment to Israeli forces since 2015. They include components for F-35 fighter jets, which can deliver ground strikes and have been recently pictured in social media posts from the Israeli Air Force.

In response to Hamas’ attack on Israel which killed hundreds of civilians, Israeli forces have fired thousands of bombs into Gaza since 7 October. As of yesterday, 2,750 Palestinians have been killed and 9,700 wounded in Israeli air strikes on the Gaza strip, according to the Palestinian health ministry. This figure was given before an attack on al-Ahli Arab hospital that reportedly killed 500 people.

Francesca Albanese, the UN’s special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, warned last week that “Palestinians are in grave danger of mass ethnic cleansing”.

openDemocracy asked the Department of Business and Trade if it would suspend and review its export licences for arms to Israel in light of the reported civilian killings. In response, the department said the licences were “under continual review” but there were “no immediate plans to stop arms export licences to Israel”.

Emily Apple, media coordinator for the Campaign Against the Arm Trade, said: “It is disgusting that the Department for Business and Trade is refusing to suspend and review arms licences to Israel given the mounting evidence of war crimes committed by Israel in Gaza.

“UK industry is responsible for 15% of the components used in the F35 stealth combat aircraft that are being used in airstrikes, and the UK is therefore complicit in war crimes committed by the Israeli government.”

Any UK company wishing to export military goods to other nations must apply for a licence to do so. The government has a number of criteria that must be met before licences can be granted. 

One of the criteria is to “not grant a licence if [the department] determines there is a clear risk that the items might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law”.

Officials are also told not to grant licences if there is a “likelihood that the items would be used in the territory of another country other than for legitimate purposes including national or collective self defence”.

The campaign group Palestine Action, which has taken direct action in the UK against Israeli arms company Elbit, said it was “no surprise” that the UK government is continuing to allow arms exports.

“Numerous weapons factories, including ones owned by Israel’s largest weapons firm, continue to operate on our doorsteps, who market their weapons as “battle-tested” on the captive population of Gaza,” a spokesperson for the group said.

The UK has in the past paused export licences in response to reports that its criteria may have been breached.

In 2019, the then foreign secretary Dominic Raab suspended arms exports to NATO ally Turkey after it invaded Syria, on the grounds that it risked worsening the humanitarian crisis in the country.

The UK revoked some arms licences to Israel in 2009 after hundreds of Palestinians were killed in airstrikes by Israeli forces. During the 2o14 conflict, the government warned it would suspend licences again if hostilities continued, but ultimately did not go-ahead with the decision.

The decision to continue supplying arms to Israel comes after MPs and campaign groups raised concerns about a growing lack of transparency from the government over exports licences.

In October, an enquiry led by MPs found that despite pledges from the government to improve transparency “progress has been limited” and that “there is a worrying lack of openness and data on compliance”.

The Campaign Against the Arms Trade told openDemocracy that there is a “disturbing lack of transparency over arms sales to Israel”.

“The UK government has hidden behind exemptions and refused to supply CAAT with data regarding recent exports by Elbit subsidiaries, and a large proportion of UK sales are hidden by open export licences where it is impossible to monitor the amount of weapons sold,” it said. 

Sacha Deshmukh, Amnesty International UK’s chief executive, urged the government to reverse its decision to continue supplying Israel with arms.

“The UK’s arms export system is based on the principle of avoiding a clear risk of British weapons being used to commit serious violations of international law. There’s mounting evidence that Israel’s military conduct in Gaza during the last week has included indiscriminate attacks which have killed and injured large numbers of Palestinian civilians.

“The government needs to follow its own rules and urgently suspend export licences for all arms transfers to Israel that risk being used to commit further unlawful attacks.”

Original article by Adam Bychawski republished from OpenDemocracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

Continue ReadingGovernment has ‘no plans’ to stop arms sales to Israel despite civilian deaths

Amnesty International cricises Rishi Sunak for failing to mention Palestinian deaths

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Image of UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak
Rish! Sunak

In response to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s latest comments on the escalating conflict between Israel and Hamas, Sacha Deshmukh, Amnesty International UK’s Chief Executive, said:

“It is right that Rishi Sunak has expressed horror at the cruel and brutal crimes against Israeli civilians committed by Hamas a week ago, which showed a chilling disregard for life and included war crimes. 

“But for the Prime Minister not to mention the Palestinian civilians killed due to Israeli airstrikes or include any call for all parties to the conflict to uphold international humanitarian law, is deeply troubling. 

“Israel’s massive bombing campaign in Gaza has already killed at least 1,900 people and injured more than 8,000. The collective punishment of Gaza’s civilian population through restricting water, fuel, food and electricity is a war crime, and the Israeli army’s order to people in northern Gaza to ‘evacuate’ amounts to forced displacement.

“Now more than ever, world leaders should urgently pressure all parties to uphold international humanitarian law consistently and without double standards. The protection of all civilians – Israeli and Palestinian – must be prioritised.”

Continue ReadingAmnesty International cricises Rishi Sunak for failing to mention Palestinian deaths

Tories announce pro-apartheid bill

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Original article republished from the Skwawkbox for non-commercial use.

Anti-boycott law would have forced public bodies to do business with racist South Africa in the 1980s – and will force them to do business with apartheid, racist Israel now

Parliamentary friends of apartheid visit the illegal wall

The government has published its ‘anti-boycott bill’, which aims to prevent public bodies from choosing not to use products or services from countries with appalling human rights records – and in particular, to neuter the pro-Palestinian ‘Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions’ (BDS) campaign against the use of products, services and companies involved in illegal Israeli expansion onto Palestinian territory.

BDS has long been targeted by official and ‘cut-out’ organisations of the Israeli government, which has rightly been condemned by human rights organisations such as Amnesty International and, in Israel, B’Tselem, for its apartheid policies that the latest hard-right regime is entrenching even further – and the apartheid regime is avidly supported by the Tories (and ‘without qualification’ by the so-called ‘opposition leader’ Keir Starmer.

So there is no expectation of any significant parliamentary opposition to the bill and it is left to human and civil rights campaigners and organisations to mount resistance, such as Liberty, which has today published a statement on the anti-democratic bill, co-signed by unions, human rights groups and others, noting that such a policy would have forced public bodies to do business with apartheid South Africa and scuppered the campaign that eventually helped bring down that regime:

As a group of civil society organisations made up of trade unions, charities, NGOs, faith, climate justice, human rights, cultural, campaigning, and solidarity organisations, we advocate for the right of public bodies to decide not to purchase or procure from, or invest in companies involved in human rights abuse, abuse of workers’ rights, destruction of our planet, or any other harmful or illegal acts. We therefore oppose the government’s proposed law to stop public bodies from taking such actions.

The government has indicated that a main intention of any legislation is to ensure that public bodies follow UK foreign policy in their purchasing, procurement, and investment decisions, particularly relating to Israel and Palestine. We are concerned that this would prevent public bodies from deciding not to invest in or procure from companies complicit in the violation of the rights of the Palestinian people. We affirm that it is the right of public bodies to do so, and in fact a responsibility to break ties with companies contributing to abuses of rights and violations of international law in occupied Palestine and anywhere else where such acts occur.

From bus boycotts against racial segregation to divestment from fossil fuel companies to arms embargoes against apartheid, boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaigns have been applied throughout history to put economic, cultural, or political pressure on a regime, institution, or company to force it to change abusive, discriminatory, or illegal policies. If passed, this law will stifle a wide range of campaigns concerned with the arms trade, climate justice, human rights, international law, and international solidarity with oppressed peoples struggling for justice. The proposed law presents a threat to freedom of expression, and the ability of public bodies and democratic institutions to spend, invest and trade ethically in line with international law and human rights.

We call on the UK government to immediately halt this bill, on opposition parties to oppose it and on civil society to mobilise in support of the right to boycott in the cause of justice.

Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has also spoken out to underline the importance of BDS in opposing apartheid and pledge his support in fighting the latest anti-democracy bill:

The evening has also seen the Glastonbury festival cancel its planned showing of the excellent film exposing the sabotage of Corbyn’s Labour and the smear campaign against him – many are presuming that his principled stand and the cowardly Glastonbury decision are not unconnected.

Original article republished from the Skwawkbox for non-commercial use.

Continue ReadingTories announce pro-apartheid bill