People take part in a Palestine Solidarity Campaign rally on Whitehall in central London, September 11, 2024
Ministers accused of criminal liability over F-35 exports
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As ministers attend the opening of the Labour Conference in Liverpool this weekend, tens of thousands of demonstrators are expected march through the city to demand that the government take meaningful action to end Israel’s genocidal attacks.
Ahead of the march, Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) director Ben Jamal said: “The Labour government knows that Israel is committing crimes in Gaza and the West Bank.
“But instead of honouring its obligations under international law, it is still seeking to shield Israel from accountability.
“It is shocking and unacceptable that this government would remain actively complicit with a state that commits genocide and practices apartheid, but that is the case.
“That is why we bring our movement for Palestinian freedom, justice and equality to the Labour Party Conference.”
Motions on Palestine are on the conference agenda, but it has not yet been decided whether they will be debated.
Palestinian Ahmad Yunis and his three-year-old son, Sami, who were both injured in an Israeli bombing in the Bureij refugee camp, sit outside the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on September 8, 2024. (Photo: Eyad Baba/AFP via Getty Images)
“I don’t think we have seen before, a violation that is so massive, as we are seeing in Gaza now,” said one committee leader.
A United Nations committee on Thursday called out Israel for “serious violations” of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in the occupied Palestinian territories, particularly with its nearly yearlong assault on the Gaza Strip.
“The outrageous death of children is almost historically unique. This is an extremely dark place in history,” said Bragi Guðbrandsson, vice chair of the U.N. Child Rights Committee, which also released its findings on five other parties to the global treaty—Argentina, Armenia, Bahrain, Mexico, and Turkmenistan.
Since the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel, Israeli forces have killed at least 41,272 Palestinians in Gaza and injured another 95,551, according to local officials. Many more remain missing and are believed to be dead and buried in the rubble of bombed civilian infrastructure. The vast majority of the enclave’s 2.3 million residents have been displaced, often numerous times.
Earlier this week, the Gaza Health Ministry publicly identified 34,344 Palestinians who have been killed in the Hamas-governed enclave as of August 31. The document spans 649 pages, the first 14 of which are filled with the names of babies. In total, there are 11,355 children.
The U.N. report states that “the committee is gravely concerned about… the outrageously high number of children in Gaza who continue to be killed, maimed, injured, missing, displaced, orphaned, and subjected to famine, malnutrition, and disease, as well as the multiple displacements of the Gazan population, as a result of the state party’s indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks on Gaza using explosive weapons with wide-area effects in densely populated areas and its denial of humanitarian access, with at least 1 million children displaced, 21,000 children reported missing, 20,000 children who have lost one or both parents, 17,000 children unaccompanied or separated from their families in Gaza, dozens of child deaths due to malnutrition, and 3,500 children at risk of death due to malnutrition and lack of food.”
The panel also expressed alarm over “attacks on and destruction of hospitals, schools, residential buildings, refugee camps, and essential infrastructure, including power facilities and water tanks, by the armed forces, restricting access to health services, education, and housing for the nearly 1 million children living in Gaza.”
Guðbrandsson said that “I don’t think we can identify any measure that was taken to save children’s lives in this military operation in Gaza.”
“I don’t think we have seen before, a violation that is so massive, as we are seeing in Gaza now,” he noted. “These are extremely grave violations that we do not often see.”
Israel, which ratified the treaty in 1991, accused the committee of having a “politically-driven agenda,” in a statement sent by its diplomatic mission in Geneva.
It sent a large delegation to a series of U.N. hearings in Geneva in early September where they argued that the treaty did not apply in Gaza or the West Bank and said that it was committed to respecting international humanitarian law.
It says its military campaign in Gaza is aimed at eliminating the Palestinian enclave’s Hamas rulers and that it does not target civilians but that the militants hide among them, which Hamas denies.
Anne Skelton, chair of the U.N. committee, pushed back against Israel’s position on Thursday, telling journalists, “They were not, in our view, facing up to the reality that 17,000 children are dead and that there have been repeated attacks on schools and hospitals.”
The report also addresses Israel’s claims, saying that “the committee deeply regrets the state party’s repeated denial of its legal obligations under the convention in the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT) based on its position that the convention ‘does not apply… to areas beyond a state’s national territory’ and ‘was not designed to apply in situations of armed conflict,’ and that international humanitarian law is the relevant and specific applicable body of law in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.”
“The committee also regrets the limited information it received on the situation of children living in the OPT due to such a position,” the 22-page “concluding observations” document continued. “The committee is of the view that the state party’s denial of the application of the convention cannot be used to justify its grave and persistent violations of international human rights and humanitarian law.”
The panel cited the International Court of Justice advisory opinion from July that found “international human rights instruments are applicable.” The ICJ—which has taken up a genocide case against Israel—also said at the time that the decadeslong Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is illegal and must end “as rapidly as possible.”
The new report says that the Child Rights Committee, “aligning its position with the position of the ICJ, reiterates that the convention applies to all children at all times and is directly applicable in all territories over which the state party exercises effective control, and reminds the state party of its legal obligations both under the convention and international humanitarian law concerning children in the OPT.”
Skelton also argued that “the only real way to serve children’s rights in this situation is a cease-fire.”
However, Israel has shown no signs of ending its assault on the Palestinian enclave—in fact, fears of a wider regional conflict are heightened this week due to bombings of pagers, walkie-talkies, and other devices across Lebanon, attacks supposedly targeting Hezbollah members that Israeli and U.S. officials attributed to Israel’s military and intelligence operatives.
The Child Rights Committee’s report follows U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres adding Israel to the so-called “List of Shame” of nations that kill and wound children during armed conflicts, a June decision that outraged Israeli officials but was praised by human rights advocates as long overdue.
THE British government faces a backlash for showing a “complete disregard” for Palestinian suffering by abstaining from a key UN vote on ending Israeli occupation.
The UN general assembly resolution passed last night demanded that Israel end its “unlawful presence” in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip within a year.
An overwhelming majority of 124 countries voted in favour of the resolution. Britain was one of 43 countries to abstain. Just 14 countries, including the US, voted against it.
Amnesty International’s secretary-general Agnes Callamard said that governments, including Israel’s allies, must ensure that the country complies with the resolution.
Anti-AfD protest in Magdeburg. (Photo: via Standing Up Against Racism)
The German government has defied EU law by imposing border controls, while Green politicians decry “the poison of Islam” in parliament. Meanwhile, the far-right AfD has surged in recent state elections. What’s driving Germany’s sharp shift to the right?
Germany is entering a period of reaction. This is not only evident from the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (Alternative für Deutschland, AfD), but also from the hardline policies of the governing coalition’s so-called centrist parties. The Social Democrats (SPD), Greens, and Liberal Democrats (FDP) have introduced unprecedented measures against migrants and critics of state policies. In September 2024, Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) imposed border controls, defying European criticism and undermining the EU’s Schengen Agreement. Political scientist Christopher Wratil of the University of Vienna said that Berlin can “no longer claim others are not complying with EU law,” adding that the government is acting “as if the AfD were already in power.” Soon after Faeser’s announcement, Green parliamentary leader Katharina Dröge referred to “the poison of Islam” (das Gift des Islams) during a Bundestag session.
Germany challenged on multiple fronts
To explain this drastic rightward shift, it is necessary to understand the international situation confronting Germany’s ruling class. There are three main fronts on which the German state is currently bogged down.
Firstly, in Ukraine, where NATO’s confrontation with Russia is stalling, if not collapsing entirely. As the second-largest backer of the Zelensky regime, Berlin remains fully committed to winning the war. The government’s July 2024 decision to approve the stationing of US Tomahawk cruise missiles on German soil confirms this. Sanctions on Russia have strained the German economy, especially energy-intensive industries, but the state has absorbed much of the burden through subsidies. The Federation of German Industries, representing 100,000 companies, continues to back the government’s policies. However, popular support for the war is crumbling, as recent EU and state elections show. The two parties most critical of arms deliveries to Ukraine – the AfD and the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance for Reason and Justice (Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht, BSW) – made record gains, while the governing coalition suffered heavy losses.
The second front, not yet erupted into open conflict, is East Asia, in the confrontation with China. German capital faces the same dilemma as its US counterpart: while business with China remains lucrative, Chinese producers are outpacing American and European competitors, challenging Western hegemony. Germany has been more reserved than the US in taking a confrontational stance, but the government’s plan to invest 10 billion euros into a 30-billion-euro Intel chip production project in Germany shows its intent to reduce reliance on China. Meanwhile, the Green foreign minister, who called Xi Jinping a “dictator” in 2023, has led a cross-party effort to instrumentalize Taiwan against Beijing. The Ministry of Defense’s recent decision to send a warship through the Taiwan Strait is the latest move in this confrontational policy.
The third front is West Asia, where Germany remains the most outspoken advocate of Israel’s genocidal offensive in Gaza. Unlike the other fronts, there are no economic concerns holding German capital back from fully supporting Israel. This unified stance on Zionism and opposition to the so-called axis of resistance has allowed the government to swiftly implement policies against the Palestinian solidarity movement. While smearing protesters as antisemitic, basic rights such as freedom of assembly and speech are thrown out of the window. Homes are raided, activists arrested, solidarity organizations banned, and laws tightened—most recently with the liberal FDP calling to strip non-EU citizens of the right to assembly. Yet, the Western-backed offensive in Gaza has also stalled, with Israel unable to eliminate Hamas. Domestically, Germany uses force to suppress dissent, but it cannot do so internationally. States from the Global South are openly challenging Germany’s unconditional support for Israel. Namibia accused Berlin of supporting genocide while shirking responsibility for colonial crimes. Nicaragua has filed a case against Germany in the International Court of Justice, accusing it of violating the 1949 Genocide Convention. Others, like Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, have directly confronted German politicians: “Where have we thrown away our humanity? Why this hypocrisy?”
The escalations on these fronts, along with rising domestic discontent, are fueling insecurity among Germany’s ruling class. A shift to the right is seen as necessary to capture broad sections of the population, keep them integrated into the system, and conjure scapegoats. The consistent messaging around the “Russian threat” and “Islamic terrorism” is used to justify massive military spending, cuts to social programs, and sweeping surveillance laws, including the right to secretly invade private homes. Meanwhile, migrants are blamed for housing shortages and the collapse of the healthcare system.
The collapse of the governing parties in eastern Germany
Elections for two state governments in eastern Germany made international headlines in August 2024 after the far-right AfD made massive gains, even becoming the strongest political force in Thuringia, where it led by almost 10%. There are several reasons for the far-right’s success.
Firstly, there is the historical trajectory of the post-1989 era. Over 30 years have passed since the socialist German Democratic Republic (GDR) was incorporated into the Federal Republic, yet West German promises of “blossoming landscapes” remain unfulfilled. The privatization of the East German economy was the largest wealth transfer in European history: millions lost their jobs and were deprived of their rightful shares in the public property they had built. This left East Germans with little to pass to their children. Almost all key positions in the state and economy were taken by West Germans. Deindustrialization led to higher unemployment, lower incomes, and longer working hours compared to the West. The result was a mass exodus, with nearly 4 million people moving westward since 1989 to escape the bleakness.
The East German population has essentially been relegated to second-class citizens in the Federal Republic. This has fostered a general distrust of Western political parties, whose approach has often been to “educate” rather than represent the East: “Your system lost, you have lost, so we will show you how it’s done.” The natural rejection of this condescending, paternalistic attitude has long been reflected in voter support for anti-establishment parties like The Left (Die Linke) and, more recently, the far-right AfD.
While The Left enjoyed broad support in the early 2000s for opposing the neoliberalization of the labor market, it gradually fell out of favor after joining regional and city governments, where it helped implement the same neoliberal policies it once opposed (such as the privatization of public housing in Berlin). This created a political vacuum in which the AfD was able to present itself as the only oppositional force, despite being a neoliberal party. The AfD taps into the economic and social challenges people face, blaming migrants or incompetent politicians in Berlin rather than the economic system itself. It has been especially successful among skilled laborers and small business owners—those most threatened by, or fearful of, social degradation.
This dynamic, which had already been unfolding for several years – was accelerated by the escalation of the Ukraine war in 2022. The question of arms deliveries to Kiev now played a central role in political debates.
The EU elections in June 2024 – in which the whole country participated – showed that Germans are dissatisfied with the governing coalition (SPD, Greens, and liberal FDP). Voters are now turning to the conservative CDU and far-right AfD, both of which call for tougher social cuts in response to current crises. The AfD gained nearly 5%, becoming the second-largest German party in the EU parliament, surpassing even the SPD. While the AfD has criticized further arms deliveries to Ukraine, it does not oppose NATO or the ongoing militarization in Germany. Many likely voted for the AfD due to its demagoguery on Ukraine, particularly calls to end the war with Russia. Polls from September 2024 show more Germans now oppose further arms deliveries to Ukraine (51%) than support them (38%), and 52% believe diplomatic efforts for peace have been insufficient. The BSW, a new party that split from The Left in 2023, centered this issue in its campaign and secured 6% of the national vote in the EU elections.
The two state elections in August 2024 further revealed that consensus around the Ukraine war effort is breaking down, especially in eastern Germany. All three governing parties lost votes, while the AfD and BSW made record gains. The Left, which had been the strongest party in Thuringia and supported arms deliveries to Ukraine, lost nearly 18% and was overtaken by the BSW. The AfD is now the largest party in Thuringia, winning almost a third of the vote. In Saxony, the AfD came close, with 30.6% compared to the CDU’s 31.9%. Notably, the CDU leader in Saxony has broken from the party’s line, calling for an end to arms deliveries and diplomatic negotiations with Russia.
The successes of the AfD and BSW have left the two eastern German states without a clear path forward. All parties currently refuse to form coalitions with the far-right AfD. While mainstream parties have derided the BSW as the “long arm of the Kremlin,” they also acknowledge the need to contend with this new party. Wagenknecht has stated that the BSW will only join coalitions with parties that oppose the stationing of US Tomahawk cruise missiles in Germany—a largely symbolic stance, as state governments have no control over this decision. More concerning for centrist parties is the disintegration of the political landscape, which could allow the opposition to block decisions requiring a two-thirds majority, including the election of constitutional judges. There is a palpable angst that minority parties in federal and state parliaments could “shut down” Germany’s constitutional courts.
Dark prospects
The upsets in eastern Germany are driven, at least in part, by dissent over NATO’s war effort against Russia. Both the AfD and BSW, from different perspectives, argue that supplying more weapons to Ukraine is not in Germany’s “national interest.” This domestic dissent, coupled with military setbacks in Donbass, is clearly causing doubts within the governing coalition. Just days after the elections in Thuringia and Saxony, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) expressed support for diplomatic negotiations with Moscow to “discuss how we can move from this war situation towards peace more quickly.”
While the German ruling class grapples with the Ukraine dilemma, its commitment to militarizing society remains strong. In this endeavor, the AfD does not stand in its way. Although the far-right party differs on issues like the war against Russia, relations with the USA, and the future of the EU, it poses no threat to German capital. On the contrary, centrist parties can mask themselves as an anti-fascist bulwark, rallying much of the population (including many on the left) around the slogan of “stopping the AfD,” while simultaneously enacting similarly racist and inflammatory policies toward migrants.
Asylum seekers are once again being deported back to Afghanistan, in flagrant disregard of the EU’s own human rights convention. Even “liking” certain social media posts warrants deportation, according to Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD). At the same time, the German government is ramping up its “brain drain” strategy against the Global South. Just a few days after ordering controls on all of Germany’s borders, Faeser signed an agreement with the Kenyan government to make it easier for Germany to poach Kenyan professionals. A similar agreement with Uzbekistan followed a week later.
Germany’s increasingly aggressive neo-colonial policies abroad and its ever-more repressive policies at home are thus two sides of the same coin.
The U.N. General Assembly approves a resolution calling for an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories on September 18, 2024. (Photo by Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“The vast majority of countries have made it clear: Israel’s occupation of Palestine must end, and all countries have a definite duty not to aid or assist its continuation.”
The United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday passed a resolution demanding that the Israeli government end its occupation of Palestinian territories within 12 months, affirming a recent International Court of Justice opinion that deemed the decadeslong occupation unlawful.
The Palestine-led resolution, co-sponsored by dozens of nations, calls on Israel to swiftly withdraw “all its military forces” from Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. The final vote tally was 124 member states in favor and 14 against, with 43 nations abstaining.
Unsurprisingly, Israel and the United States—Israel’s top ally and arms supplier—were among the 14 countries that opposed the resolution, which is not legally binding. The United Kingdom, which recently suspended some arms export licenses for Israel, abstained from Wednesday’s vote, a decision that the advocacy group Global Justice Now (GJN) said shows “complete disregard for the ongoing suffering of Palestinians forced to live under military-enforced racial discrimination.”
“The vast majority of countries have made it clear: Israel’s occupation of Palestine must end, and all countries have a definite duty not to aid or assist its continuation,” said GJN’s Tim Bierley. “To stay on the right side of international law, the U.K.’s dealings with Israel must drastically change, including closing all loopholes in its partial arms ban and revoking any trade or investment relations that might assist the occupation.”
The Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement welcomed passage of the resolution, noting that the U.N. General Assembly voted “for the first time in 42 years” in favor of “imposing sanctions on Israel.”
The resolution specifically calls on all U.N. member states to “implement sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes, against natural and legal persons engaged in the maintenance of Israel’s unlawful presence in the occupied Palestinian territory, including in relation to settler violence.”
NEWS: UN General Assembly adopts resolution demanding that Israel brings to an end its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory without delay and within the next 12 months.https://t.co/Vj0Ve1lLBipic.twitter.com/2rKKvDNDqd
The resolution’s passage came nearly two months after the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the U.N.’s highest legal body, handed down an advisory opinion concluding that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories is illegal and must end “as rapidly as possible.”
The newly approved resolution states that “respect for the International Court of Justice and its functions… is essential to international law and justice and to an international order based on the rule of law.”
The Biden administration, which is heavily arming the Israeli military as it assails Gaza and the West Bank, criticized the ICJ’s opinion as overly broad.
Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said in a statement Wednesday that “the Biden administration should join the overwhelming majority of nations around the world in condemning these crimes against the Palestinian people, demanding an end to the occupation, and exerting serious pressure on the Israeli government to comply.”
“We welcome this U.N. resolution demanding an end to one of the worst and ongoing crimes against humanity of the past century,” said Awad.
Ahead of Wednesday’s vote, a group of U.N. experts said in a statement that many countries “appear unwilling or unable to take the necessary steps to meet their obligations” in the wake of the ICJ’s opinion.
“Devastating attacks on Palestinians across the occupied Palestinian territory show that by continuing to turn a blind eye to the horrific plight of the Palestinian people, the international community is furthering genocidal violence,” the experts said. “States must act now. They must listen to voices calling on them to take action to stop Israel’s attacks against the Palestinians and end its unlawful occupation. All states have a legal obligation to comply with the ICJ’s ruling and must promote adherence to norms that protect civilians.”
