complicity

Ben-Gvir Endorses Trump, Says He’s More Likely to Back War on Iran

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

Far-right Israeli lawmaker Itamar Ben-Gvir delivers a speech following the exit polls of the 2022 Israeli general election on November 2, 2022.
 (Photo: Ilia Yefimovich/Picture Alliance via Getty Images)

The Israeli security minister, who leads the far-right Jewish Power party, accused the Biden administration of thwarting Israel’s victory against Hamas.

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir endorsed former U.S. President Donald Trump—the 2024 Republican nominee—for the White House in an interview published Wednesday in which he accused the Biden administration of preventing Israel from winning its war on Gaza.

“I believe that with Trump, Israel will receive the backing to act against Iran,” Ben-Gvir, who heads the far-right Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party, toldBloomberg. “With Trump, it will be clearer that enemies must be defeated.”

“A cabinet minister is supposed to maintain neutrality,” the 48-year-old minister conceded, “but that’s impossible to do after [U.S. President Joe] Biden.”

“The U.S. has always stood behind Israel in terms of armaments and weapons, yet this time the sense was that we were being reckoned with—that we were trying to be prevented from winning. That happened on Biden’s watch and fed Hamas with lots of energy,” added Ben-Gvir, who was convicted in 2007 of incitement to racism after he advocated the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

While Biden, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and other administration officials have decried Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of Gaza and high civilian casualties—at least 140,000 Palestinians killed, injured, or missing, according to local and international agencies—the U.S. has approved billions of dollars in new military aid and more than 100 arms sales to Israel since October.

During his White House tenure, Trump—who boasted that he “fought for Israel like no president ever before”—moved the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and brokered the Abraham Accords between Israel and Arab nations Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates.

Trump has said that Israel should “get the job done” in Gaza, while criticizing the Israel Defense Forces for posting videos showing its obliteration of the embattled Palestinian enclave.

“I don’t know why they released wartime shots like that. I guess it makes them look tough. But to me, it doesn’t make them look tough,” Trump said in April. “They’re losing the PR war. They’re losing it big. But they’ve got to finish what they started, and they’ve got to finish it fast, and we have to get on with life.”

While Trump says he wants a deal with Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons, as president he unilaterally withdrew the U.S. from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action—also known as the Iran nuclear deal—and oversaw a “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran featuring deadly economic sanctions.

On the advice of Iran hawks in his administration including then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Trump also ordered the January 2020 assassination of Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Gen. Qasem Soleimani in Iraq.

Ben-Gvir’s interview was published as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was set to address a joint meeting of U.S. Congress Wednesday in Washington, D.C. A growing number of Democratic lawmakers have called for not only a cease-fire in Gaza but also a suspension of U.S. military aid to Israel, whose conduct in the war is on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice.

Dozens of Democratic lawmakers and Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont have signaled they will skip Netanyahu’s speech. Vice President Kamala Harris, who is also the Senate president, said she will not preside over Wednesday’s session. Harris, who is the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee in the wake of Biden’s withdrawal from the race on Sunday, said she will meet privately with Netanyahu on Thursday.

Echoing calls from groups including CodePink and the Council on American Islamic Relations, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) said this week that the prime minister should be arrested for war crimes and genocide.

Karim Khan, the International Criminal Court prosecutor, has applied for arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders for alleged war crimes including extermination committed on and after October 7.

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

Continue ReadingBen-Gvir Endorses Trump, Says He’s More Likely to Back War on Iran

Amnesty warns the US government of its complicity in alleged Israeli war crimes

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/amnesty-warns-us-government-its-complicity-alleged-israeli-war-crimes

Palestinians walk through dust by the rubble of houses, destroyed by Israeli strikes in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, July 22, 2024

AN INTERNATIONAL human rights group issued a fresh warning on Tuesday over the complicity of the United States in alleged Israeli war crimes.

The warning from Amnesty International came as protests mounted over the visit of Israel’s far-right Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Amnesty demanded a “comprehensive arms embargo on Israel, Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups.”

The rights group said the embargo should remain in place “until there is no longer a substantial risk that arms could be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international human rights or humanitarian law.”

Amnesty International US executive director Paul O’Brien said: “Enough is enough. The US government has been presented with ample evidence from experts around the world that US-origin arms have been used in war crimes and unlawful killings by the Israeli government.

…

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/amnesty-warns-us-government-its-complicity-alleged-israeli-war-crimes

Continue ReadingAmnesty warns the US government of its complicity in alleged Israeli war crimes

What’s behind the Israeli war on UNRWA?

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/what’s-behind-israeli-war-unrwa

A Palestinian girl reacts as a child is carried from the rubble of a building after an airstrike in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, October 21, 2023

RAMZY BAROUD exposes the systematic targeting of UN facilities in Gaza, explaining how this is part of a broader strategy of erasing Palestinian refugee rights and history while blocking international aid

…

Israel does not attempt to mask or justify its attacks on the organisation as it did during previous Gaza wars. This time around, the Israeli war was accompanied, from the very start, with the outlandish accusation that UNRWA members had participated in the October 7 assault by Hamas and other Palestinian groups.

Without providing any evidence, Tel Aviv launched an international campaign of vilification against the UN organisation which has, for decades, provided educational, medical and humanitarian services to millions of Palestinian refugees.

Sadly, and tellingly, some Western, and even non-Western governments, answered the Israeli call of punishing UNRWA by withholding badly needed funds, the urgency of which did not only stem from the direct impact of the Israeli war, but the acute famine resulting from the war, as well.

…

Jared Kushner, Trump’s former adviser on the Middle East, said in January 2018 that it was “important to have an honest and sincere effort to disrupt UNRWA.” For him, the dismantlement of the organisation meant the dismissal of the right of return for Palestinian refugees.

Indeed, the issue is not just about UNRWA, but rather the historic role the organisation has served as a reminder of the plight of millions of Palestinian refugees in occupied Palestine, the Middle East and across the world.

UNRWA was established through general assembly resolution 302 (IV) of December 8 1949. The founding of UNRWA came one year after the passing of UN resolution 194, which granted Palestinian refugees the right to “return to their homes.”

Although UNRWA’s mission has turned into a permanent mandate, since Palestinian refugees were not granted their right of return, the role of the organisation remained as critical as it was decades ago.

Since Kushner and others have failed to dismantle UNRWA, the Israeli government has taken advantage of its war on Gaza to achieve the exact purpose. In Israeli thinking, without UNRWA, the issue of Palestinian refugees would lose its main legal platform and would ultimately disappear.

This would give Israel the space and leverage to “resolve” the problem of the refugees in any way it finds fit, especially if it has the full backing of Washington.

Israel must not be allowed to dismantle UNRWA or to dismiss the generational struggle of Palestinian refugees, which is the core of the Palestinian fight for justice and freedom.

The international community must challenge Israel’s vilification of UNRWA and insist on the centrality of the right of return for Palestinian refugees. Without it, no real peace is possible.

Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and the editor of the Palestine Chronicle (www.palestinechronicle.com).

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/what’s-behind-israeli-war-unrwa

Continue ReadingWhat’s behind the Israeli war on UNRWA?

UK COVERS UP GAZA SPY FOOTAGE FROM DAY OF AID WORKER MASSACRE

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https://www.declassifieduk.org/uk-covers-up-gaza-spy-footage-from-day-of-aid-worker-massacre/

An RAF Shadow R1 spy plane over the Mediterranean. (Photo: Gordon Zammit / Alamy)

Declassified Exclusive: Royal Air Force has surveillance tape of Gaza from the day Israel killed British aid workers – but refuses to publish it.

  • Family of slain aid worker demands to see footage
  • UN expert warns British military may have to hand tape to International Criminal Court

Britain’s Ministry of Defence holds video surveillance footage of Gaza from the day that Israel killed seven international aid workers but is refusing to publish the tape.

Among those killed in the World Central Kitchen convoy on 1 April were three British military veterans: John Chapman, James Kirby and James ‘Jim’ Henderson.

The footage was taken by a Royal Air Force (RAF) surveillance plane which spent approximately five hours above Gaza that day.

It seemingly returned to base in Cyprus minutes before the airstrikes were launched.

The RAF may therefore have collected footage of events leading up to the tragedy, which could provide clarity over Israeli claims that “Hamas gunmen” were seen near the convoy.

…

https://www.declassifieduk.org/uk-covers-up-gaza-spy-footage-from-day-of-aid-worker-massacre/

Continue ReadingUK COVERS UP GAZA SPY FOOTAGE FROM DAY OF AID WORKER MASSACRE

US and UK launch 3 new airstrikes on Yemen’s Hodeidah Airport

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

UK RAF aircraft. Photo: UK Ministry of Defense

The Ansar Allah-led Yemeni Armed Forces announced on Thursday July 18, that Hodeidah International Airport in western Yemen was hit by three airstrikes launched from American and British jet fighters. No further details were mentioned in the announcement which was broadcasted on Ansar Allah’s Almasirah news website.

Hodeidah airport was subjected to previous airstrikes by the United States and the United Kingdom on Friday, July 12. It has also been a vital target for the US and the UK for several months due to its location in Hodeidah Governorate, which overlooks the Red Sea. The airstrikes are believed to be launched to pressure Ansar Allah to stop its activities in the regional waters in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

The Yemeni Armed Forces have begun their activity in the Red Sea since the Israeli aggression began on Gaza in the aftermath of October 7 events, by launching scores of attacks on commercial ships connected with Israel in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

The airport was not the only location in Yemen to be targeted by US airstrikes during the course of the current week. “The US launched in its aggression on our country 13 raids this week in Hodeidah and Hajjah, but with no effect, neither in preventing our operations nor in limiting them,” Sayyed Abdulmalik al-Houthi, the leader of Yemen’s Ansar Allah, said during a televised speech on Thursday July 18.” We seek to increase operations targeting ships in Indian Ocean, Mediterranean Sea,” added Sayyed Abdulmalik.

The Yemeni Armed Forces’s attacks in the Red Sea have had a great impact on one of the most important maritime trade routes in the World, suspending the transit of vessels belonging to some of the biggest oil and shipping companies worldwide. Vessels had to sail additional thousands of miles around the continent of Africa instead of going through the Suez Canal due to the blockade of the Red Sea caused by Ansar Allah’s attacks.

According to the Arab Center Washington DC research organization, Ansar Allah’s attacks represent a new phenomenon in geo-economic conflict being launched by a non-state actor using asymmetric warfare in fighting conventional armed forces, and imposing targeted economic sanctions by attacking international shipment selectively. Shipping companies based in pro-Israel countries, and ships carrying cargos connected to these countries, have lost access to the Red Sea shortcut, namely the Suez Canal, between Asia and Europe and therefore endured additional cost and extended sail duration. Consequently cargo fees have witnessed an increase, including on routes that do not pass through the Red Sea.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) mentioned in a report published in March, 2024 that attacks on vessels in the Red Sea reduced traffic in the Suez Canal, through which about 15% of global maritime trade volume normally passes. The attacks obliged shipping companies to divert their ships around the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa as an alternative route, increasing delivery times by an average of 10 days.

On the morning of Friday June 19, Ansar Allah claimed responsibility for a drone attack which struck Tel Aviv and killed one person.

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

Continue ReadingUS and UK launch 3 new airstrikes on Yemen’s Hodeidah Airport