Protesters during a National March for Palestine in central London, January 13, 2024
JEWISH campaigners accused the government of exploiting fear for its own political purposes today.
The backlash came after the government’s counter-extremism commissioner said London has become a “no-go zone for Jews” during weekend pro-Palestinian marches. Around 145,000 Jews live in the city.
Robin Simcox, previously a Margaret Thatcher fellow at the neo-conservative Heritage Foundation, said protests were “becoming ever more vociferous” in an article in the Daily Telegraph.
He said that the government had “more power to tackle extremism than it sometimes thinks” and that it should “move faster, be bolder and be willing to accept higher legal risk if it means implementing policies that keep us safer.”
In response, Downing Street said Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was taking the concerns “extremely seriously.”
dizzy: Football or rugby matches are also no-go zones on weekends for others. It’s a matter of simply staying out of the way of huge numbers, not applying apartheid by banning sporting events at the behest of a privileged class.
A Palestinian man holds a child as he mourns the death of twin babies Naeem and Wissam Abu Anza, killed in an overnight Israeli air strike, during their burial in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on March 3, 2024. (Photo by Mohammed Abed/AFP via Getty Images)
The Palestinians, facing down the most powerful countries in the world, left virtually alone even by their allies, have suffered immeasurably. But they have won this war.
The following is a statement written by Arundhati Roy and delivered on her behalf at the meeting of Working People Against Apartheid and Genocide in Gaza, at the Press Club, New Delhi, on Thursday March 7, 2024. The remarks were first published by Scroll, an independent media outlet in India.
The richest, most powerful countries in the Western world, those who believe themselves to be the keepers of the flame of the modern world’s commitment to democracy and human rights, are openly financing and applauding Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The Gaza strip has been turned into a concentration camp. Those who have not already been killed are being starved to death. Almost the entire population of Gaza has been displaced. Their homes, hospitals, universities, museums, and infrastructure of every kind has been reduced to rubble. Their children have been murdered. Their past has been vaporized. Their future is hard to see.
Even though the highest court in the world believes that almost every indicator seems to meet the legal definition of genocide, IDF soldiers continue to put out their mocking “victory videos” celebrating what almost looks like fiendish rituals. They believe that there is no power in the world that will hold them to account. But they are wrong. They and their children’s children will be haunted by what they have done. They will have to live with the loathing and the abhorrence the world feels for them. And hopefully one day everybody – on all sides of this conflict – who has committed war crimes will be tried and punished for them, keeping in mind that there is no equivalence between crimes committed while resisting Apartheid and Occupation, and crimes committed while enforcing them.
They and their children’s children will be haunted by what they have done. They will have to live with the loathing and the abhorrence the world feels for them.
Racism is of course the keystone of any act of genocide. The rhetoric of the highest officials of the Israeli state has, ever since Israel came into existence, dehumanized Palestinians and likened them to vermin and insects, just like the Nazis once dehumanized Jews. It is as though that evil serum never went away and is now only being recirculated. The “Never” has been excised from that powerful slogan “Never Again”. And we are left only with “Again”.
Never Again.
President Joe Biden, head of state of the richest, most powerful country in the world, is helpless before Israel, even though Israel would not exist without US funding. It’s as though the dependent has taken over the benefactor. The optics say so. Like a geriatric child, Joe Biden appears on camera licking an ice-cream cone and vaguely mumbling about a ceasefire, while Israeli government and military officials openly defy him and vow to finish what they have started. To try and stop the hemorrhaging of the votes of millions of young Americans who will not stand for this slaughter in their name, Kamala Harris, US vice-president, has been tasked with the job of calling for a ceasefire, while billions of US dollars continue to flow to enable the genocide.
And what of our country?
It is well known that our prime minister is an intimate friend of Benjamin Netanyahu and there is no doubt where his sympathies lie. India is no longer a friend of Palestine. When the bombing began, thousands of Modi’s supporters put up the Israeli flag as their DP on social media. They helped spread the vilest disinformation on behalf of Israel and the IDF. Even though the Indian government has now stepped back into a more neutral position – our foreign policy triumph is that we manage to be on all sides at once, we can be pro- as well as anti-genocide – the government has clearly indicated that it will act decisively against any pro-Palestine protestors.
President Joe Biden, head of state of the richest, most powerful country in the world, is helpless before Israel, even though Israel would not exist without US funding. It’s as though the dependent has taken over the benefactor.
And now, while the US exports what it has in abundant surplus – weapons and money to aid Israel’s genocide – India too is exporting what our country has in abundant surplus: the unemployed poor to replace the Palestinian workers who will no longer be given work permits to enter Israel. (I’m guessing there will be no Muslims among the new recruits.) People who are desperate enough to risk their lives in a war zone. People desperate enough to tolerate overt Israeli racism against Indians. You can see it expressed on social media, if you care to look. US money and Indian poverty combine to oil Israel’s genocidal war machine. What a terrible, unthinkable, shame.
The Palestinians, facing down the most powerful countries in the world, left virtually alone even by their allies, have suffered immeasurably. But they have won this war. They, their journalists, their doctors, their rescue teams their poets, academics, spokespeople, and even their children have conducted themselves with a courage and dignity that has inspired the rest of the world. The young generation in the Western world, particularly the new generation of young Jewish people in the US, have seen through the brainwashing and propaganda and have recognized apartheid and genocide for what it is. The governments of the most powerful countries in the Western world have lost their dignity, and any respect they might have had. Yet again. But the millions of protestors on the streets of Europe and the US are the hope for the future of the world.
Arundhati Roy Arundhati Roy was born in 1959 in Shillong, India. She studied architecture in New Delhi, where she now lives, and has worked as a film designer, actor, and screenplay writer in India. Her most recent book, a novel, is: “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness.” Her other books include: “Listening to Grasshoppers: Fields Notes on Democracy,” “The God of Small Things,” and “The End of Imagination.
This blog is named after and in tribute to Roy’s 2002 article which now seems difficult to find. She made a speech at the World Social Forum on 27 January 2003. “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” I consider that this article answers and satisfies the question I posed in my recent Coming Soon: Should it properly be called Fascism?
Exclusive: Proposals to be put forward next month will favour UK citizens, but experts say they are likely to be illegal or unworkable
The plan is designed in part to bolster Rishi Sunak’s reputation for being tough on immigration. Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian
Downing Street wants to give UK families higher priority for social housing in a controversial scheme that will be badged as “British homes for British workers”, the Guardian can reveal.
Officials will launch a consultation in the coming weeks into how they can give British citizens faster access to social housing, a move designed in part to bolster Rishi Sunak’s reputation for being tough on immigration.
But the move has prompted anger from some in government, who warn it could further fuel support for the rightwing Reform UK party. Housing experts say it is likely to be either illegal or unworkable, or both.
Polly Neate, chief executive of the housing charity Shelter, said: “This policy amounts to nothing more than scapegoating at its worst. It is unnecessary, unenforceable and unjust. Not only does it ignore the fact that there are already stringent rules so only UK citizens or those with settled status can access homes for social rent, but it blames a group of people for a housing emergency that they did not create.”
comment by dizzy: It appears that Tory scum are keen to not only to support apartheid but also want to introduce it to UK. At the very least they are keen to benefit from racism. You get the same siht if you vote for the same cnuts.
U.S. President Joe Biden speaks to reporters before boarding Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C. on January 18, 2024. (Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)
If President Biden demanded an end to the bombardment of Gaza, it would stop. But he’s hasn’t demanded and the bombing and death and destruction continues.
In 1948, the newly-formed United Nations marked the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The Genocide Convention was a response to WWII’s Holocaust, when six million European Jews where murdered by Nazi Germany. Raphael Lemkin, a Polish lawyer of Jewish descent, coined the term “genocide” during the war, as he developed legal arguments for prosecuting war criminals, leading to the Nuremberg Trials.
1948 was also the year Israel was founded. While many celebrated Israel as a safe refuge for the world’s Jews after the Holocaust, Palestinians call that period the ‘Nakba,’ Arabic for ‘catastrophe.’ Over 750,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes and villages, their property confiscated, and 15,000 were killed.
1948 was also when the white minority in South Africa imposed apartheid on the Black majority, creating an oppressive system of segregation that lasted close to half a century.
In the intervening 75 years, despite the Genocide Convention, genocides have still occurred – and too few perpetrators of genocide have faced prosecution. Last week, the eyes of the world were on the Hague, as South Africa brought a case accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza to the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
The ICJ, also referred to as the “World Court,” convened on January 11th, first hearing South Africa’s case, followed the next day by Israel’s defense. South African lawyer Adila Hassim opened, saying,
“For the past 96 days, Israel has subjected Gaza to what has been described as one of the heaviest conventional bombing campaigns in the history of modern warfare. Palestinians in Gaza are being killed by Israeli weaponry and bombs from air, land and sea. They are also at immediate risk of death by starvation, dehydration and disease as a result of the ongoing siege by Israel, the destruction of Palestinian towns, the insufficient aid being allowed through to the Palestinian population, and the impossibility of distributing this limited aid while bombs fall. This conduct renders essentials to life unobtainable.”
Another of South Africa’s legal team, Irish lawyer Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh, said,
“On average, 247 Palestinians are being killed and are at risk of being killed each day, many of them literally blown to pieces. They include 48 mothers each day. Two every hour. And over 117 children each day, leading Unicef to call Israel’s actions a war on children. Entire multigenerational families would be obliterated. And yet, more Palestinian children would become WCNSF. Wounded Child, No Surviving Family, the terrible new acronym born out of Israel’s genocidal assault on the Palestinian population in Gaza.”
Israel said its attack on Gaza was in self-defense, directed at Hamas’ military infrastructure, following its October 7th attack on Israel, in which over 1,000 people were killed and over 200 taken hostage.
Renowned Jewish Israeli journalist Gideon Levy said on the Democracy Now! news hour, “Does this give us Israelis the right to do anything we want after the 7th forever, without any limits, no legal limits, no moral limits? We can just go and kill and destroy as much as we wish? That’s the main question right now.”
Levy serves on the editorial board of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. He recently wrote a column headlined, “If It Isn’t a Genocide in Gaza, Then What Is It?” In it, he writes, “Let us assume that Israel’s position at The Hague is right and just and Israel committed no genocide or anything close to it. So what is this? What do you call the mass killing, which continues even as these lines are being written, without discrimination, without restraint, on a scale that is difficult to imagine?”
Any measures ordered by the ICJ would have to be adopted by the United Nations Security Council, where the United States, Israel’s staunchest ally and weapons provider, regularly wields its veto to protect Israel.
The United States is quick to accuse others of genocide, from Serbia in the 1990s, to Burma in the last decade for its atrocities against its Rohingya minority, to the mass imprisonment of Uyghurs in China, to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The United States even acknowledged Turkey’s 1915 genocide against Armenians, albeit in 2021, more than 100 years late.
Yet, President Biden, in a statement marking the 100th day anniversary of Hamas’ attack on Israel, failed to even mention the more than 24,000 Palestinians killed by Israel in Gaza, 70% of whom were women and children. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Davos, Switzerland said the situation is “gutwrenching” and asked “but what can be done?”
If President Biden demanded an end to the bombardment of Gaza, it would stop. Now is the time to heed the global calls for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Smoke rises as Israeli artillery units and howitzers stationed in the military zone launch attacks near the Gaza border in Nahal Oz, Israel on December 10, 2023. (Photo: Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“As global resistance to war and apartheid grows, it is important that the public know exactly who is making this violence possible.”
As of Wednesday, a U.S.-based Quaker group’s online database listed over two dozen companies profiting from the bloodshed in the Gaza Strip, where Israeli forces have spent the last 10 weeks waging what experts call a “genocidal” war that sent defense stocks soaring.
Backed by $3.8 billion in annual military aid from the United States, Israel declared war on October 7 in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack that killed over 1,100 people. Since then, Israeli forces have killed over 20,000 Palestinians in Gaza—sparking massive protests demanding a cease-fire around the world, including many led by Jewish people.
“War and attacks on civilians will never bring safety or peace to Israelis or Palestinians.”
The growing death toll, displacement, destruction of civilian infrastructure, and difficulties in delivering humanitarian aid to the besieged enclave have also increased scrutiny of a $14.3 billion package for the war that the Biden administration requested from Congress as well as criticism of the U.S. weapon-makers and billionaire donors who are arming and enabling the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
“The scale of destruction and war crimes in Gaza would not be possible without massive weapon transfers from the U.S.,” said Noam Perry of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), the group behind the tool, in a statement Wednesday. “As global resistance to war and apartheid grows, it is important that the public know exactly who is making this violence possible.”
As the AFSC webpage details:
Shortly after October 7, the U.S. government started transferring to Israel massive amounts of weapons. Among these weapons, Israel received more than 15,000 bombs and 50,000 artillery shells within just the first month-and-a-half. These transfers have been deliberately shrouded in secrecy to avoid public scrutiny and prevent Congress from exercising any meaningful oversight.
Some of these weapons were purchased using U.S. taxpayers’ money through the Foreign Military Sales program; some were direct commercial sales purchased through Israel’s own budget; and some were replenished U.S. military stockpiles in Israel, which the Israeli military may also use. A list of known U.S. arms transfers is maintained by the Forum on the Arms Trade.
The webpage notes that the list is based on reporting, social media, and other open sources, and “focuses on weapons used by Israel because all Palestinian militant groups are already sanctioned and receive no support from Western governments or corporations.”
For example, Boeing, the world’s fifth-largest weapon manufacturer, makes F-15 fighter jets and Apache AH-64 attack helicopters used by the Israeli forces, as well as “multiple types of unguided small diameter bombs (SDBs) and Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) kits” that have been used “extensively” during the war, including in a bombing of Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp.
After decades of Israeli occupation forces using Caterpillar’s armored D9 bulldozers to “demolish Palestinian homes and civilian infrastructure in the occupied West Bank and to enforce the blockade of the Gaza Strip,” the machines “have been crucial in the Israeli military’s ground invasion” of the enclave, according to AFSC.
Israeli forces are invading the Nour Shams refugee camp in Tulkarem, bringing a bulldozer to destroy infrastructure belonging to the refugees there. This is on the same day that Israeli forces bulldozed and murdered displaced people and their tents in Kamal Adwan hospital, Gaza. pic.twitter.com/CH3gdoe1Zd
While both of those war profiteers are based in the United States, the list isn’t limited to U.S. firms, also calling out the world’s seventh-largest weapon manufacturer, the U.K.’s BAE Systems, and Israel’s largest weapon manufacturer, Elbit Systems, “one of the primary suppliers of weapons and surveillance systems to the Israeli military.”
Other companies on the list include weapons giants such as General Dynamics, General Electric, L3Harris Technologies, Leonardo, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and RTX—formerly Raytheon—as well as vehicle companies AM General, Ford, Oshkosh, Toyota, and drone manufacturers AeroVironment, Skydio, and XTEND.
The list also targets U.S.-based Colt’s Manufacturing Company, which makes firearms including the M16, and Emtan Karmiel, an Israeli firm that “delivered some 12,000 rifles” to the country’s forces within a week of October 7. It also includes Israel Aerospace Industries, a state-owned manufacturer that “makes multiple weapons systems specifically for the Israeli military.”
Israeli journalist says Jews who want to live in Israel have no choice but to take up arms
There is no choice for a Jew who wants to live in the land of Israel, except to hold the Tanakh (Hebrew scriptures) in one hand, and in the other hand, hold an M16 rifle. pic.twitter.com/XlU19KS3Lp
Other Israeli firms listed include Plasan, which makes the SandCat light armored vehicle, and MDT Armor, which is owned by the Israeli company Shladot and makes the David Urban Light Armored Vehicle used by the military for patrols and reconnaissance.
The other foreign firms on the list are ThyssenKrupp, the German company that built four warships for Israel, and Nordic Ammunition Company, which makes the M141 Bunker Defeat Munition, a shoulder-fired “bunker-buster” rocket.
“As a Quaker organization with a long history of work in Palestine and Israel, including in Gaza, we support a full arms embargo to both Israeli and Palestinian militant groups,” Perry stressed Wednesday. “War and attacks on civilians will never bring safety or peace to Israelis or Palestinians. We need a permanent cease-fire and to work toward a just and lasting peace in the region.”
