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Thousands to protest Netanyahu Congressional visit in Washington, DC

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

Thousands of activists will once again travel to Washington DC to protest the US support of Israel’s genocide, and this time, the visit of Benjamin Netanyahu. Photo: Sofia Perez

Israeli PM Netanyahu who faces charges from the ICC, was invited by US lawmakers to speak in front of Congress on July 24

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to speak on July 24 in front of the United States Congress following an invitation by leading politicians from both mainstream parties. Netanyahu is considered a war criminal internationally, with the ICC expected to issue a warrant for his arrest within the next two weeks—however, he is completely safe in the United States, which is not a state party to the Rome Statute of the ICC. 

Both the Israeli Prime Minister and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are wanted for “war crimes and crimes against humanity.” In May, Chief ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan applied for arrest warrants for the two officials, which are expected to be issued within the next two weeks. The United States has threatened to sanction the ICC for these arrest warrants. “Together, we’ll find a way to register our displeasure with the ICC, cause if they’ll do this to Israel, we’re next,” said Graham on Tuesday, indicating that US officials have at least a sense of their complicity in the genocide in Gaza. A recent letter published in the Lancet indicates that the true death toll of this genocide could be as high as 186,000. 

The mass mobilization, which is set to surround the US Capitol building, is being organized by several grassroots organizations including American Muslims for Palestine, the Palestinian Youth Movement, the People’s Forum, ANSWER Coalition, the Palestinian Feminist Collective, the Arab Resource and Organizing Center, Al-Awda: The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, US Palestinian Community Network, US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, Palestinian American Organizations Network, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the Palestinian American Women’s Association, CodePink, Jewish Voice for Peace, Palestinian Assembly for Liberation, and Writers Against the War on Gaza.

“July 24th will be remembered as a dark stain on the legacy of the 118th Congress. Inviting a war criminal to speak in our legislative halls while he is committing genocide is a new low for this body,” said Mohamad Habehh, Director of Development at American Muslims for Palestine. “Schools, hospitals, houses of worship, and residential neighborhoods have been leveled by relentless Israeli bombardment. Since the announcement of this speech, we have seen the bombing and killing increase. Congressional leaders have supported this genocide in Gaza in both word and deed. Not only have they excused the atrocities Israel is committing, they have passed billions of dollars in funding to enable them. This has empowered Netanyahu to continue committing these crimes and, by inviting him, Congress is sending a clear message to the American people and the rest of the world, that criminals will be rewarded and red carpets will be rolled out for them.”

“Netanyahu and the members of Congress he will be addressing are partners in crime,” said Hatem Abu Dayyeh, National Coordinator of USPCN. 

“Israel’s killing spree in Gaza would not be possible were it not for the constant stream of weapons being provided by the US government,” Abu Dayyeh continued. “These missiles, bullets and bombs are funded through acts of Congress and delivered by the Biden administration. We are gathering to express our outrage not only with Netanyahu, but also with the US political elite who are indispensable to Israel’s ability to massacre Palestinians.”

According to Brian Becker, National Director of the ANSWER Coalition, “The majority of people in this country want a ceasefire. But instead, Netanyahu and his friends in Congress are threatening to expand the war with an invasion of Lebanon.”

“The US corporate media always portrays Israel as the victim, but the reality is that the fighting along the Israel-Lebanon border is a result of the genocide being committed in Gaza.” Becker stated. “The only way to ensure that a devastating regional war does not break out is for Israel to immediately end its attack on Gaza and withdraw its troops.”

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

Continue ReadingThousands to protest Netanyahu Congressional visit in Washington, DC

Devastation in Gaza poses an increasingly serious problem for Starmer

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Original article by Paul Rogers republished from Open Democracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

Labour’s stance on Gaza under Keir Starmer cost the party votes at the general election | Chris Kleponis/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty Images.

Starmer’s stance on Gaza has already reduced support for Labour – and that will only worsen in the coming months

The Labour Party’s landslide general election victory on 4 July has been compared to the party’s previous wins under Tony Blair in 1997 and Clement Atlee in 1945. But Keir Starmer won a far smaller vote share than either Blair or Attlee and, unlike in 1997 and 1945, the mood of the victors was hardly euphoric – more damp squib than firework display.

The party’s win was not down to any widespread love of Starmer’s policies, but a deeply embedded antagonism to the 14 years of the Tory rule, aided by Nigel Farage’s Reform Party taking votes from the Conservatives, the collapse of the SNP vote in Scotland and an unusually low national turnout.

Labour was further held back by an unexpectedly large number of voters who abandoned the party – many of whom were motivated by its stance on Israel’s assault on Gaza. The mainstream media has wrongly attributed this to the UK’s substantial Muslim minority, portraying it as just a sectarian issue – ignoring the anger and hurt felt by many on the left.

Independent candidates stood primarily on a pro-Gaza ticket across many parts of the north of England, the Midlands and London. Five were elected – a record for a general election – and many more came close, most notably Leanne Mohamad in Ilford North, who managed to reduce new health secretary Wes Streeting’s majority from 5,218 to just 528.

Overall, in 57 constituencies, Labour’s biggest challenger was an independent or a candidate from the Green Party or the Workers Party. The Greens’ leap forward was particularly notable – they came in second place in 40 seats, all currently held by Labour, up from three in 2019.

As the new independent candidates said repeatedly throughout the election campaign, Gaza is just one reason for dissent from the new Starmer norm. Many traditional Labour supporters are also unhappy that the party is moving decidedly rightwards and embracing Big Business, as revealed last week by openDemocracy. Labour now seems likely to end up as a centre-right party – effectively disenfranchising several million people.

Even so, Labour’s position on Gaza was undeniably a big factor in its fall in majorities in many seats. It presents a problem for Labour in general and Starmer in particular that is simply not going to go away – and has several components.

The first is that Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his far-right Knesset supporters have long espoused the view that defeating Hamas in Gaza requires inflicting punishment on the whole civilian population. It is this so-called Dahiya doctrine that is largely responsible for the appalling loss of life among Palestinians.

The death toll in Gaza is at least 37,000, with as many as 10,000 missing, mostly buried under the rubble, and well over 70,000 wounded. The Lancet, the world’s leading medical journal, recently published a letter that suggested that if indirect deaths – including those due to disease, malnutrition and increased infant mortality – are included then the total number of human lives lost could reach 186,000.

The second is that there is no end in sight for the current war. There are occasions when talks seem to be getting underway but they repeatedly come to nothing, as they have done for the past six months at least. The Palestinian suffering is huge but the Hamas military leadership believes it can persevere, especially as claims by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) that most of Gaza has been cleared of Hamas turn out to be false.

Israel’s current leadership has little interest in a long-term ceasefire. Netanyahu will certainly persist with his attack on Gaza until at least the US presidential election in November, now hoping that Donald Trump surviving the recent shooting will help to secure his win. Meanwhile, Israel’s steady encroachment on Palestinian land and people in the West Bank is a further sign of a long-term insistence on permanent control “from the river to the sea”.

Finally, there is one more factor that is rarely understood. The sheer scale of the loss of life and wider Palestinian suffering due to the Israeli assault on Gaza has already caused a long-term – perhaps permanent – shift in attitudes towards Israel and support for Gaza in the UK, which reaches far beyond Muslim communities.

This shift will likely only increase as more and more evidence emerges about the Israeli conduct of the war. Last week the highly experienced foreign correspondent, Chris McGreal, published a report on the IDF’s repeated use of fragmentation artillery shells in densely populated urban areas. Perhaps the most devastating of all such ordnance being used is the Israeli M339 tank shell, whose manufacturer, Elbit Systems, describes it as “highly lethal against dismounted infantry”. No doubt even more so against children.

The deliberate human impact, especially on children, is appalling and causes injuries that would be difficult to treat even in well-equipped and fully functioning hospitals – of which there are none left in Gaza due to Israel’s bombing campaign.

Other similar reports will surely follow McGreal’s and the combined impact will last years, substantially adding to calls for international legal action against Netanyahu and his government.

This is where Starmer is so vulnerable. Thanks largely to the work of a handful of investigative journalists, especially Declassified UK, we know more than the British government would like about the UK’s close links with Israel – including the multiple roles of RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus in aiding Israel and the hundreds of thousands of pounds flowing from the Israeli lobby to Cabinet ministers.

Unless there is a radical change in policy towards Israel now that Starmer is in Downing Street, the assault in Gaza will remain a problem for Labour well into the future. Add to this the wider view that Labour is moving markedly to the right and the huge parliamentary majority may not be as stabilising as it first seemed.

Original article by Paul Rogers republished from Open Democracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

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.

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.

dizzy: We get news stories in the UK recently – since the general election and the new Labour government – of Zionists Keir Starmer and Foreign Secretary David Lammy calling on Israel for a ceasefire, even allegedly saying this to Benjamin Netanyahu, etc. That’s very difficult to accept and you can see through their actions e.g. objecting to ICC warrants, that they are fully supportive, assisting, aiding and abetting, complicit in Israel’s actions.

Continue ReadingDevastation in Gaza poses an increasingly serious problem for Starmer

Despite Gaza War Crimes Accusations, Biden Sends Israel More 500-Pound Bombs

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

A U.S. soldier secures a load of 500-pound bombs in this undated photo. (Photo: U.S. Army)

Since October, the U.S. has sent Israel more than 20,000 heavy bombs, which have been used in some of the deadliest massacres in Gaza.

The Biden administration has ended a two-month pause on the shipment of 500-pound bombs to Israel despite the frequent use of U.S.-supplied weapons by Israeli forces to commit alleged war crimes and genocide in Gaza.

Citing an unnamed Biden administration official, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that the bombs “are in the process of being shipped” to Israel and should arrive in the coming weeks.

In May, the Biden administration suspended transfers of 500- and 2,000-pound bombs manufactured by aerospace giant Boeing over fears the devastating munitions would be used in airstrikes on Rafah, the southern Gaza city where more than a million Palestinians had sought refuge.

By that time, Israel had already dropped hundreds of 2,000-pound bombs—which the U.S. military avoids using in civilian areas because they can destroy entire city blocks—on Gaza, including in an October 31 attack on the densely populated Jabalia refugee camp that killed more than 120 civilians.

“This is what U.S. funding and weapons do.”

Last month, the United Nations Human Rights Office said Israel’s use of 2,000-pound bombs and other U.S.-supplied weapons likely violated international law by deliberately targeting civilians in disproportionate attacks. Israeli military commanders have also been criticized for using artificial intelligence-based target selection to approve bombings they know will cause high civilian casualties.

The Biden official told the Journal that the pause on 2,000-pound bomb shipments will remain in effect.

“Our main concern had been and remains the potential use of 2,000-pound bombs in Rafah and elsewhere in Gaza,” they said. “Because our concern was not about the 500-pound bombs, those are moving forward as part of the usual process.”

But Israeli forces have killed many civilians with smaller bombs too. The New York Times reported Wednesday that multiple weapons experts including a a former U.S. Army explosive ordnance disposal technician identified a fragment from a Boeing-made GBU-39 250-pound bomb used in Tuesday’s attack on a refugee tent encampment outside the al-Awda school in southern Gaza that killed and wounded scores of civilians, including many women and children.

Palestinian and international agencies say Israel’s 278-day Gaza assault and siege have left at least 137,500 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing. Israel’s conduct in the war is the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case. International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan is also seeking to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders for crimes including extermination.

Despite overwhelming evidence of Israeli war crimes, the Biden administration remains Israel’s most steadfast supporter, providing billions of dollars in military aid, approving more than 100 arms shipments, and offering diplomatic cover in the form of United Nations Security Council vetoes and what critics call genocide denial.

Reuters reported last month that since October the U.S. has sent Israel 14,000 2,000-pound bombs, 6,500 500-pound bombs, 3,000 Hellfire missiles, 1,000 bunker-buster bombs, 2,600 air-dropped small-diameter bombs, and other munitions.

Citing the al-Awda massacre, Jewish Voice for Peace Action said Wednesday that “this is what U.S. funding and weapons do.”

“Arms embargo NOW,” the group added.

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

Continue ReadingDespite Gaza War Crimes Accusations, Biden Sends Israel More 500-Pound Bombs

The Gaza Project Exposes Israel’s ‘Chilling Pattern’ of Killing Journalists

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Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under a CC licence.

Forbidden Stories and its Gaza Project partners investigated Israel’s killing of journalists in Gaza and elsewhere.
 (Illustration: Forbidden Stories/The Gaza Project)

“This is one of the most flagrant attacks on press freedom that I can remember,” said one campaigner. “The impact on press freedom in Gaza, in the region, and the rest of the world is something we cannot accept.”

With more than 100 media professionals—nearly all of them Palestinian—killed in Gaza since October, a group of 50 reporters from 13 international organizations this week shared the results of a new investigative journalism initiative aimed at exposing the deadly toll Israel’s onslaught has taken on those reporting it to the world.

The Gaza Project—led by the Paris-based nonprofit Forbidden Stories—”analyzed nearly 100 cases of journalists and media workers killed in Gaza, as well as other cases in which members of the press have been allegedly targeted, threatened, or injured since October 7,” when Hamas-led attacks on Israel left more than 1,100 people dead and over 240 others kidnapped.

“Faced with what is being reported as the record number of journalists killed, Forbidden Stories, whose mission is to pursue the work of journalists who are killed because of their work, set out to investigate the targeting of journalists,” the group said

“For four months, Forbidden Stories and its partners investigated the circumstances of their killings, as well as those who have been targeted, threatened, and injured in the West Bank and Gaza,” it added. “These investigations point to a chilling pattern and suggest some journalists may have been targeted even though they were identifiable as press.”

Gaza Project member Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned what it called an “apparent pattern of targeting journalists and their families,” noting cases in which media workers were killed while wearing press insignia and after being threatened by Israeli officials.

“This is one of the most flagrant attacks on press freedom that I can remember,” CPJ program director Carlos Martínez de la Serna said of the ongoing war. “The impact on press freedom in Gaza, in the region, and the rest of the world is something we cannot accept.”

Basel Khair Al-Din, a Palestinian journalist in Gaza who believes he was targeted by a drone strike while wearing a press vest, said, “Whereas this press vest was supposed to identify and protect us, according to international laws, international conventions, and the Geneva Conventions, it is now a threat to us.”

“It’s this vest that almost got us killed, as has happened to so many of our fellow journalists and media workers,” he added.

Groups like Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International have called for official investigations into Israeli killing of journalists including an October 13 attack that killed 37-year-old Lebanese Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah and wounded half a dozen other journalists who were covering cross-border clashes between Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon.

Dylan Collins, an American deputy editor at Al Jazeera English, was wounded while administering first aid to Christina Assi, an Italian Agence-France Presse journalist whose legs were blown off in the attack.

Reuters determined that an Israeli tank crew “fired two shells in quick succession” at the journalists, who HRW said were “clearly identifiable as members of the media, and had been stationary for at least 75 minutes.” HRW “found no evidence of a military target near the journalists’ location.”

Amnesty International, meanwhile, asserted that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) strike was “likely a direct attack on civilians that must be investigated as a war crime.”

Asa Kasher, the lead author of the IDF’s Code of Ethics, told Forbidden Stories that “no member of the press should have been killed under normal circumstances of hostilities in Gaza.”

“It shouldn’t happen, even a single one,” he added. “It’s illegal. It’s unethical. The person who does it should be brought to court.”

Israel’s alleged deliberate targeting of journalists is part of the evidence presented in a South Africa-led genocide case against Israel being reviewed by the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

Separately, the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC), also located in the Dutch city, is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity including extermination and forced starvation in the case of the Israelis and extermination, rape, and torture in the case of Hamas.

The international press freedom group Reporters Without Borders last month filed a third ICC complaint alleging “war crimes against journalists in Gaza.”

According to Palestinian and international officials, at least 37,718 Palestinians—mostly women and children—have been killed during Israel’s 264-day assault on Gaza, which has also left more than 86,300 people wounded and 11,000 others missing and feared dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of homes and other bombed-out buildings.

Around 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have also been forcibly displaced, and the Israeli siege on Gaza has caused widespread—and deadly—starvation and what the head of the United Nations food agency called a “full-blown famine” in northern parts of the strip.

Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under a CC licence.

Zionist Keir Starmes 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 Starmes is quoted “I support Zionism without qualification.” He’s asked whether that means that he supports Zionism under all circumstances, whatever Zionists do.

Continue ReadingThe Gaza Project Exposes Israel’s ‘Chilling Pattern’ of Killing Journalists

Israeli Politician Quotes Hitler to Argue for Resettlement of Gaza

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dizzy: It’s difficult to argue that they are not Fascists when they commit the very crimes created immediately after WWII to address Fascism, to ensure “never again” and quote Fascist Adolf Hitler. It’s difficult to see that supporting countries are not aiding and abetting and complicit in genocide and war crimes when such blatant calls for such crimes are and have been made.

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

Israeli far-right Zehout (identity) political party chairman Moshe Feiglin gives a joint press statement with Prime Minister and Likud Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu (unseen) in Ramat Gan, near the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv on August 29, 2019. (Photo: Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images)

“In what kind of society can one openly advocate policies modeled on Hitler’s conduct? In a society that feels complete impunity due to America’s protection,” one foreign policy expert said.

Former Israeli Knesset member Moshe Feiglin quoted Adolf Hitler as he called for Israel to resettle the Gaza Strip and create a “Hebrew Gaza.”

Feiglin, who quit Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party to found the right-wing Zehut Party and plans to challenge Likud in Israel’s next elections, made the comments during a panel discussion on Israel’s Channel 12 that was shared on social media on Sunday, as Middle East Eye reported.

“We are not guests in our country, this is our country, all of it…” Feiglin said, adding, “As Hitler said, ‘I cannot live if one Jew is left.’ We can’t live here if one ‘Islamo-Nazi’ remains in Gaza.”

Feiglin’s remarks earned widespread condemnation on social media.

“In what kind of society can one openly advocate policies modeled on Hitler’s conduct?” asked Trita Parsi, the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. “In a society that feels complete impunity due to America’s protection.”

Former Greek Finance Minister and leader of the pan-European leftist political party DiEM25 Yanis Varoufakis wrote that “the evidence of genocidal intentions is mounting” and asked, “When will the ICC [International Criminal Court] act?”

Israel has killed at least 37,337 people and injured 85,299 in its war on Gaza since October 7, when Hamas carried out a lethal attack against southern Israel, killing around 1,100 people and taking more than 240 hostage. Prior to the attack, Israel had maintained a 16-year blockade of the narrow enclave.

South Africa brought a case before the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza, citing the vast destruction of its bombing campaign as well as statements made by high-level Israeli politicians, including Netanyahu, that portray all Gazans as complicit in the October 7 attacks. Several human rights experts and scholars have also concluded that Israel is committing genocide.

This is not the first time that Feiglin, who served in the Knesset from 2013 to 2015, has called for the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza.

“We need a different prime minister who is willing to stick his neck out to win. Zehut will provide, whenever elections happen, such a candidate,” he told supporters in January, according to Middle East Eye. “For us, the war in Gaza is not merely a defensive war. It’s a war of liberation, the liberation of the land from its occupiers.”

In an October 2023 interview with Al Jazeera, he also advocated for the “complete destruction of Gaza, before invading it… Destruction like Dresden and Hiroshima, without a nuclear weapon.”

Zehut’s 2019 platform included the cancellation of the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians, according to Haaretz.

“Don’t talk to me about international law, because there is not such a thing. You know, the minute you use the word ‘Palestinian,’ you stop saying the truth. Because there is no Palestinian nation, and they know it,” Feiglin said that same year.

Other currently governing Israeli politicians have also called for the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza.

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said in January that the Israeli government should “encourage the migration” of Palestinians out of Gaza.

Later the same month, Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attended a right-wing conference calling for the “resettlement” of Gaza.

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

Continue ReadingIsraeli Politician Quotes Hitler to Argue for Resettlement of Gaza