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Tag: complicity

  • Interview: Harris or Trump doesn’t matter for Gaza genocide

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    Original article by Nandini Naira Archer republished from Open Democracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

    Pro-Palestine protest outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August 2024. | Fatih Aktas/Anadolu via Getty Images

    A year on and no end in sight to genocide – thanks to US support for Israel, which will continue beyond election

    A year on from the outset of Israel’s war on Gaza, Israeli forces have killed more than 42,000 Palestinians – and this is just the confirmed death toll. A recent study by the Lancet medical journal projected that the death toll could exceed 186,000 when counting indirect deaths – from starvation and diseases due to the Israeli blockade on humanitarian aid, food, water and medicines.

    To take stock of where we’re at and whether this nightmare is likely to end any time soon, openDemocracy spoke to Tariq Kenney-Shawa, a foreign policy analyst based in New York and US Policy Fellow at Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network.

    openDemocracy: It’s been a year since this latest iteration of Israel’s war on Gaza commenced. Is the end in sight? What’s Israel’s end game?

    Tariq: Unfortunately, I don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel here. There is no end in sight to Israel’s genocide in Gaza. And that’s mainly because Israel hasn’t faced an ounce of accountability or pressure to de-escalate from the international community (the US and other western benefactors) to end this.

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    I’ve tended to be doubtful when people insist that Israel doesn’t have a plan in Gaza and is just destroying and killing for the sake of it. Israel does have a plan and it has been acting on it. It truly sees this moment in history, as well as the blank check from the US, as a golden strategic opportunity to take leaps towards its ultimate goal of ‘maximum land with minimum Palestinians’ and wider regional domination through brute force.

    Israel’s end game in Gaza is erasure, and for the last 12 months, they’ve been laying the foundation for a new reality in Gaza for us all to see. In addition to “thinning out the population,” as Netanyahu said, through genocide, collective punishment, and ethnic cleansing, Israel has been effectively chopping up the Strip into smaller, more controllable enclaves that will come to represent the new “facts on the ground.”

    openDemocracy: Has anything about the conflict surprised you?

    Tariq: I think one of the most surprising aspects about both the genocide in Gaza and now Israel’s escalation across the region is that it has gone on uninterrupted and without international intervention for so long, despite the fact that just about every massacre has been broadcast for the world to see on social media.

    As someone who is part of a generation that grew up being taught that the phrase “never again” really meant something, this is what I have found most jarring. Of course, Gaza is not the first time the international “rules-based” order has been exposed as a crutch for Western hegemony. From Vietnam to Iraq, the West’s selective application of international law has long been exposed for what it is. But Gaza is the first postwar genocide both entirely perpetrated by a Western ally and funded, facilitated, and justified by the West itself, not to mention the first to be so thoroughly recorded for the world to see.

    openDemocracy: Now with recent escalations including Iran, do you think realistically we’re on the verge of all-out war in the region?

    Tariq: I think we are already seeing an all-out regional war by every definition of the term. Israeli fighter jets are bombing Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran. This is not to mention the strikes the US, UK, and other Israeli benefactors have carried out on Israel’s behalf.

    It boils down to this: Israel will continue to escalate across the region in hopes of achieving its extremist, expansionist goals as long as the US taxpayer continues to foot the bill and US assets and personnel are off the coast of Haifa to come to Israel’s defence if need be.

    openDemocracy: It seems that the Biden administration actually gave Israel the green light to mount large-scale attacks on Lebanon. Has the US ever really been interested in stabilising the region? Does the US want an all-out war?

    Tariq: The Biden Administration has either explicitly or implicitly (through uninterrupted weapons transfers and diplomatic shielding) given Israel the green light for a year of genocide and regional escalation.

    I believe it is clear that the US ultimately shares the same strategic objectives as Israel, which range from silencing Palestinians once and for all to destroying groups like Hezbollah to causing significant damage to Iran. These are all outcomes that the US would celebrate (just take the public statement the US made following Israel’s assassination of Hassan Nasrallah as one example).

    Does the Biden Administration wish Israel could go about some of their operations differently? Perhaps. But at the end of the day, the costs of Israel’s unparalleled violence, the mass death of Arabs and the destruction of their lands, is a price the US is willing to accept. If the US didn’t want an all-out war, they would stop giving Israel all the weapons and diplomatic space to keep escalating at will. Because while every US administration has been pro-Israel, other US presidents have stood up to Israel when they felt US interests were at risk.

    openDemocracy: Do you think things will change after the US elections on November 5?

    Tariq: Nothing will fundamentally change, regardless of who wins the elections on November 5. For Palestinians, the genocide will continue because neither candidate has exhibited any indication that they intend to hold Israel accountable for war crimes and genocide or use any of the ample leverage that the US has to influence Israel’s conduct.

    In fact, it’s the opposite. Donald Trump insists he would let Israel “finish the job” in Gaza, while Kamala Harris promises that she will continue the Biden Administration’s policy of giving Israel “everything it needs” and continues to make it clear that she intends to be a carbon copy of the Biden Administration. The truth is, both Harris and Trump spell continued disaster for both Palestinians and the wider region, and there is no “lesser evil” here.

    The truth is, the Biden administration’s resume on Israel-Palestine, even long before October 7, has in many ways mirrored that of Trump’s.

    If Biden wanted to make good on his commitment to a “two-state solution,” he would have at least started by reversing the norm shattering pro-Israel policies of his predecessor. The Biden Administration has actually given Israel more military and diplomatic assistance than any previous administration.

    The only substantial difference between Trump and Biden has been their rhetoric. But one could argue that Biden’s lofty, yet empty words actually does more harm than good by distracting us from the fact that he has given Israel everything it needed to get away with genocide right in front of our eyes. If Harris wins in November, it will be more of the same, and you don’t need to take my word for it, she has made it abundantly clear herself.

    Original article by Nandini Naira Archer republished from Open Democracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

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    Dear Mr Starmer, we fact-checked your 7 Oct statement. You’re welcome

  • Israel’s War on Gaza and Beyond Has Cost US Taxpayers At Least $22.76 Billion: Report

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

    Demonstrators calling for no funding for Israel in the conflict in Gaza are seen outside the U.S. Capitol before the House passed the foreign aid package on Saturday, April 20, 2024. (Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

    “It has been difficult for the U.S. public, journalists, and members of Congress to get an accurate understanding of the amount of military equipment and financial assistance that the U.S. government has provided.”

    U.S. armed aid to Israel and related spending on American militarism in the Middle East cost taxpayers at least $22.76 billion over the past year, according to new research published Monday.

    The Costs of War Project at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International & Public Affairs—which has long been the premier source for statistics on the human and economic costs of ongoing U.S.-led post-9/11 wars and militarism in the Middle East and beyond—called the $22.76 billion estimate “conservative.”

    “This figure includes the $17.9 billion the U.S. government has approved in security assistance for Israeli military operations in Gaza and elsewhere since October 7—substantially more than in any other year since the U.S. began granting military aid to Israel in 1959,” report authors Linda Bilmes, William Hartung, and Stephen Semler wrote. “Yet the report describes how this is only a partial amount of the U.S. financial support provided during this war.”

    In addition to the repeated multibillion-dollar rounds of military aid to Israel, related U.S. operations in the region, particularly bombing and shipping defense in and near Yemen—where Houthi rebels have attacked maritime commerce and launched missiles at Israel—have cost over $2 billion since last October.

    “It has been difficult for the U.S. public, journalists, and members of Congress to get an accurate understanding of the amount of military equipment and financial assistance that the U.S. government has provided to Israel’s military during the past year of war,” the report states. “There is likewise little U.S. public awareness of the costs of the United States military’s own related operations in the region, particularly in and around Yemen.”

    The analysis adds that regional hostilities “have escalated to become the most sustained military campaign by U.S. forces since the 2016-19 air war” against the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

    “The Costs of War project has an obligation to look at the consequences of the U.S. backing of Israel’s military operations after October 7, especially as it reverberates throughout the region,” Costs of War director Stephanie Savell said in a statement. “Our project examines the human and budgetary costs of U.S. militarism at home and abroad, and for the last year, people in Gaza have suffered the highest consequences imaginable.”

    According to the Gaza Health Ministry and international agencies, Israel’s yearlong assault on Gaza has left at least 149,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing, and millions more forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened. U.S. military aid to Israel has continued in successive waves, even as the country stands trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice.

    The Hamas-led October 7 attack on resulted in more than 1,100 Israeli and other deaths—at least some of which were caused by so-called “friendly fire” and intentional targeting under the Hannibal Directive—with more than 240 people kidnapped.

    Although the Costs of War Project report mainly covers U.S. aid to Israel since last October, it also notes that since 1948—the year the modern state of Israel was founded, largely through the ethnic cleansing of Palestine’s Arabs—American taxpayers have contributed over a quarter trillion inflation-adjusted dollars to the key Mideast ally.

    A second report published Monday by the Costs of War Project found that around 90% of Gaza’s population has been forcibly displaced by the Israeli onslaught and 96% of Gazans face “acute levels of food insecurity.” The publication cites a letter sent last week by a group of U.S. physicians to President Joe Biden—who has repeatedly declared his “unwavering” support for Israel—stating that “it is likely that the death toll from this conflict is already greater than 118,908, an astonishing 5.4% of Gaza’s population.” That figure includes 62,000 deaths due to starvation.

    “In addition to killing people directly through traumatic injuries, wars cause ‘indirect deaths’ by destroying, damaging, or causing deterioration of economic, social, psychological and health conditions,” report author Sophia Stamatopoulou-Robbins wrote. “These deaths result from diseases and other population-level health effects that stem from war’s destruction of public infrastructure and livelihood sources, reduced access to water and sanitation, environmental damage, and other such factors.”

    The new report comes less than two weeks after Israel secured yet another U.S. armed aid package, this one worth $8.7 billion. Meanwhile, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said it faced a nearly $9 billion shortfall for Hurricane Helene relief efforts.

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

  • Protesters spray blood red paint on factory making F-35 components

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/protesters-spray-blood-red-paint-factory-making-f-35-components Many articles from the Morning Star today

    Home Farm Road, where L3Harris Factory operates, covered in fake blood with the message ‘L3Harris KILLS KIDS’

    ACTIVISTS targeted an arms factory in Brighton which makes parts for fighter jets used by the Israeli military on Thursday.

    The protesters sprayed the L3Harris factory with fake red blood and scrawled “L3Harris kills kids” near the entrance.

    The firm continues to make bomb release mechanisms for F-35 fighter jets, which were excluded from the government’s embargo on 30 arms licences to Israel last month.

    The jets have been used to drop 2,000lb bombs on Gaza and now in Israel’s attacks on Lebanon.

    Locals have been campaigning for the factory’s landlord Paxton Access to evict the firm from the premises.

    The community-wide campaign, spearheaded by StopL3Harris, has also called on the local council as freeholders of the land to shut it down.

    …

    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/protesters-spray-blood-red-paint-factory-making-f-35-components Many articles from the Morning Star today

    UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy says that UK is suspeding 30 of 350 arms licences to Isreal. He also confirms the UK government's support for Israel's Gaza genocide.
    UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy says that UK is suspeding 30 of 350 arms licences to Israel. He also confirms the UK government’s support for Israel’s Gaza genocide.

  • Starmer’s government has ordered 100 spy flights over Gaza to aid Israel, investigation reveals

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/starmer-government-has-ordered-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-to-aid-israel-investigation-reveals

    Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivers a statement on the situation in the Middle East from 10 Downing Street, London, October 1, 2024

    THE Labour government has ordered 100 spy flights over Gaza to aid Israeli intelligence, an investigation by Declassified UK revealed today.

    The intelligence-gathering flights began in December under the previous government.

    Eleven flights took place in Labour’s first week in power, and during Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s first full month in office in August, the Royal Air Force (RAF) flew 42 flights over Gaza.

    Declassified UK found that the flights were departing from Britain’s air base in Cyprus.

    The flights may have gathered up to 500 hours of footage of Gaza, Declassified UK said, though it is unclear exactly where the British intelligence is going and what it comprises.

    …

    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/starmer-government-has-ordered-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-to-aid-israel-investigation-reveals

    Zionist Keir Starmer is quoted "I support Zionism without qualification." He's asked whether that means that he supports Zionism under all circumstances, whatever Zionists do.
    Zionist Keir Starmer is quoted “I support Zionism without qualification.” He’s asked whether that means that he supports Zionism under all circumstances, whatever Zionists do.
    UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy says that UK is suspeding 30 of 350 arms licences to Isreal. He also confirms the UK government's support for Israel's Gaza genocide.
    UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy says that UK is suspeding 30 of 350 arms licences to Israel. He also confirms the UK government’s support for Israel’s Gaza genocide.
    Vote For Genocide Vote Labour.
    Vote For Genocide Vote Labour.