complicity

UK Ministers at Risk of Liability for Supporting Israeli War Crimes: Legal Expert

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

Pro-Palestinian rights advocates display placards critical of the Labour Party leadership on May 18, 2024 in London, England. (Photo: Guy Smallman/Getty Images)

“There is a ‘real prospect’ individuals… may have knowingly facilitated the commission of alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity,” a legal analysis found.

Amid reports that government officials have expressed doubt that the United Kingdom can continue supporting Israel’s assault on Gaza without breaking international law, a legal expert commissioned by a rights group warned the Labour Party on Wednesday that government ministers could be liable for possible war crimes committed by the Israel Defense Forces.

Global Justice Now director Nick Dearden wrote to Foreign Secretary David Lammy on Wednesday, advising him that the organization has commissioned a leading lawyer, Sam Fowles of Cornerstone Barristers, to provide a legal analysis of the U.K.’s potential breach of international law via its support for Israel.

Fowles determined that “the U.K. and individuals, including government ministers and senior civil servants, may be liable for crimes committed by the Israeli state or Israeli personnel during the country’s ongoing military operation in Gaza and through the country’s unlawful occupation of Gaza and the West Bank,” wrote Dearden, with the potential liability arising from the U.K.’s continued “aid and assistance provided to Israel.”

The legal opinion, said Tim Bierley, campaigner for Global Justice Now, should send “alarm bells… sounding across Whitehall.”

“The U.K. government is putting its own ministers and civil servants at risk of prosecution by its continued failure to withhold support for Israel,” he said.

In a 28-page report, Fowles pointed to the U.K.’s involvement with Israel since October 2023, when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) began its bombardment of Gaza in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel.

U.K. surveillance aircraft have reportedly flown more than 200 missions over Gaza to assist Israel since October, and about 100 Royal Marines were sent to the Eastern Mediterranean shortly after the Hamas attack. The U.K. has also sent military aid to Israel and granted at least 42 new weapons licenses since Israel began its operations in Gaza, where Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant ordered the IDF to release “all the restraints” that would protect civilian lives.

Israel’s full-scale assault on Gaza has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, the majority of whom have been women and children, and has included numerous strikes on so-called “humanitarian zones.” It has also included Israel’s blocking of nearly all humanitarian aid, leading to a mass starvation crisis that United Nations experts last month said qualifies as famine, and the spread of diseases including polio.

According to Fowles’ legal analysis, said Dearden, the U.K. government “could be liable for Israel’s alleged breaches of international humanitarian law and crimes against humanity during its military operation in Gaza since October 2023.”

Fowles also found potential liability for “Israel’s breaches of the right to self-determination and the prohibition of obtaining territory by aggression in its illegal and ongoing occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.”

The barrister pointed out that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled on July 19 that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza is unlawful and that it breached international law by obtaining control of the territories by force. The ICJ also ruled in January that it was plausible that Israel has violated Gaza residents’ rights under the Genocide Convention since October 2023.

Fowles’ finding that the U.K. and its high-level government officials could be liable for war crimes was also bolstered, he said, by a report presented in May by the U.N.’s Independent Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which found Israel “had committed multiple war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

Dearden wrote that Global Justice Now is hopeful that the findings will lead to “the swift and decisive action needed to end U.K. complicity in Israel’s war crimes,” particularly following the decision of Foreign Office official Mark Smith to resign from the government this week, saying there is “no justification” for continued arms sales to Israel.

The government is reportedly considering an arms embargo on Israel, but Dearden noted that on July 29, officials announced they were “seeking to develop a new trade deal with Israel.”

“We seek to highlight the legal advice which states that ‘it seems likely that the U.K., through its trade relationship with Israel, has helped facilitate the unlawful occupation,'” wrote Dearden.

Earlier this year, lawyers for the Conservative government that was voted out in July advised officials that Israel, with U.K. support, has breached international humanitarian law.

“What on Earth is [the government] waiting for?” asked Bierley. “It is long overdue for the U.K. to match words with actions by immediately suspending arms sales, trade talks, and other aid and assistance to Israel.”

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

UK Labour Party Shadow Foreign Secretary repeatedly heckled at a speech to the Fabian Society over his and the Labour Party's support for and complicity in Israel's genocide of Gaza.
UK Labour Party Shadow Foreign Secretary repeatedly heckled at a speech to the Fabian Society over his and the Labour Party’s support for and complicity in Israel’s genocide of Gaza.
Vote For Genocide Vote Labour.
Vote For Genocide Vote Labour.
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.
Continue ReadingUK Ministers at Risk of Liability for Supporting Israeli War Crimes: Legal Expert

‘History Is Watching’: Gaza Doctors Urge Harris to Back Israel Arms Embargo at Democratic Convention

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

An injured Palestinian baby is treated in al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital after an Israeli attack on Bureij refugee camp in Deir al-Balah, Gaza on August 7, 2024.
 (Photo: Ashraf Amra/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“We are here to deliver a policy that saves and improves lives,” Uncommitted National Movement co-founder Abbas Alawieh said in opening remarks at a press conference on the sidelines of the DNC.

As humanitarians opposed to the U.S. government’s support for Israel’s assault on Gaza continued to protest during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Tuesday, American doctors who recently volunteered in the besieged enclave implored the party’s presidential nominee Kamala Harris—based on the carnage and heartache they have witnessed—to embrace an arms embargo on Israel and an immediate cease-fire.

during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the Uncommitted National Movement held a Tuesday press conference at which American doctors who volunteered in Gaza implored Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, to embrace an arms embargo on Israel and an immediate cease-fire.

“We are here to deliver a policy that saves and improves lives,” Uncommitted National Movement co-founder Abbas Alawieh said in opening remarks at Tuesday’s press conference. “We are here because we want to win a better world.”

Alawieh slammed the “hypocritical action” of Biden administration officials who, while “saying they want a cease-fire,” continue “to send more and more weapons” to far-right Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “murderous government,” which “is using those weapons to kill civilians” and is “preventing any hope for all captives, Israeli and Palestinian, to be reunited with their families.”

Such support, Alawieh added, is also “preventing any hope of a departure from the horrors that we are seeing our siblings in Gaza experience with more than 16,000 children… being killed using U.S. weapons.”

“The Uncommitted National Movement mobilized Democratic voters—more than 740,000 nationally—specifically around the idea that our candidate, regardless of who they may be, needs an updated approach to their Gaza policy,” Alawieh continued. “Specifically, our stance is that our government should embrace an arms embargo. Stop sending weapons that are being used to kill civilians.”

“Vice President Harris is engaging with us on this issue,” Alawieh added. “Her team is engaging with us on this issue. We do view that as a positive step in the right direction. We want to be very clear that what we need to see urgently is for the bombs to stop. Stop sending bombs if you want us to believe that you want a cease-fire.”

There are 30 Uncommitted delegates attending the DNC after being elected in Democratic primaries in states like Minnesota, where the movement received 18.9% of the vote, and the key swing state of Wisconsin, where it won 13.3%. As polling reveals that Democratic and Independent voters in crucial swing states would be more likely to vote for Harris if she backs an arms embargo on Israel, her campaign has made some moves to accommodate Uncommitted voices, including providing space at the DNC.

Dr. Tammy Abughnaim, a Chicago-based emergency physician, said she asked Palestinians what she should tell people in the United States about Gaza, where she saw the aftermath of “massacre after massacre” and “suffering on an entirely unprecedented scale.”

“Tell the world what you saw,” she said they told her. “We cannot afford another day of this.”

On Monday, the DNC held its first-ever panel on Palestinian rights, which featured testimony from some of those who spoke at Tuesday’s press conference, including Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan, an American pediatric intensive care physician who volunteered for two weeks at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.

On Tuesday, Haj-Hassan said that the American doctors who worked in Gaza “cannot unsee what we witnessed, it gives us nightmares.”

“I can personally testify that I have never seen anything so horrific, so egregious, so inhumane,” she stated. “We decided to come here and bear moral witness with the unfortunate recognition that the only way to protect civilian life is through putting pressure on the U.S. government to stop militarily supporting Israel in its campaign.”

Haj-Hassan continued:

For the past 10 months, we have witnessed civilian casualty after civilian massacre after civilian massacre. The bread massacre. The Nuseirat massacre. The multiple school massacres, where internally displaced people, who have been forcibly transferred, a war crime in and of itself… finally sought shelter only to be massacred. Entire families exterminated. Humanitarian workers and healthcare workers and journalists killed in record numbers. Children with their extremities amputated traumatically in record numbers…

Over 17,000 children have lost one or both parents in Gaza since October. We have treated children who are the only surviving members of their entire family who were killed in the same bombing. I have personally held the hands of children taking their last final gasps with no family alive… unable to comfort them during their final agonizing breaths… This phenomenon of children having their entire families killed and arriving to the emergency department is so frequent it actually has an acronym… wounded child, no surviving family, given the acronym WCNSF.

Children who are fortunate enough to survive their injuries are discharged into a Russian roulette of a hundred different ways that they could be killed… another bombing, starvation, dehydration, disease. Now we have alarming reports of an outbreak of polio. Polio is something that we were able to eradicate on the majority of this planet decades ago.

“And yet we continue to fund this,” Haj-Hassan added. “History is watching us. The world is watching us. I cannot make sense of this. I suspect you cannot too. And I hope that the Democratic Party recognizes the irony and the hypocrisy of what we continue to fund and chooses to finally stand by the values of human rights and justice that we claim to stand by.”

Harris has expressed sympathy for Palestinians suffering what she called a “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza. However, like Biden, she’s also proclaimed her “unwavering” support for Israel. When asked earlier this month if Harris would support a suspension in weapons transfers, one of her national security advisers said that “she will always ensure Israel is able to defend itself against Iran and Iran-backed terrorist groups” and “does not support an arms embargo on Israel.”

Human rights advocates fear that if elected to a second term, former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, would be even more supportive of Israel’s obliteration of Gaza than the Biden-Harris administration.

According to Palestinian and international officials, at least 40,173 Palestinians have been killed—most of them women and children—and nearly 93,000 others have been wounded during Israel’s 319-day assault and siege on Gaza. Gaza officials say that at least 10,000 other Palestinians are missing, believed to be dead and buried under the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed-out homes and other buildings.

Almost the entire Gaza population of 2.3 million has been forcibly displaced. Hundreds of thousands of Gazans are starving; dozens have died from malnutrition, dehydration, and lack of medicines and healthcare amid a crippling Israeli siege that has been cited as evidence during Israel’s genocide trial at the International Court of Justice. The blockade has also exacerbated the spread of contagious diseases including measles, hepatitis, and polio.

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

Continue Reading‘History Is Watching’: Gaza Doctors Urge Harris to Back Israel Arms Embargo at Democratic Convention

Thousands Kick Off DNC With Protest in Chicago Over Gaza

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Original article by JULIA CONLEY republished form Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Police and demonstrators are seen at a march during the Democratic National Convention on August 19, 2024 in Chicago.
 (Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images)

“For Palestinian Americans, this is a fundamental issue,” said one marcher.

What’s expected to be the biggest protest march during this week’s Democratic National Convention kicked off in Chicago Monday afternoon, with demonstrators demanding that Vice President Kamala Harris support an end to unconditional U.S. military support for Israel amid its assault on Gaza, now in its tenth month.

Thousands gathered in Union Park before beginning their march to the United Center, where the convention is taking place.

Protesters carried signs and banners reading, “End State Violence From Chicago to Gaza” and “Dems’ Silence = Israel’s Violence.”

Organizers—who hoped to see 15,000 people in the streets—have expressed alarm in recent months over the Chicago Police Department’s aggressive response to pro-Palestinian protests, with a legal coalition last week expressing concern about Police Superintendent Larry Snelling’s intimidating comments about arresting protesters and other issues, and city officials have clashed with organizers about the route the march will take.

But threats of arrest did not deter groups including Jewish Voice for Peace from joining the march, with the local chapter saying its members would “make clear our commitment to freedom and safety for all people, from Chicago to Gaza” and as they demanded an “arms embargo now.”

Organizers of the Uncommitted movement, which emerged during the Democratic primary season to pressure President Joe Biden to end his support for Israel’s assault on Gaza, continue to press the Harris-Walz campaign to break with the administration’s position.

While Harris initially indicated to the group a willingness to discuss support for an arms embargo earlier this month, a top adviser for the Democratic nominee said soon after that the vice president does not support ending weapons transfers to Israel.

“For Palestinian Americans, this is a fundamental issue,” sociologist Eman Abdelhadi told Democracy Now! at the march. “We have spent 10 months watching our people die every day, and to ask us to simply just wait and hope that some change will happen… It’s just offensive and it’s completely insensitive.”

As the protesters assembled on Monday, journalist Mehdi Hasan warned in a column in The Guardian that Harris should see agreeing to the demand for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and an arms embargo not as a risk, but as “a moral, geopolitical, and—for the Democrats—electoral no-brainer.”

“Biden may want to continue sending more and more weapons to an Israeli government accused of war crimes at the international criminal court and of genocide at the international court of justice,” wrote Hasan, “but Harris should take a different stance—a bolder stance, a stance that is more in line with her party’s base, as well as with the American public at large.”

Original article by JULIA CONLEY republished form Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

‘Tell Kamala Harris – stop supporting genocide!’ Code Pink and other peace campaigners descend on Democrat National Convention in Chicago

Continue ReadingThousands Kick Off DNC With Protest in Chicago Over Gaza

UK: Civil servant who resigned was formerly lead author of arms assessment

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https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/uk-civil-servant-who-resigned-formerly-assessed-arms-sales-legality-foreign-office

Mark Smith said he had been the lead author of the central assessment governing the legality of UK arms sales to the Middle East

The British civil servant who resigned over concerns that the government is complicit in Israeli war crimes in Gaza has said he was formerly the lead author of the central assessment governing the legality of UK arms sales in the Foreign Office’s Middle East and North Africa Directorate.

Diplomat Mark Smith’s resignation was first reported when prominent journalist Hind Hassan posted the contents of his resignation letter on X on Friday evening. On Saturday Middle East Eye confirmed the resignation through two sources familiar with the situation.

…

In a statement issued on Sunday, Smith added that he was the lead author of the central assessment governing the legality of UK arms sales in the Middle East and North Africa Directorate.

He said: “It was my job to gather all relevant information regarding civilian casualties, international law compliance as well as assess the commitment and capabilities of the countries in question.”

“To export arms to any nation, the UK must be satisfied that the recipient nation has in place robust procedures to avoid civilian casualties and to minimize harm to civilian life. It is impossible to argue that Israel is doing that.”

It is unclear when Smith, who appears to have been at the British embassy in Dublin since at least 2022, was in this role.

Smith said he has written to Foreign Secretary David Lammy informing him of his resignation.

“I sincerely hope that he will listen to the concerns of Civil Servants on this issue and make the necessary changes.”

…

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/uk-civil-servant-who-resigned-formerly-assessed-arms-sales-legality-foreign-office

UK Labour Party Shadow Foreign Secretary repeatedly heckled at a speech to the Fabian Society over his and the Labour Party's support for and complicity in Israel's genocide of Gaza.
UK Labour Party Shadow Foreign Secretary repeatedly heckled at a speech to the Fabian Society over his and the Labour Party’s support for and complicity in Israel’s genocide of Gaza.
Continue ReadingUK: Civil servant who resigned was formerly lead author of arms assessment

‘Not Another Bomb’ to Israel Demand Grows Ahead of Democratic Convention

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

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators chant slogans before marching with placards and flags to commemorate Nakba Day at Lake Eola Park on May 11, 2024 in Orlando, Florida.  (Photo: Paul Hennessy/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“We must double down on our demands ahead of the DNC, where we’ll be marching in the streets for the liberation of all,” said one campaigner.

Leading up to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next week, calls for the U.S. government to stop arming Israel’s devastating assault on the Gaza Strip—widely denounced around the world as genocide—continued to mount on Friday.

“We join the millions of people who’ve taken action the last 10 months, taxpayers who don’t want to pay for genocide and are demanding an immediate arms embargo on Israel,” U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR) executive director Ahmad Abuznaid said in a statement Friday.

“We know that politicians won’t change their unjust policies until it’s in their own self-interest to do so,” he continued. “We must double down on our demands ahead of the DNC, where we’ll be marching in the streets for the liberation of all.”

Pro-Palestine protests in Chicago are set to start Sunday, a day before the DNC officially begins. They will continue throughout the week, according to a schedule shared Friday by the Chicago Sun-Times. The March on the DNC is planned for Monday afternoon.

As Common Dreams reported earlier Friday, a coalition of progressive and legal groups and individuals expressed “grave concerns” about recent moves by the Chicago Police Department and the city to stop protests and vowed to take legal action as needed.

The Uncommitted National Movement’s Not Another Bomb campaign is also planning a nationwide day of action for Sunday.

The movement formed when Democratic President Joe Biden was still at the top of the ticket throughout the presidential primary process; hundreds of thousands of voters across the country selected “uncommitted” or took similar action, depending on the options for each state’s ballot, to send the administration a message that they don’t support giving Israel any more military aid.

After a disastrous debate performance against the Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump, Biden dropped out of the race and passed the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris, who has already secured the party’s nomination via an online process and announced Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate. Biden, Harris, and Walz are all set to speak at the convention.

“USCPR calls on the Biden-Harris administration, the Harris-Walz campaign, members of Congress, and the DNC to stop arming Israel now, as the Democratic Party currently has the power to end the genocide by cutting off the endless weapons supply to Israel,” the group said Friday.

Since last week, Not Another Bomb has been gathering online signatures for a petition urging Harris “to shift away from President Biden’s disastrous policy on Gaza, and pledge to enact an immediate arms embargo on Israel’s assault and occupation against Palestinians as a material step towards a permanent cease-fire.”

“Consider the overwhelming sentiment among your constituents: 86% of Democrats support the proposed cease-fire deal in Gaza,” the petition notes. “This is the mainstream view of our party’s base, as evidenced by a recent poll that reveals that 52% of Americans and 62% of Biden/Harris voters agree with halting arms sales to Israel. In addition, 70% of Democratic voters support withdrawing U.S. military funding to Israel if Israel rejects the proposed cease-fire deal, as Israel has continuously done.”

Polling released this week shows that Democratic and Independent voters in three key swing states—Arizona, Georgia, and Pennsylvania—would be more willing to vote for Harris in November if she supported cutting off weapons to Israeli forces. However, one of her advisers recently made clear that “she does not support an arms embargo on Israel.”

March on the DNC spokesperson Hatem Abudayyeh told Reuters on Friday that coalition group leaders met after Biden bowed out of the contest to discuss whether they should revise their strategy if Harris became the Democratic nominee.

“There was absolute consensus,” Abudayyeh said. “She represents the policies of the administration and it’s full steam ahead.”

The Biden-Harris administration and current Congress have provided Israel with billions of dollars in military assistance as well as diplomatic support on the world stage, including multiple vetoes of United Nations Security Council cease-fire resolutions.

Fresh calls have come this week not only in anticipation of the convention but also since the Biden administration on Tuesday approved roughly $20 billion in additional U.S.-made weapons for Israel’s military as the official death toll in Gaza neared 40,000. Local officials said Friday that at least 40,005 Palestinians have been killed and another 92,401 have been wounded.

Thousands more remain missing amid the rubble in Gaza and the vast majority of the Palestinian enclave’s 2.3 million residents have been forced to relocate, many of them multiple times. Israeli forces on Friday issued yet another evacuation order for areas in central and southern Gaza—including “safe zones”—leaving Palestinians with “nowhere to go.”

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

dizzy: I’m experiencing disruption presumably by or sanctioned by the UK government. Evading it ;)

Continue Reading‘Not Another Bomb’ to Israel Demand Grows Ahead of Democratic Convention