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Tag: United States

  • Critics of US Complicity in Gaza Genocide Slam State Department Report

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

    Injured Palestinians, including children, are brought to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital for treatment after an Israeli attack on July 9, 2024 in Deir Al-Balah, Gaza.
     (Photo: Ashraf Amra/Anadolu via Getty Images)

    While the report stresses that “Israel has an inherent right to defend itself,” a related press release doesn’t mention Gaza. One expert said, “I guess they left out the genocide they’re arming and funding.”

    The Biden administration broadly and the State Department in particular have faced intense criticism throughout the U.S.-backed Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, and Wednesday was no exception, as an annual genocide report was sent to Congress.

    The State Department report is required under the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act of 2018, named for a Holocaust survivor who wrote about his experiences at the Auschwitz and Buchenwald Nazi concentration camps.

    A department press release explains that the report “details U.S. interagency efforts to address genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity around the world. It also chronicles whole-of-government work over the past year to promote atrocity prevention programs, protect civilians at risk, and hold perpetrators accountable in places where some of the most heinous crimes have been committed.”

    “Our government cannot continue cherry-picking what war crimes and genocide they choose to acknowledge.”

    The Intercept‘s Prem Thakker shared the department’s full three-paragraph statement about the report on social media and pointed out that the two nations mentioned are Sudan, where there is a civil war, and Ukraine, which is battling a Russian invasion.

    Notably missing—though mentioned in the report—is Israel’s nine-month assault on Gaza, which has been enabled by U.S. diplomatic and weapons support, and is the subject of a South Africa-led genocide case before the International Court of Justice.

    Responding to Thakker’s posts, Assal Rad, an expert in Middle East history, said, “I guess they left out the genocide they’re arming and funding.”

    Justice Democrats declared: “This is shameful. Our government cannot continue cherry-picking what war crimes and genocide they choose to acknowledge—especially not when we’re the ones funding it.”

    The 23-page report includes three paragraphs on Israel and Gaza:

    Hamas is a brutal terrorist organization that has vowed to annihilate Israel and repeat the October 7, 2023 massacre, during which it murdered almost 1,200 Israelis, took more than 240 people hostage, and committed horrific acts of sexual violence. In response, Israel has engaged in military actions in Gaza with the stated intent of defending itself against future Hamas attacks. By the end of the reporting period, tens of thousands of Palestinians were killed and over a million displaced as a result of Israel’s military actions.

    Israel has an inherent right to defend itself consistent with international law, in response to the October 7 attack, and the United States has made clear that Israel has a moral obligation and a strategic imperative to protect civilians, investigate allegations of any wrongdoing, and ensure accountability for any abuses or violations of international human rights law and violations of [international humanitarian law, or IHL]. As President [Joe] Biden stated in his 2024 State of the Union address: “Israel has an added burden because Hamas hides and operates among the civilian population. But Israel also has a fundamental responsibility to protect innocent civilians in Gaza. This war has taken a greater toll on innocent civilians than all previous wars in Gaza combined.” Secretary [of State Antony] Blinken has urged Israel to do everything possible to avoid civilian casualties and has consistently reiterated at the highest levels that Israel’s military operations in Gaza must comply with IHL.

    The Department of State provides a variety of assistance for those impacted in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza through U.N. Women, U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, U.N. Development Program, U.N. Population Fund, U.N. Children’s Fund, Office for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, other U.N. agencies, and international organizations that operate in Israel and Gaza. Additionally, the Department of State hosted U.N. Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict Pramila Patten in March to discuss her report and recommendations following her fact-finding visit to Israel and the West Bank regarding allegations of [gender-based violence].

    As of Wednesday, Israel’s war has killed at least 38,243 people in Gaza and injured another 88,243, according to health officials in the Hamas-governed Palestinian enclave. Thousands more remain missing and presumed dead. Israeli forces have devastated civilian infrastructure, leaving a trail of bombed-out homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.

    In a letter published in the medical journal The Lancet last week, three public health experts wrote that “applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death to the 37,396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza.”

    Israel has also limited the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza. Although the United Nations has not formally declared a famine, 10 top U.N. experts said Tuesday that “we declare that Israel’s intentional and targeted starvation campaign against the Palestinian people is a form of genocidal violence and has resulted in famine across all of Gaza.”

    Since October, multiple U.S. government employees, including State Department officials, have resigned over the administration’s complicity in genocide, including weapons support—which the department previously addressed in a May report to Congress.

    The May report—the release of which was blasted as a “Friday news dump”—says that it “is reasonable to assess” that U.S. weapons “have been used by Israeli security forces since October 7 in instances inconsistent with its IHL obligations or with established best practices for mitigating civilian harm,” but concludes that Israel can continue receiving arms support.

    The earlier report also expresses “deep concerns” about Israel’s actions regarding relief efforts but states that “we do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance within the meaning of Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act.”

    Later that month, Stacy Gilbert, one of the State Department officials who resigned, said that “there is consensus among the humanitarian community” that Israel has obstructed relief efforts, adding: “That’s why I object to that report saying that Israel is not blocking humanitarian assistance. That is patently false.”

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

  • 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).

  • Deadly heat waves in Mecca and Greece underscore climate crisis

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    https://www.axios.com/2024/06/17/heat-waves-greece-mecca-saudi-arabia-climate-crisis

    As the U.S. faces another potentially record heat wave this week, the Middle East and Europe’s Mediterranean have endured extreme temperatures that have proven deadly.

    The big picture: Multiple heat-related deaths have been reported in Greece during the country’s earliest heat wave on record and Jordan’s official news agency said Sunday “14 Jordanian pilgrims died and 17 others were missing” in the searing heat while on the Islamic Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

    Tourists outside the Acropolis during high temperatures in Athens, Greece, on June 12, when authorities announced the closure of the ancient site for five hours due to soaring temperatures that also shut schools. Photo: Hilary Swift/Bloomberg via Getty Images
    • The heat waves sweeping these regions this month have been made “at least five times more likely” because of human-caused climate change, per new Climate Central analysis.

    Context: Climate Central’s analysis is based on the group’s Climate Shift Index (CSI), which compares observed or forecast temperatures with simulations of the same weather conditions minus excess atmospheric greenhouse gases, per Alex Fitzpatrick.

    • The idea is to compare real-world conditions with what might have been the case had human-caused climate change been absent.
    • Saudi Arabia had a CSI of 5, meaning that human-caused climate change made a given daily average temperature five times more likely as of Monday morning. Greece, which has endured two weeks of extreme heat, had a CSI of 5 last week and 2 on Monday. Parts of Turkey had a CSI of 5.

    Between the lines: Greece has been among the worst-affected European countries for extreme weather caused by the climate crisis in recent months, enduring an intense heat wave, severe wildfires and heavy rains flooding the country’s streets last year.

    • A joint report by UN and European Union agencies found in April that Europe’s temperatures are rising about twice as fast the global average due to human-caused climate change — making it the fastest-warming continent on Earth.

    …

    Continues at https://www.axios.com/2024/06/17/heat-waves-greece-mecca-saudi-arabia-climate-crisis

  • 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).

  • Tens of thousands to surround White House on June 8 in protest of Rafah invasion

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

    Photo: Craig Birchfield

    The people of the United States challenge Biden’s complicity in the Israeli genocide in Gaza, demand Biden end aid to Israel

    Tens of thousands of people will are mobilizing to surround the White House on June 8 in protest of Biden’s complicity in the Israeli genocide in Gaza, principally the brutal invasion of Rafah, which takes more and more Palestinian lives each day. 

    Biden had claimed in the past that the invasion of Rafah by Israel would be a red line, and even threatened to withhold weapons shipments (while actually halting some shipments of bombs) over the threat of invasion. 

    “I made it clear that if they go into Rafah—they haven’t gone in Rafah yet—if they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities—that deal with that problem,” Biden said during a CNN interview on May 8.

    Nevertheless, Biden did nothing after Israel’s threats of invasion escalated into reality. The recent tent massacre horrified billions across the globe after Israel bombed forcibly displaced Palestinian families—using US-made munitions. To this day, Biden continues his unconditional support for Israel.

    Despite Biden’s earlier statements, he recently claimed that the recent massacre did not cross any of his “red lines.” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on Tuesday that “as a result of this strike on Sunday, I have no policy changes to speak to.”

    “The Israelis are going to investigate it. We’re going to be taking great interest in what they find in that investigation. And we’ll see where it goes from there,” Kirby said.

    Ahead of the mass mobilization, Layan Fuleihan of the People’s Forum said, “Biden has blood on his hands!” She added, “Genocide is a red line! Over 13,000 children murdered by Israel, is a red line! We will march in Washington D.C. to remind him that the people of this country refuse to be complicit in these war crimes!”

    The mass demonstration on June 8 has been called by a diverse range of Palestinian diaspora formations as well as anti-imperialist groups. These include the Palestinian Youth Movement, National Students for Justice in Palestine, U.S. Palestinian Community Network, the People’s Forum, Al-Awda: The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, Palestinian Feminist Collective, the ANSWER Coalition, U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, Arab Resource and Organizing Center, International Jewish Anti Zionist Network, Writers Against the War on Gaza, Healthcare Workers for Palestine, and Palestine Popular University.

    “How many more homes have to be destroyed, how many children need to be killed, until this government takes definitive action to stop Israel’s war crimes. We are tired of hearing that Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken are ‘concerned about the civilian death toll’. If they were really concerned about what Israel was doing, they would suspend all aid and tell Israel to accept one of the many ceasefire deals that is on the table. This genocide needs to end, and Biden has the power to do it,” said Celine Qussiny of the Palestinian Youth Movement.

    “On June 8th, tens of thousands will show Biden that the people are his red line — we refuse to allow him to continue the genocide against the people of Gaza! Instead of a red line, Biden gave a green light to Netanyahu’s invasion of Rafah by agreeing to send more U.S. bombs and missiles. While the government that speaks in our name arms the genocidal Israeli regime to the teeth, the people want freedom for Palestine,” said Brian Becker, National Director of the ANSWER Coalition. 

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