Antonio Guterres

Israel’s collective punishment of Palestinians in Gaza not acceptable, says UN Chief

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

The UN Security Council meets on the situation in the Middle East, including Palestine (Photo via United Nations)

Participants in the UN Security Council highlighted need for a ceasefire in Gaza and a long term solution to the Palestinian question as necessary for peace

On January 23, speaking during the two day extended meeting of the UN Security Council on Palestine, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres underlined that “Israel’s clear and repeated rejection” of a two-state solution is unacceptable. He also warned that this refusal and “denial of the right to statehood to the Palestinian people would indefinitely prolong a conflict that has become a major threat to global peace and security.”

Most of the countries which participated in the two day proceedings demanded an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and a two-state solution, claiming it necessary for regional and global peace.

Invoking ever deteriorating humanitarian conditions in Gaza, Guterres termed it “collective punishment” executed by Israeli forces, asserting that “nothing can justify it.”

More than 25,700 Palestinians have been killed, over 63,000 have been wounded, and nearly 90% of Gaza’s population has been displaced due to relentless bombings and ground offensives carried out by Israeli armed forces since October 7.

Israel has maintained that its war in Gaza is in response to Palestinian resistance forces, mainly Hamas, attacking inside its borders on October 7, in which nearly 1,200 people were killed and nearly 250 Israelis were taken as hostages.

Speaking in the meeting, Gilad Erdan, the Israeli ambassador to the UN, claimed that until persons involved in the October 7 attacks are handed over and hostages are released, war in Gaza will not end.

Most of the members of the UN Security Council repeated the call for an immediate ceasefire and called for better delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza.

The Chinese ambassador to the UN, Zhang Jun, also noted that the Israeli leadership’s repeated rejection of a two-state solution is unacceptable, and demanded that it must be rejuvenated by granting Palestinians full membership to the UN.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had, earlier this month, rejected the calls for a Palestinian state, calling it untenable and a threat to Israeli security.

The need for a two-state solution was raised by the Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Maliki, who denounced the war in Gaza as Israel’s “premeditated effort to inflict maximum pain on the Palestinian population.”

“No home, hospital, school, mosque, church or UNRWA shelter is safe from Israeli bombardments, 2,000 pound bombs dropped with no care whatsoever for civilian lives,” he noted.

South Africa, which has taken Israel to the International Court of Justice for its genocide of Palestinians, maintained that there cannot be selective implementation of international law and Israel must face consequences for its repeated violations of the same.

US positions provide a carte blanche to Israeli crimes

Speaking during the meeting, the US representative Uzra Zeya claimed the centrality of a two-state solution. She claimed that the US has been making efforts to prevent greater civilian casualties in the Israeli war in Gaza. However, US policies in Gaza were heavily criticized by both the permanent members of the UNSC and others as detrimental to peace.

Chinese ambassador Jun condemned the repeated use of veto by the US in earlier UNSC meetings on ceasefire resolutions, identifying them as impeding all efforts to peace.

The US had vetoed resolutions proposing a ceasefire in the UNSC in previous months and tried to excuse Israeli bombings in Gaza as the Zionist state’s right to self defense.

Jun hoped that all members of the international community must prioritize ceasefire in Gaza, and ways to stop the spread of the war in the region.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov asserted that the UNSC must take steps to prevent further destabilization in the region, which has been caused by US policies which vetoes ceasefire resolutions and provides carte blanche to Israeli acts of “collective punishment of Palestinians.”

Lavrov emphasized that until a ceasefire is implemented the talks about future solutions to the conflict are useless.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hussein Amir Abdollahian warned the US against violating Yemeni sovereignty by carrying out repeated air strikes against it. He alleged that it is a trap laid down by Israel with the objective of expanding the war in Gaza to the regional level.

Abdollahian proposed that a referendum among all Palestinians must be held to find a permanent solution to the Palestinian question.

Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib emphasized that all stakeholders, including the US, should see that Israel wants to expand the war across the region, and underlined that his country does not want war.

He emphasized that “what happened on October 7 did not happen in a vacuum” and if no attempts are made to secure a lasting solution “it will happen again,” as there is no peace in the region until there is justice for Palestinians.

Speaking in the meeting on Tuesday, the Saudi delegate Waleed El-Khereiji said that because of the “Israeli war machine,” tensions in the region, including in the Red Sea and Yemen, are increasing. He demanded that the Security Council make sure that Israel stops its violations of international law.

On Sunday, in an interview with CNN, Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhad al-Saud denied any possibility of normalization of relations with Israel, as proposed by the US, until there is a road map for a two-state solution and an independent Palestinian state. “What we are seeing is Israelis crushing Gaza, the civilian population of Gaza. This is completely unnecessary, completely unacceptable, and has to stop.”

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

Continue ReadingIsrael’s collective punishment of Palestinians in Gaza not acceptable, says UN Chief

Genocide in Gaza Would Not Be Possible Without Western Complicity

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

A pro-Palestinian protester holds a placard accusing Biden, Sunak and Netanyahu of war crimes at a demonstration against Israeli attacks on Gaza in central London, UK.  (Photo by: Andy Soloman/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

The word ‘hypocrisy’ here does not even begin to describe what is taking place, and the repercussions of this moral failure will be felt around the world for years to come.

On October 20, Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, stood on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing, between Egypt and besieged Gaza.

Guterres was not the only international figure to travel to the Gaza border, hoping to mobilize the international community in the face of an ongoing genocide, in an already impoverished and besieged Strip.

“Behind these walls, we have two million people that is suffering (sic) enormously,” Guterres said.

These efforts, however, paid little dividends.

The spokesperson for the Ministry of Health in Gaza, Ashraf al-Qudra, said in a statement on October 24, that the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza is “too slow (for it to) change the reality” on the ground.

Never again should the West be allowed to play the role of the mediator, the impartial politician, the judge, or even the self-serving humanitarian.

This means that the seemingly endless UN Security Council debates, General Assembly resolutions and calls for action did little to alter the tragic situation in Gaza in any meaningful way.

This begs the question, what is the use of the elaborate international political, humanitarian and legal systems, if they are unable to stop, or even slow down a genocide that is being aired live on TV screens all across the world?

In previous genocides, whether those accompanying the Great Wars or that of Rwanda in 1994, various justifications were offered to explain the lack of immediate actions. In some cases, no Geneva Conventions existed and, as in Rwanda, many pleaded ignorance.

But, in Gaza, no excuse is acceptable. Every international news company has correspondents or some presence in the Strip. Hundreds of journalists, reporters, bloggers, photographers and cameramen are documenting and counting every event, every massacre and every bomb dropped on civilian homes. It is important here to note that scores of journalists have already been killed in Israeli attacks.

Scientific approximations are telling us, for example, that nearly 25,000 tons of explosives have been dropped on Gaza by Israel in the first 27 days of war. It is equivalent to two atomic bombs, like those dropped by the US on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

When US President Joe Biden callously tried to question the numbers of the Palestinian dead, the Gaza medical staff, who are forced to perform life-saving surgeries on the dirty grounds of hospitals, took the time to prove him wrong. On October 26, they produced a list containing the names of 6,747 Palestinian casualties who were killed in the first 19 days of war.

Thousands have been killed and wounded since then, yet Washington and its Western allies insist that “Israel has the right to defend itself” even if this comes at the expense of a whole nation.

The Israelis are not masking their language in any way. The New York Times reported on October 30 that “in private conversations with American counterparts, Israeli officials referred to how the United States and other allied powers resorted to devastating bombings in Germany and Japan during World War II … to try to defeat those countries.” A few days later, Israeli Minister Amichai … has openly declared that nuking Gaza is an option in his country’s genocidal war on the Palestinian people.

On the day the NYT report appeared, Karim Khan, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), arrived at the Egyptian side of the Rafah border.

He still used the same guarded language, as if not to offend the sensibilities of Israel and its Western allies. “Crimes allegedly committed in both places have to be looked into,” he said, referring to both Israel and Gaza.

One could excuse Khan by arguing that legal jargon must be restrained until a thorough investigation is conducted. But thorough investigations are rarely conducted when it comes to Israeli crimes in Gaza or anywhere else in Palestine.

When an investigation is carried out, international judges frequently find themselves accused by the US and Israel of bias or worse, anti-Semitism. In the case of the investigation spearheaded by a respected South African judge, Richard Goldstone in 2009, the man was forced to retract part of his report.

Khan knows this too well because he is currently sitting on a large and growing file of Israeli war crimes in Palestine, insisting on delaying the procedure under various excuses. Obviously, the US does not favorably view ICC judges who advance war crime cases against Israel. The anti-ICC sanctions imposed by the Trump Administration in 2020 are an example.

Many officials in Western institutions are becoming aware of this hypocrisy. On October 28, Craig Mokhiber resigned from his position as the Director of the New York office of the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights in protest of the UN’s failure to stop “a genocide unfolding before our eyes in Gaza.”

On October 20, around 850 members of the EU staff signed a letter to EU Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, criticizing her “unconditional support” for Israel.

The letter was polite and diplomatic, considering the horrendous moral failure of Von der Leyen, especially when her gung-ho approach to the Russian war in Ukraine is compared to her blind support of Israeli crimes in Gaza. “Only if we acknowledge Israel’s pain, and its right to defend itself, will we have the credibility to say that Israel should react … in line with international humanitarian law,” she said.

The International Olympic Committee, which insists on separating between politics and sports, has no problem meddling in politics when the enemy is a Palestinian.

The IOC issued a statement on November 1, warning any participant in the Paris Olympics, scheduled for 2024, from engaging in any “discriminatory behavior” against Israeli athletes, because “athletes cannot be held responsible for the actions of their governments.”

The word ‘hypocrisy’ here does not even begin to describe what is taking place, and the repercussions of this moral failure will be felt around the world for years to come. Never again should the West be allowed to play the role of the mediator, the impartial politician, the judge, or even the self-serving humanitarian.

This is not a difficult conclusion to reach. Gaza has been turned into a Hiroshima as a result of Western bombs and the blank political check handed to Israel by Western governments and leaders from the onset of the war, in fact, 75 years prior.

Nothing will ever alter this fact, and no ‘strongly worded’ future statements will ever help the West redeem its collective moral failure.

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

Continue ReadingGenocide in Gaza Would Not Be Possible Without Western Complicity

‘Gates of Hell’ Must Be Closed With Ambitious Action on Fossil Fuels, Says UN Chief

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Image of UN chief Antonio Guterres
UN chief Antonio Guterres

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

“We must make up time lost to foot-dragging, arm-twisting, and the naked greed of entrenched interests raking in billions from fossil fuels.” [FFS]

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres kicked off his one-day Climate Ambition Summit at U.N. headquarters in New York City on Wednesday with a simple, clear, and resounding message for world leaders: do more.

“Humanity has opened the gates of hell” by unleashing potent levels of greenhouse gas emissions into the environment since the Industrial Revolution, Guterres told the the audience, which notably did not include some leaders of top polluting nations—such as U.S. President Joe Biden, U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, and Chinese President Xi Jinping—who refused to attend the event.

“Horrendous heat is having horrendous effects,” Guterres said, echoing his Tuesday speech at the U.N. General Assembly. “Distraught farmers watching crops carried away by floods; sweltering temperatures spawning disease; and thousands fleeing in fear as historic fires rage.”

“Climate action is dwarfed by the scale of the challenge,” he continued. Absent dramatic reforms, humanity is heading toward “a dangerous and unstable world,” with the global temperature set to soar 2.8°C above preindustrial levels. Already, human activity—especially the burning of fossil fuels—has driven heated the planet by about 1.2°C.

“The future of humanity is in your hands—in our hands.”

Under the 2015 Paris climate agreement, nearly every nation on Earth has agreed to work on keeping global temperature rise this century below 2°C, with a target limit of 1.5°C. However, as scientific analyses have repeatedly found over the past eight years, parties to the deal are still way off track.

Current projections are alarming, “but the future is not fixed,” Guterres said, emphasizing that the 1.5°C goal is still in reach. “We can still build a world of clear air, green jobs, and affordable, clean power for all.”

“The path forward is clear,” he declared. “It has been forged by fighters and trailblazers—some of whom are with us today: Activists refusing to be silenced; Indigenous peoples defending their lands from climate extremes; chief executives transforming their business models and financiers funding a just transition; mayors moving towards to a zero-carbon future; and governments working to stamp out fossil fuels and protect vulnerable communities.”

Warning that the global community is decades behind where it should be in the shift to renewables, the U.N. chief charged that “we must make up time lost to foot-dragging, arm-twisting, and the naked greed of entrenched interests raking in billions from fossil fuels.”

Guterres renewed his call for developed countries to reach net-zero as close as possible to 2040, emerging economies to achieve that as close as possible to 2050, and all nations “to implement a fair, equitable, and just energy transition, while providing affordable electricity to all.”

“Many of the poorest nations have every right to be angry—angry that they are suffering most from a climate crisis they did nothing to create; angry that promised finance has not materialized; and angry that their borrowing costs are sky-high,” he noted. “We need a transformation to rebuild trust.”

Shifting from English to French—another official language of the U.N.—Guterres urged governments to push the global financial system toward supporting climate action, including by overhauling the business models of multilateral development banks to better help developing countries.

He also called for operationalizing the Loss and Damage Fund at COP28, the next U.N. climate summit for Paris agreement parties, hosted in November by the United Arab Emirates—which is under fire for appointing an oil executive as the conference president.

“The future of humanity is in your hands—in our hands,” added Guterres, who was forced to leave early on Wednesday for a U.N. Security Council meeting that was scheduled after he announced the climate event. “One summit will not change the world. But today can be a powerful moment to generate momentum, that we build on over the coming months, and in particular at the COP.”

“We can—and we must—turn up the tempo,” he concluded. “Turn plans into action. And turn the tide.”

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

Continue Reading‘Gates of Hell’ Must Be Closed With Ambitious Action on Fossil Fuels, Says UN Chief

Extinction Rebellion spray paint the offices of The Sun, Daily Mail and The Telegraph and call out suppression of truth on climate crisis

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Extinction Rebellion has been taking on the tabloid media this morning in a series of actions calling out their blatant suppression of crucial news on the climate and ecological crisis. In London, three people met The Sun’s political investigative reporter Amir Razavi in a sting operation, where they posed as whistleblowers there to provide him with top secret information. The group questioned Razavi about his climate ethics, asking him to explain his newspaper’s 30-year campaign of climate lies and misinformation.

The Extinction Rebellion citizen journalists took the rare opportunity to ask why The Sun continues to withhold, deny and downgrade vital information on the scale of the climate crisis and its root causes, just days after Antonio Guterres likened the latest IPCC report to a “survival guide for humanity”.

Extinction Rebellion image, the Lightscraper

While this was happening, at the headquarters of Rupert Murdoch’s News UK at London Bridge, the Telegraph HQ in Victoria and the offices of the Daily Mail in Kensington, several people spray painted the buildings with green washable paint using fire extinguishers. A large banner with the words ‘CORRUPT AS FUCK’ was attached to multiple helium filled balloons at News UK and was floated up in front of the office windows on higher floors to highlight the destructive influence of media moguls such as Rupert Murdoch on democracy.

Steve Tooze of Extinction Rebellion and former Sun and Daily Mail journalist, said: “The mainstream media has a major role to play in delivering the truth to the general public about the climate and ecological emergency. They could and should be helping all of us come together around the clear need for change and providing people with the facts so we can work out how to transition away from fossil fuels and build a future that is safer, fairer, better for everyone. Instead, their business model thrives on division and click bait culture that sets people against one another. The reality is, the billionaire owned media uses this strategy to uphold the status quo so that those with power can hold on tightly to that power. 

“Extinction Rebellion is saying we’re not going to accept this anymore. People need to set aside their differences and come together if we’re going to stave off the worst of the climate crisis and build a better society, so we’re inviting everyone to join us at Parliament from 21st April to start creating the change we need. The mainstream press has a responsibility to help people find a way to achieve this rather than profiting from our division.”

Extinction Rebellion image by Denise Laura Baker

Climate solutions are readily available, as outlined in the IPCC report. What is lacking is media reporting and government support, with the Telegraph suggesting for example that Monday’s IPCC report was “nothing but confected hysteria” and the The Daily Mail accused the authors of using “hysterical language”. The Sun devoted less than half a column on page two to the report. The Daily Mail has repeatedly published misleading or outright false information on the climate crisis. The Telegraph platforms and emboldens known climate deniers, and none of our national papers give this crisis the attention appropriate to the scale of the emergency.

Anna, a photographer from London who took part in the action, said: “I am taking this action to highlight the Daily Mail’s inadequate response to the climate and ecological crises. From editorials calling for an end to net zero policies, to their support of fracking, the Mail makes itself an enemy of our planet and the humans who depend on it. The news shapes our minds, and without honest reporting we risk sleepwalking into an unnecessarily difficult future.”

Tom Masters, Civil Servant from Bristol, said: “Extinction Rebellion demands that people tell the truth about the climate emergency.  This shouldn’t be too much to ask of a national newspaper that exerts significant influence over its readership and over the British government.

The Telegraph has been described as ‘Fleet Street’s last dinosaur of climate change denial’ by climate science expert Dr Bob Ward, and with good reason. Only this week they downplayed the severity of the IPCC report and labelled it as hysterical. I undertook today’s action to highlight the irresponsibility of mainstream press and their unwillingness to do their job and tell people the truth and hold power to account for their inaction.”

Protesters from Extinction Rebellion spray paint on the windows of News Corp, the headquarters of The Sun, in protest at their failure to report on the climate crisis, London, England, UK. Extinction Rebellion image by Denise Laura Baker

These actions are just 30 days before thousands will descend on Parliament for four days for The Big One. On Monday this week, dozens of major NGOs, trade unions, justice movements and more made their commitment to stand with Extinction Rebellion in April to face the intersecting crises of climate breakdown, the cost of living, attacks on democracy, and the shredding of essential public services, together.

Continue ReadingExtinction Rebellion spray paint the offices of The Sun, Daily Mail and The Telegraph and call out suppression of truth on climate crisis

United in Science: We are heading in the wrong direction

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United in Science: We are heading in the wrong direction Link contains a summary of the report’s findings

Geneva, 13 September 2022 (WMO) – Climate science is clear: we are heading in the wrong direction, according to a new multi-agency report coordinated by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which highlights the huge gap between aspirations and reality. Without much more ambitious action, the physical and socioeconomic impacts of climate change will be increasingly devastating, it warns.

The report, United in Science, shows that greenhouse gas concentrations continue to rise to record highs. Fossil fuel emission rates are now above pre-pandemic levels after a temporary drop due to lockdowns. The ambition of emissions reduction pledges for 2030 needs to be seven times higher to be in line with the 1.5 °C goal of the Paris Agreement

United_in_Science_2022_-_Antonio_Guterres_Quote_Card.png

The past seven years were the warmest on record. There is a 48% chance that, during at least one year in the next 5 years, the annual mean temperature will temporarily be 1.5°C higher than 1850-1900 average. As global warming increases, “tipping points” in the climate system can not be ruled out.

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Continue ReadingUnited in Science: We are heading in the wrong direction