war crimes

While Mulling Israel Claims, Biden Urged to ‘Stop Weapons Sales Now’

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

U.S.-made Israeli Air Force F-35 fighters sit on a runway.  (Photo: Israeli Ministry of Defense)

“After over half a million uncommitted votes and counting, it’s time Biden administration officials finally listen,” said one campaigner. “We need concrete action to stop weapons aid immediately.”

As the Biden administration wrestles with whether to certify that Israel is complying with a presidential directive requiring human rights assurances from governments receiving American weapons, Palestine defenders on Wednesday renewed calls for a suspension of U.S. arms sales to Israel’s genocidal government and military.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has until March 25 to certify to Congress that Israel is adhering to President Joe Biden’s February 2023 memo stating that “no arms transfer will be authorized where the United States assesses that it is more likely than not that the arms to be transferred will be used by the recipient to commit… genocide, crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949… or other serious violations of international humanitarian or human rights law.”

If Israel fails to provide written assurance that it is using U.S.-supplied weapons in accordance with international law, arms sales would automatically be suspended. According to HuffPost, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew on Tuesday privately claimed to the State Department that Israel is in compliance with domestic and international law.

However, the Israeli daily Haartez reported Wednesday that officials from three State Department bureaus—Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor; Population, Refugees, and Migration; and the Office of Global Criminal Justice—as well as the United States Agency for International Development are deeply skepitcal of Lew’s claim.

“America should follow in Canada’s steps and stop weapons sales now.”

The Uncommitted National Movement—a coalition of pro-Palestine, peace, and progressive groups urging people to vote “uncommitted” in U.S. Democratic primaries in a bid to pressure Biden to push Israel for a Gaza cease-fire—led demands for a suspension of arms transfers to Israel.

“After over half a million uncommitted votes and counting, it’s time Biden administration officials finally listen,” Uncommitted National Movement co-chair Layla Elabedsaid in a statement Wednesday. “We need concrete action to stop weapons aid immediately. America should follow in Canada’s steps and stop weapons sales now.”

The Canadian Parliament on Monday approved a nonbinding resolution calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to cut off arms exports to Israel. Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly subsequently said that the government would cease future weapons sales to the country.

Other countries including Japan, Spain, the Netherlands, and Belgium have suspended or restricted weapons sales to Israel, whose military forces have killed or wounded more than 113,000 Palestinians since the October 7 attacks while forcibly displacing around 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people and fueling famine and disease by besieging the embattled strip. Most of those killed have been women and children.

On January 26, the International Criminal Court ordered Israel to prevent genocidal acts. Both the ICJ and a U.S. federal judge have found that Israel is “plausibly” committing genocide in Gaza. Palestinians, human rights groups, and legal experts have accused Israel of ignoring the World Court’s directive.

Common Dreams reported Tuesday that Human Rights Watch and Oxfam called Israeli assurances that U.S.-supplied weapons are not being used in violation of international law “not credible.” The groups also dismissed false Israeli claims that the country is not blocking humanitarian aid from reaching starving Gazans.

The U.S. gives Israel approximately $4 billion in annual military aid. Since October 7, the Biden administration has requested an additional $14.3 billion in armed assistance for Israel, while repeatedly circumventing Congress to fast-track emergency weapons transfers.

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

Continue ReadingWhile Mulling Israel Claims, Biden Urged to ‘Stop Weapons Sales Now’

Journalist Owen Jones leaves Keir Starmer’s genocide-supporting ‘Labour’ party

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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/21/labour-party-cancelling-membership-policies

…

The assault on Gaza, the great crime of our age, adds moral indecency to the pile of dishonesty and vacuity. When Starmer declared Israel had the right to cut off energy and water to Palestinian civilians, he did so as a human rights lawyer who understands the Geneva conventions. After letting shadow cabinet ministers defend him, he claimed it “has never been my view that Israel had the right to cut off water, food, fuel or medicines”. We all have political red lines: mine is supporting what would amount to war crimes against innocent civilians, toddlers and newborn babies among them, then gaslighting the public over doing so.

Where is my gratitude for Starmer delivering a now inevitable landslide victory, you may ask? Well, he didn’t force Boris Johnson and his cronies to violate their own pandemic rules, or to trash the NHS, or oversee the worst squeeze in living standards in history. Nor did he propel to power Liz Truss, whose unhinged economic experiment crashed the economy – the moment when the electorate turned on this Tory party for good.

The absolute power a landslide victory will give Labour should scare you. When Starmer allies deployed antisemitic tropes – with one joking about a “run on silver shekels” when two Jewish businessmen missed out on peerages, and another calling a Jewish Tory donor a “puppet master” – an apology was deemed to be sufficient. When another racially abused a journalist and had a sexual harassment complaint upheld, they were reinstated after investigation.

Contrast this with Diane Abbott, Britain’s first Black female MP, who was suspended after immediately apologising for an Observer letter in which she argued that Irish, Jewish and Traveller people are not subject to racism “all their lives”. She has been left in limbo for 10 months and counting while the party investigates – only for Labour to use the racist abuse directed at her by a Tory donor for political capital, while still refusing to reinstate her.

…

Continue ReadingJournalist Owen Jones leaves Keir Starmer’s genocide-supporting ‘Labour’ party

Just Stop Oil confronts Emily Thornberry && Keir Starmer and UK ‘Likud’ Labour party accused of aiding and abetting genocide

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Just Stop Oil supporters have disrupted a public event featuring Emily Thornberry. As Thornberry was delivering her open remarks, the pair stood up to confront the Labour front-bencher and Shadow Attorney General for England and Wales. They threw orange confetti and addressed the assembly, remarking “We need you to make a commitment to revoke the Tory licences for oil and gas infrastructure which will lock us on to the worst pathways of global warming and climate catastrophe”, and “Labour needs to wake up and smell the coffee. Everyone else has clocked that new oil and gas means more floods, more fires, rising food prices… when are you going to get it?”. Members of the audience were repeatedly heard to say “hear, hear!” to these comments.

After the action takers were escorted from the room, Emily Thornberry addressed the audience, saying:

“I have had Just Stop Oil outside my house, I have had Gaza protests pretty much everywhere I go. I assumed it was Gaza then I saw the orange and thought ‘Oh, right! It’s Just Stop Oil’. The worst thing is that one becomes hardened to it… I’m happy to argue the issues, I’m not happy to be told I’m responsible for the murder of babies in Gaza, or I’m personally responsible for the boiling of the planet.”

One of those taking action today was Genevieve Shanahan, 33, a university lecturer in Management and Sustainability. She said:

“Today I’m approaching Emily Thornberry to implore her to stand up to fossil fuel extremists and use her influence within Labour to secure a commitment to cancel these licences. The Labour Party are poised to win the next general election, and rather than grabbing this opportunity to protect the British public from this violence they are instead – unbelievably – dropping their existing climate commitments.”

“As a lecturer in sustainability, I need to practise what I teach. In my classroom we examine how permitting investment in new fossil fuel infrastructure would lock in economic incentives that will, according to all reasonable models, make climate collapse inevitable. If the Tories’ new oil and gas licences go ahead then that’s it – it’s game over for all of us.”

Keir Starmer accused of aiding and abetting genocide

Zionist Keir Starmer supports Israel's Gaza genocide.
Zionist Keir Starmer supports Israel’s Gaza genocide.

Let’s look at Emily Thornberry’s response. She is shadow Attorney General for England and Wales and so should know the law.

From my quick and limited review of the law of genocide, there are 2 main crimes supporting genocide: aiding and abetting genocide and complicity in genocide although unfortunately there is not a clear distinction due to how the law has developed. Aiding and abetting is more serious since there is a greater involvement in the act of genocide. So it is plausible that Keir “I support Zionism without qualification” Starmer is aiding and abetting genocide when he says that Israel has the right to withold power and water: he is clearly helping and supporting Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Where does this leave Emily Thornberry and other Labour shadow cabinet members and MPs? Thornberry said “… I’m not happy to be told I’m responsible for the murder of babies in Gaza …”. She’s supporting her glorious Zionist leader and certainly not diverging from his Zionist policy of aiding and abetting genocide. The cabinet has collective responsibility i.e. they’re all guilty, and the shadow cabinet should be held to the same standard. MPs? Do they depart from Starmer’s Zionist aiding and abetting?

Genocide is a most serious crime and it’s clear that Israel is committing war crimes and genocide. Responsible for the murder of babies in Gaza? I’d say complicit because there is no opposition to it and the electorate are very likely to regard it as such. There’s the further issue of course that these politician cnuts are supposed to represent their electorate who want an end to Israel massacring children and other Gazans.

“I’m not happy to be told … I’m personally responsible for the boiling of the planet.” Thornberry doesn’t want to be held to account for any of her actions or inactions. It’s certainly aiding and abetting again. Doing nothing to oppose it? Then complicity.

Continue ReadingJust Stop Oil confronts Emily Thornberry && Keir Starmer and UK ‘Likud’ Labour party accused of aiding and abetting genocide

Israel is starving Palestinians to death while the world watches

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

Children waiting for food in Gaza. Photo: UNRWA

Israel has deliberately slowed the flow of aid to Gaza with hundreds of trucks stranded on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border at a time when over two dozen Palestinian children have died of malnutrition

UN agencies have repeatedly condemned Israel’s refusal to expedite the process of aid delivery to Gaza which has been under siege by Israel for nearly six months. This is despite repeated calls for urgency in the context of critical humanitarian conditions which are becoming worse with each passing day.

According to the latest alerts issued by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) on March 18, most of northern Gaza would move into the category five indicating the highest stage of food insecurity or catastrophic levels of hunger. The IPC explains that this would mean that Palestinian households would face “an extreme lack of food and extremely critical levels of acute malnutrition.”

The IPC has assessed that the region which continues to face Israeli bombing and ground offensive already faces category four levels of malnutrition with huge gaps between need and actual availability of food.


UNRWA has already confirmed that one in three children in northern Gaza are malnourished. In the last few weeks over 25 children have died due to the same. The situation in other parts of Gaza is approaching similar levels at an alarming speed.

The same day that the IPC released its findings, Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, was denied entry to Gaza by Israeli authorities. In a post on X, Lazzarini wrote, “UNRWA has by far the largest presence among all humanitarian organizations in Gaza. My visit today was supposed to coordinate & improve the humanitarian response.”

He added, “This man-made starvation under our watch is a stain on our collective humanity. Too much time was wasted, all land crossings must open now. Famine can be averted with political will.”

The UNRWA head also noted that over 1.1 million people in Gaza facing phase five levels of starvation “is the highest number of people ever recorded as facing catastrophic hunger and is double the number of just three months ago.”

Beth Bechdol, deputy director general of the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) told Al-Jazeera on Tuesday that, almost half of the total population of Gaza is at the acute level of malnutrition and at the risk of ultimately death.

The United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) stated on Sunday that thousands of Palestinian children in Gaza are so malnourished that they do not have enough “energy to cry.”

Over 13,000 Palestinian children have been killed in the Israeli war on Gaza which began on October 7. According to different UN agencies, as many children have been injured and now hundreds of thousands are being forced into starvation by Israel.

UNICEF’s Executive Director Catherine Russell had earlier made similar assertions saying that there are “very great bureaucratic challenges” which prevent the humanitarian aid to reach two million Palestinians in Gaza.

Israel has restricted the entry of the aid through land borders using different kinds of excuses, for example presence of scissors in the aid boxes or alleged overcrowding of Palestinians at aid distribution centers among others.

James Elder, UNICEF spokesperson, called the blocking of aid supplies to Gaza “outrageous.” He posted on X showing hundreds of trucks with humanitarian aid stranded at the Rafah border as Israel has not allowed them to enter Gaza.

Adele Khodr, UNICEF’s regional director for the Middle East and North Africa called for the opening of all crossings. “The world’s inaction is shocking as more children succumb to slow death. All border crossing must open now to allow unfettered access to humanitarian aid” Khodr said in the tweet on Tuesday.

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

Continue ReadingIsrael is starving Palestinians to death while the world watches

Oxfam Says Israel ‘Actively Hindering’ Aid to Gaza in Violation of ICJ Order

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

Palestinian children in Rafah, Gaza gather to receive food distributed by aid organizations on March 15, 2024.  (Photo: Jehad Alshrafi/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“There is an indisputable, man-made, intentional deprivation of aid that continues to suck the life out of any and all humanitarian operations, including our own,” said one campaigner.

The Israeli government is intentionally restricting the flow of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip by subjecting shipments to a prolonged and dysfunctional inspection process, arbitrarily rejecting items, attacking aid convoys, and limiting the number of crossings through which deliveries can pass, Oxfam International said in a report published late Sunday.

The report, titled Inflicting Unprecedented Suffering and Destruction, argues that Israel’s continued obstruction of humanitarian aid is a direct violation of both international humanitarian law (IHL) and a January order from the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which ruled the Israeli government is “plausibly” committing genocide in Gaza and must ensure that assistance reaches desperate Gazans.

Oxfam said Sunday that “humanitarian access in the Gaza Strip has effectively worsened” since the ICJ handed down its interim order nearly two months ago, and conditions on the ground in the Palestinian territory have deteriorated rapidly. New data from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) shows that Gaza’s “entire population” is facing “high levels of acute food insecurity” and 1.1 million people are experiencing “catastrophic” hunger—a figure that one expert called “unprecedented.”

“The ICJ order should have shocked Israeli leaders to change course, but since then conditions in Gaza have actually worsened,” said Sally Abi Khalil, Oxfam’s Middle East and North Africa director. “The fact that other governments have not challenged Israel hard enough, but instead turned to less effective methods like airdrops and maritime corridors is a huge red flag, signaling that Israel continues to deny the full potential of better ways to deliver more aid.”

“Israeli authorities are not only failing to facilitate the international aid effort but are actively hindering it,” Abi Khalil added. “We believe that Israel is failing to take all measures within its power to prevent genocide.”

In its new report, Oxfam outlines seven ways in which the Israeli government is impeding humanitarian aid shipments and exacerbating one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes in modern history:

In February—the first full month after the ICJ’s order—Israel allowed just 2,874 aid trucks to enter the Gaza Strip, a 44% decline compared to the previous month, according to Oxfam.

The group said Israeli authorities “have rejected a warehouse full of international aid including oxygen, incubators, and Oxfam water and sanitation gear, all of which is now stockpiled at Al Arish just 40 kilometers away from the border of 2.3 million desperate Palestinians in Gaza.”

Israel’s military, which is armed by the U.S. and other major countries that are legally obligated to prevent genocide, has also blocked humanitarian staff from entering Gaza, adding “pressure and workload” to already overwhelmed aid efforts, Oxfam said.

Celine Maayeh, advocacy and research officer at Juzoor for Health and Social Development—an Oxfam partner organization—said Sunday that “there’s been an alarming increase in cases of malnutrition among children in the last month, and yet the only food the team is able to find to feed people living in 45 shelters is some vegetables.”

“There is an indisputable, man-made, intentional deprivation of aid that continues to suck the life out of any and all humanitarian operations, including our own,” said Maayeh.

“If a famine is declared, it will already be too late for too many people—children are famine’s first victims and are already dying in Gaza because of malnutrition.”

Oxfam’s findings are consistent with those of other aid organizations and lawmakers who have visited the region in recent weeks.

In January, U.S. Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) told reporters that they witnessed “miles of backed-up trucks” stuck at border crossings as Gazans nearby struggled to survive, eating grass and drinking contaminated water.

The senators said they saw one warehouse full of items that Israeli authorities rejected in their inspection process, including oxygen cylinders and medical kits used for delivering babies.

Van Hollen said the warehouse was “a testament to the arbitrariness” of Israel’s inspections.

Oxfam argued Sunday that the “only meaningful solution” to Gaza’s intensifying humanitarian emergency is “an immediate, permanent, and unconditional cease-fire.”

“Even the trickle of aid that a humanitarian response could provide under the current circumstances is being further obstructed by Israel’s policies and practices, inflicting suffering on millions of Palestinians who are living under Israeli bombardment without access to food, clean water, and medical care,” the group said.

Xavier Joubert, country director for Save the Children in the occupied Palestinian territory, echoed Oxfam’s call for a cease-fire and warned in response to the new IPC figures that “we have a clear timeframe to stave off famine, and it demands urgency.”

“If a famine is declared, it will already be too late for too many people—children are famine’s first victims and are already dying in Gaza because of malnutrition,” said Joubert. “Every minute counts for them. It should be on the collective conscience of Israeli authorities and the international community that every day without an immediate, definitive cease-fire and unfettered access for and to humanitarian aid is another catastrophic day of starvation and suffering, another step towards famine, and another death knell for Gaza’s children.”

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

Continue ReadingOxfam Says Israel ‘Actively Hindering’ Aid to Gaza in Violation of ICJ Order