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Groups Forge Emergency Coalition to Pressure US on Gaza Cease-Fire

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

Demonstrators march for a Gaza cease-fire in San Francisco on November 18, 2023.  (Photo: Brett Wilkins/Common Dreams)

“It is long past time for the United States to use its leverage and uphold U.S. law to end Israel’s indiscriminate bombardment of Gaza and have this war come to an end.”

A broad coalition of advocacy groups on Tuesday launched an emergency online campaign to pressure U.S. lawmakers to support an immediate and permanent cease-fire in Gaza.

Demand Progress, Oxfam America, the Friends Committee on National Legislation, Win Without War, Common Defense, the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, and 23 partner groups started CeasefireAction.com, which includes a searchable database of each member of Congress and where they stand on the cease-fire issue, as well as a tool for contacting lawmakers to urge them to publicly support a cease-fire.

“It is long past time for the United States to use its leverage and uphold U.S. law to end Israel’s indiscriminate bombardment of Gaza and have this war come to an end,” said Seth Binder, director of advocacy at the Middle East Democracy Center, a coalition member. “The humanitarian catastrophe that millions of Palestinians are suffering through and its seismic moral and strategic consequences should compel members of Congress to do everything in its power to secure a cessation of hostilities.”

According to the database, 164 of the 536 members of Congress “support some form” of cessation of hostilities in Gaza. All of them are Democrats, plus independent Sens. Angus King (Maine) and Bernie Sanders (Vt.). Seventy-six lawmakers “fully support” a cease-fire.

The launch of CeasefireAction.com comes as Israeli forces continue their relentless bombardment, invasion, and starvation of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, around 90% of whom have been forcibly displaced. According to Palestinian and international humanitarian officials, more than 102,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded by Israeli bombs and bullets, with at least 7,000 others missing and believed dead and buried beneath the rubble of some of the hundreds of thousands of homes and other buildings destroyed or damaged by Israeli bombardment.

Israel’s conduct in war, along with statements by members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government and Knesset lawmakers, are cited in a South Africa-led genocide case filed in the International Court of Justice in The Hague. On January 26, the ICJ issued a preliminary ruling that found Israel is “plausibly” committing genocide and ordered the country’s government to “take all measures within its power” to prevent genocidal acts.

As Israeli forces are poised for a major ground invasion of Rafah, where an estimated 1.5 million Palestinians—the vast majority of them forcibly displaced from other parts of Gaza—are sheltering, “it is more urgent than ever that Congress and the [Biden] administration support an immediate, permanent cease-fire,” said Demand Progress policy adviser Hajar Hammado.

“We need an end to the violence, a release of [Israeli] hostages, and the free flow of humanitarian aid to alleviate the immense scale of suffering,” Hammado added. “This new tool, CeasefireAction.com, empowers constituents to hold their members of Congress accountable for their stances in this critical moment. A temporary, six-week cease-fire is not enough—we need an immediate, permanent cease-fire now.”

The Biden administration—which is seeking an additional $14.3 billion in U.S. military aid for Israel atop the nearly $4 billion it already gets from Washington each year—has pushed for a temporary cease-fire deal ahead of Ramadan in recent days under intensifying pressure from the U.S. public.

Vice President Kamala Harris on Sunday said that “given the immense scale of suffering in Gaza, there must be an immediate cease-fire for at least the next six weeks.”

“People in Gaza are starving,” Harris said. “What we are seeing every day in Gaza is devastating. We have seen reports of families eating leaves and animal feed, children dying from malnutrition and dehydration. Too many innocent Palestinians have been killed.”

Meanwhile, the Biden administration—which twice sidestepped congressional review to expedite weapons transfers to Israel since October 7—is preparing to send thousands more bombs to the country’s military.

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

Continue ReadingGroups Forge Emergency Coalition to Pressure US on Gaza Cease-Fire

‘Make Argentina Great Again’: Far-Right Trump and Milei Embrace at CPAC

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

US-POLITICS-CONSERVATIVES 
Argentine President Javier Milei speaks during the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) meeting on February 24, 2024, in National Harbor, Maryland. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN / AFP) (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)

“This is an unholy alliance,” said one critic of the pair, “mark my words.”

Disgraced former President Donald Trump of the United States and Argentina’s recently-elected libertarian President Javier Milei met and shared a warm embrace backstage at the annual CPAC gathering on Saturday.

Milei, the libertarian firebrand who vowed to “chainsaw” his nation’s social programs and usher in a new era of neoliberal austerity in the Latin American nation, was in town to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference where Trump also spoke on Saturday afternoon.

“It’s a very big honor for me,” Milei said to Trump as they met, with the Argentinian seeming to thank him for political support during his campaign.

Trump responded by saying, “MAGA! Make Argentina Great Again.” As they posed for photos together, Trump said, “You look fantastic” and told Milei he was doing a great job.

“I won’t forget you, I can promise you that,” Trump said.

“I’ll see you again,” said Milei. “And next time I hope you will be president.”

“I hope so too,” said Trump.

Critics of the pair, like researcher Ana M. Fuentes, suggested the meeting was an ominous one.

“Oh man. I was hoping the Milei meets Trump clip was a parody…but it’s not,” Fuentes said on social media. “This is an unholy alliance, born at CPAC, mark my words.”

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

Continue Reading‘Make Argentina Great Again’: Far-Right Trump and Milei Embrace at CPAC

UN Experts Say Arms Exports to Israel ‘Must Cease Immediately’

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

A man looks for survivors amid the debris of destroyed houses in the aftermath of Israeli airstrikes in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on February 22, 2024.  (Photo: Mohammed Abed/AFP via Getty Images)

“State officials involved in arms exports may be individually criminally liable for aiding and abetting any war crimes, crimes against humanity, or acts of genocide.”

Dozens of United Nations experts on Friday called for an immediate arms embargo on Israel and warned that countries and private companies still sending weapons to the Israeli military during its assault on Gaza could be complicit in crimes against humanity.

The experts—including special rapporteurs on education and the rights of displaced people—said in a joint statement that “any transfer of weapons or ammunition to Israel that would be used in Gaza is likely to violate international humanitarian law and must cease immediately.”

“Such transfers are prohibited even if the exporting state does not intend the arms to be used in violation of the law—or does not know with certainty that they would be used in such a way—as long as there is a clear risk,” they said. “State officials involved in arms exports may be individually criminally liable for aiding and abetting any war crimes, crimes against humanity, or acts of genocide.”

The U.N. experts noted that the United States and Germany are “by far” Israel’s largest arms suppliers, though France, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia also export weapons to the Israeli government, which the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled is plausibly committing genocide in the Gaza Strip.

The ICJ’s interim ruling, which Israel has disregarded, has “heightened” the need for an arms embargo, the experts said, noting that compliance with the Genocide Convention of 1948 “requires states parties to employ all means reasonably available to them to prevent genocide in another state as far as possible.”

The experts also said that “arms companies contributing to the production and transfer of arms to Israel and businesses investing in those companies bear their own responsibility to respect human rights, international humanitarian law and international criminal law.”

“They have not publicly demonstrated the heightened human rights due diligence required of them and accordingly risk complicity in violations,” they said.

“All states must not be complicit in international crimes through arms transfers. They must do their part to urgently end the unrelenting humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.”

The statement comes two weeks after a Dutch court ordered the Netherlands’ government to stop exporting jet parts to Israel, citing the “clear risk” that the aircraft might be used to “commit serious violations of international humanitarian law.” The government is appealing the ruling.

Other countries, including Italy and Spain, have said they have suspended arms sales to Israel since its latest assault on Gaza began—though a Spanish newspaper reported earlier this month that the country exported $1.1 million worth of ammunition to Israel in November.

The U.S., meanwhile, is reportedly planning to send additional weaponry to Israel and has refused to attach conditions to its arms exports even as top officials—including President Joe Biden—publicly voice concerns about the rising death toll in Gaza and Israel’s looming ground invasion of Rafah, where more than half of the enclave’s population is currently sheltering.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the latest proposed arms shipment “includes roughly a thousand each of MK-82 bombs, KMU-572 Joint Direct Attack Munitions that add precision guidance to bombs, and FMU-139 bomb fuses.”

“The arms are estimated to be worth tens of millions of dollars,” the Journal added. “The proposed delivery is still being reviewed internally by the administration, a U.S. official said, and the details of the proposal could change before the Biden administration notifies congressional committee leaders who would need to approve the transfer.”

Israel has used U.S. weaponry to commit atrocities in the Gaza Strip, including airstrikes on homes full of children. An Amnesty International investigation released earlier this month found that a January 9 Israeli airstrike on a residential building in southern Gaza killed 18 civilians, including 10 children.

Based on ordnance fragments recovered from the rubble, the weapon used in the attack was identified as a GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb—made by the U.S. company Boeing.

On Friday, Gaza’s health ministry said that Israeli airstrikes killed more than 100 people over the past 24 hours and injured at least 160 more. Israeli strikes on the severely overcrowded city of Rafah on Thursday destroyed a mosque and several homes, killing or wounding many people and leaving others trapped under the rubble.

“International law does not enforce itself,” the U.N. experts said Friday. “All states must not be complicit in international crimes through arms transfers. They must do their part to urgently end the unrelenting humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.”

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

Jewish-Led NYC Rally Targets AIPAC, Dem Allies Who Oppose Gaza Cease-Fire

“AIPAC uses money and racist bullying to ensure congressional complicity in the genocide of Gaza,” said Jewish Voice for Peace.

‘People of Gaza Need a Cease-Fire,’ Medical Aid Leader Tells UN Security Council

“This body has failed to effectively address this conflict. We have watched members of this council deliberate and delay while civilians die.”

All of Us Must ‘Confront the Current Siege in Gaza’

As the Nuremberg Tribunal and U.S. law make clear, it is the responsibility of the people to halt crimes that the courts have proved impotent to prevent.

Continue ReadingUN Experts Say Arms Exports to Israel ‘Must Cease Immediately’

The US Must Stop Arming Israel’s Assault on Hospitals

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

Injured Palestinians, including children, are brought to Nasser Hospital to receive medical treatment following Israeli attacks in Khan Younis, Gaza, on January 22, 2024.  (Photo: Belal Khaled/Anadolu via Getty Images)

If we can’t find the morality to stop, we may find we have created a world in which no one can count on upholding basic human rights.

Many decades ago in Chicago, my favorite of several part-time student jobs was operating the “old-style” telephone switchboard at a small hospital called Forkosh Memorial. The console of coils and plugs included a mirror so operators could keep an eye on the hospital entrance, which on weekends and evenings was also monitored by an elderly, unarmed security guard named Frank. He sat at a classroom style desk near the entrance with a ledger book.

Over the course of four years, on weekends and evenings, “security” at the hospital generally consisted solely of Frank and me. Fortunately, nothing much ever happened. The possibility of an attack, invasion, or raid never occurred to us. The notion of an aerial bombardment was unimaginable, like something out of War of the Worlds or some other sci-fi fantasy.

Now, tragically, hospitals in Gaza and the West Bank have been attacked, invaded, bombed, and destroyed. News of additional Israeli attacks is being reported on a daily basis. Last week, Democracy Now! interviewed Dr. Yasser Khan, a Canadian ophthalmologist and eye surgeon who recently returned from a humanitarian surgical mission at the European Hospital in Khan Younis in Gaza. Dr. Khan spoke of bombings taking place every few hours resulting in a constant influx of mass casualties. The majority of patients he treated were children from age 2 to 17. He saw horrific eye injuries, shattered faces, shrapnel wounds, abdominal injuries, limbs severed above the bone, and traumas caused by drone-launched laser-guided missiles. Amid the overcrowding and chaos, healthcare workers tended to patients while lacking basic equipment, including anesthesia. Patients lay on the ground in unsterile conditions, vulnerable to infection and disease. Most of them also suffered from severe hunger.

At Forkosh Hospital in the 1970s, I had a mirror to see what was happening behind my back, but everyone on Earth can see, directly, the horror of U.S. support for a genocidal event happening on our watch.

Normally, a child who undergoes an amputation faces as many as 12 additional surgeries. Khan wondered who would do the follow-up care for these children, some of whom have no surviving relatives.

He also noted sniper fire prevented doctors from going to work. “They’ve killed healthcare workers, nurses, paramedics; ambulances have been bombed. This has all been systematic,” Khan explained. “Now there are 10,000 to 15,000 bodies decomposing. It’s the rainy season right now in Gaza, so all the rainwater mixes with the decomposing bodies and that bacteria mixes with the drinking water supply and you get further disease.”

According to Khan, Israeli forces have kidnapped 40 to 45 doctors, specifically targeting specialists and hospital administrators. Three healthcare professional organizations have issued a statement expressing deep concern that the Israeli military has abducted and unlawfully detained Dr. Khaled al-Serr, a surgeon at the Nasser Hospital in Gaza.

On February 19, WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described conditions in the Nasser hospital after Israel ordered evacuation of Palestinians from the complex. “There are still more than 180 patients and 15 doctors and nurses inside Nasser,” he said. “The hospital is still experiencing an acute shortage of food, basic medical supplies, and oxygen. There is no tap water and no electricity, except a backup generator maintaining some lifesaving machines.”

Eight years ago, in October of 2015, the United States military destroyed Afghanistan’s Kunduz hospital, run by Médecins sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders). For more than an hour, a C-130 transport plane repeatedly fired incendiary devices at the hospital’s emergency room and intensive care unit, killing 42 people. Thirty-seven additional people were injured. “Our patients burned in their beds,” read the MSF’s in-depth report. “Our medical staff were decapitated or lost limbs. Others were shot from the air while they fled the burning building.”

The horrific attack outraged war resisters and human rights groups. I remember joining a group of activists in upstate New York who assembled outside a hospital emergency room with a banner proclaiming, “To bomb this site would be a war crime.”

In 2009, on a smaller, yet still horrific scale, I witnessed an Israeli onslaught in Gaza called “Operation Cast Lead.” In the emergency room of the Al Shifa hospital, Dr. Saeed Abuhassan, an orthopedic surgeon, described experiences similar to Khan’s. This surgeon grew up in Chicago, very close to the neighborhood where I lived. I asked him what he would want me to tell our neighbors back home. He listed a litany of horrors, and then he stopped. “No,” he said. “First, you must tell them that U.S. taxpayer money paid for all of these weapons.”

Taxpayer money feeds the bloated, swollen Pentagon budget. U.S. Senators, last week, cowed by AIPAC, decided to send Israel an additional $14.1 billion to boost military spending. Only three Senators voted against the bill.

From Palestine, Huwaida Arraf, a Palestinian-American human rights attorney, wrote on X: “The scary part is not that Israel is planning the forcible transfer of the Palestinians it hasn’t slaughtered, but that the so-called ‘civilized world’ is allowing it to happen. The ramifications of this coordinated evil will haunt its collaborators for generations to come.”

At Forkosh Hospital in the 1970s, I had a mirror to see what was happening behind my back, but everyone on Earth can see, directly, the horror of U.S. support for a genocidal event happening on our watch. Gravely distorted versions of what occurred on October 7, cannot—even if believed—justify the scale of the horrors being reported in Gaza and the West Bank each day.

The U.S. government continues enthusiastically to bankroll Israel’s systemic and inhumane destruction of Gaza. U.S. advisers make feeble attempts to suggest Israel should pause or at least try to be more precise in their attacks. In its quest for hegemonic superiority, the United States tears into ever tinier shreds whatever remains of a commitment to human rights, equality, and human dignity.

What kept Forkosh Hospital secure, decades ago, was a social contract that presumed safety for a small hospital serving the local population.

If we can’t find the morality to stop supplying weapons for ongoing Israeli onslaughts against Gaza and its places of healing, we may find we have created a world in which no one can count on upholding basic human rights. We may be creating intergenerational wounds of hatred and sorrow from which there will never, ever be any safe place to heal.

A version of this article first appeared on The Progressive website.

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

Continue ReadingThe US Must Stop Arming Israel’s Assault on Hospitals

Australian lawmakers call for Julian Assange’s release ahead of extradition appeal

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

The motion in parliament, which was supported by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, has called for the return of imprisoned WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to his family in Australia. Assange is days away from a final court hearing in the UK against his extradition to the US.

On February 14, lawmakers in Australia’s parliament voted 86-42 in support of a motion calling on the UK and the US to return arbitrarily imprisoned WikiLeaks founder and journalist, Julian Assange, to his home and family in Australia.

The move, which was also supported by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, came just days before the High Court of Justice in London will decide if Assange can continue to contest his extradition to the US through the UK’s legal system.

The US has indicted Assange on 18 charges, 17 of which are under the notorious Espionage Act, in relation to the publication of confidential documents on WikiLeaks that exposed the war crimes and atrocities committed by US forces during the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. If convicted, Assange would face up to 175 years in a maximum security prison.

The 52-year-old journalist has already been held at the UK’s high security Belmarsh prison for nearly five years, without charge or conviction, amid serious concerns over his mental and physical health.

“Mr. Assange has been deliberately exposed, for a period of several years, to progressively severe forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, the cumulative effects of which can only be described as psychological torture.” Nils Melzer, the former UN Special Rapporteur on torture, had said of the journalist’s condition back in 2019.

Addressing a press conference on February 15, Assange’s partner, Stella, stated that his “life is at risk every single day he stays in prison– and if he is extradited he will die”, warning that Assange could be “on a plane within days”.

The public hearings on February 20 and 21 will mark the culmination of a protracted legal battle for Assange. A two-judge bench of the High Court will review a June 6, 2023 decision by Justice Jonathan Swift, in which he had rejected all eight grounds of appeal filed by Assange’s legal team.

If approved, the appeal will challenge the extradition order approved by the UK Home Office in June 2022.

Read more: Assange completes four years in UK jail, struggle against US extradition continues

On Wednesday, independent lawmaker Andrew Wilkie introduced a motion in the Australian parliament, calling on the US and the UK to bring “the matter to a close so that Mr. Assange can return home to his family in Australia”.

“This will be the time for all of us to take a stand, to stand up and to take a stand, and to stand with Julian Assange, stand for the principles of justice, stand for the principles of media freedom and the rights of journalists to do their job…This has gone on too long, that it must be brought to an end.”

Commenting directly on the matter in Parliament on February 15, PM Albanese stated that there was a “common view” that “enough is enough”. “People will have a range of views about Mr. Assange’s conduct… but regardless of where people stand, this thing cannot just go on and on indefinitely.”

He went on to state, “I hope it can be resolved amicably. It’s not up to Australia to interfere in the legal processes of other countries, but it is appropriate for us to put our very strong view that those countries need to take into account the need for this to be concluded.”

The Prime Minister’s ambiguous statements throughout the legal proceedings, including a refusal to outrightly call for a withdrawal of the extradition order, has been criticized by progressive, anti-imperialist forces, with the late renowned journalist John Pilger having called it a “betrayal” in March 2023.

Read more: The betrayers of Julian Assange 

Addressing reporters outside Parliament House on Thursday, Assange’s brother, Gabriel Shipton, warned that his extradition would mean that “all the ties to his family, his lifeline that are keeping him alive inside that prison will be cut off and he’ll be lost into a horrific prison system in the United States”.

He added that the vote in parliament had given the Australian government a “real mandate to advocate very, very strongly for a political solution” to bring Assange home.

“It’s not just about being extradited. Julian should never have been put in prison in the first place,” Stella Assange implored on Thursday, as journalists and activists across the world have warned of the impact Assange’s case could have on the press.

“We are seeing a critical attack on press freedom worldwide. It is like a disease, an anti-press pandemic, creeping up on us that has been incrementally taking shape over the years”, said WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson, adding that Assange had been the “canary in the gold mine”.

Read more: Julian Assange case: 4 things that the media doesn’t tell you

Assurances about conditions in US prison are “dubious”, say advocates

This was reiterated by over 35 law professors in the US in a letter sent to the Department of Justice on February 14, stating that Assange’s prosecution posed an “existential threat” to the freedom of speech and press enshrined under the First Amendment.

These “constitutional implications” could “extend beyond the Espionage Act and beyond national security journalism [to] enable prosecution of routine newsgathering under any number of ambiguous laws and untested legal theories.”

Assange’s extradition to the US was approved on the basis of supposed “assurances” given by the US regarding his safety, including the avoidance of what are called “special administrative measures” (SAMs) — a horrific punitive measure that combines “the brutality and isolation of maximum-security units with additional restrictions that deny individuals almost any connection to the human world”.

However, human rights organizations and observers had immediately warned that these “assurances” were unreliable and could be arbitrarily revoked.

“The US assurances cannot be trusted. Dubious assurances that he will be treated well in a US prison ring hollow considering that Assange potentially faces dozens of years of incarceration in a system well known for its abuses, including prolonged solitary confinement and poor health services for inmates,” stated Julia Hall, the international expert on counter-terrorism and criminal justice in Europe at Amnesty International.

If the High Court of Justice in London does not rule in favor of Julian Assange next week, Stella Assange has stated that he will then approach the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), seeking urgent measures to halt his extradition under Rule 39— granted when there is an “imminent risk of irreparable harm” — pending a full consideration of his case.

The present UN Special Rapporteur Dr. Alice Edwards, has also pointed out that outside of the legal process, the ultimate decision to actually proceed with the extradition will lie with the US Secretary of State. Antony Blinken, for his part, had rebuffed calls by the Australian government last year to drop the prosecution.

“The UK is a party to the UN convention against torture as well as the European convention on human rights, both of them have Article 3 which prohibits states from sending people to where they may face this type of treatment [torture],” Edwards said.

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

Continue ReadingAustralian lawmakers call for Julian Assange’s release ahead of extradition appeal