war crimes

Sevim Dağdelen: the double standards of the West are on full display at the ICJ

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

Public ICJ hearing on Nicaragua’s case against Germany. Photo: ICJ

The German MP writes that the response of Germany to Nicaragua’s charges of aiding and abetting genocide in Gaza has been to downplay its role in supplying arms and question the premise that genocide is already taking place

The German government’s appearance before the International Court of Justice in the proceedings for aiding and abetting genocide and violations of international humanitarian law in Gaza is a lesson in Western double standards. On April 8 and 9, Germany sat in the dock in The Hague after Nicaragua filed a case at the highest UN judicial body.

The 43-page document accuses Germany of failing to fulfill its obligations under the Genocide Convention to prevent genocide. Essentially, Germany is accused of aiding and abetting genocide and violating international humanitarian law with its political, financial, and military support for Israel as well as by ceasing to fund the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). In view of the urgency of the situation, Nicaragua requested five interim measures to prevent the facilitation of genocide. These include the demand that Germany stop supplying arms to Israel and resume payments to UNRWA to ensure sufficient humanitarian aid for the Palestinian population.

Does arming a state committing genocide make you an accomplice?

The arguments put forward by the German government in its defense were unconvincing. With a flood of PowerPoint slides, the German representation initially tried to play down the significance of Germany’s arms deliveries to Israel. It argued that the majority of the arms export licenses issued after October 7 were for so-called “other military equipment” (“sonstige Rüstungsgüter”) and only a relatively small proportion for so-called “weapons of war” (“Kriegswaffen”). This was an attempt to deceive the court and the public. For what the German defense failed to mention was the fact that this invented distinction between “other military equipment” and “weapons of war” is a specific feature of German arms export control. Contrary to what the terminology suggests, the category of “other military equipment” can also include weapons that can be used for warfare.

Germany is Israel’s second largest arms supplier after the USA. According to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), German weapons have accounted for 30% of Israeli arms imports in the last five years. Licenses for new arms exports also increased in 2023. In total, the German government approved the export of weapons to Israel worth EUR 326.5 million – a tenfold increase compared to the previous year. These licenses, most of which were issued after October 7, 2023, include war weapons worth 20 million euros. While the German government tried to justify the approval of 500,000 rounds of ammunition for machine guns with the difficult-to-verify claim that they had been supplied for training purposes, it could not deny the possible use of the approved 3,000 portable anti-tank weapons in war.

Instead, the German government attempted to justify this by arguing that these and the majority of other export licenses had been issued in October 2023, before the war and the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza had come to a head. This argument ignores the fact that it must have been clear to the world public – and therefore also to the German government – just a few days after October 7 that the partially far-right Israeli government under Prime Minister Netanyahu would use the horrific attack by Hamas as an opportunity to wage a ruthless war against the Palestinian civilian population, committing numerous war crimes that go far beyond any right to self-defense.

It’s not genocide, yet

It was striking that the German government did not even attempt to dispute Nicaragua’s presentation of facts about the extensive violations of international humanitarian law by Israel. Apparently, it also realized that the terrible humanitarian catastrophe caused by Israel’s war, which has killed more than 33,000 people, including more than 13,000 children, can hardly be denied.

The German defense therefore focused on the formalistic argument that the existence of genocide had not yet been established and that Germany could therefore not be found guilty of aiding and abetting genocide. In doing so, however, the German government fails to recognize the central obligation under international law that arises from the Genocide Convention – namely to prevent genocide. This is all the more significant as the ICJ issued protection orders in the case of South Africa against Israel in order to prevent the danger of genocide, which the court considered plausible. Even Israel’s blatant disregard of these orders to protect the Palestinian civilian population has not led to the German government abandoning its unconditional support for Israel.

This shows the absurdity and hypocrisy of the actions of the German government as well as the governments of numerous other NATO states: On the one hand, they ignore all the findings of the most important bodies of the United Nations about Israel’s most serious war crimes and the danger of genocide and, regardless of this, continue to provide unconditional support for Israel’s war. On the other hand, the German government and other Western donor states decided to stop funding UNRWA solely on the basis of unverifiable insinuations by the Israeli government about the alleged involvement of individual UNRWA employees in the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023. The requirements for subjecting 2.2 million people in the Gaza Strip, who depend on UNRWA aid for their daily survival, to collective punishment are apparently lower than for stopping the supply of weapons that could be used to commit genocide. This can hardly be surpassed in terms of cynicism.

Against this backdrop, the German government’s attempt to defend itself before the ICJ by claiming that it had warned Israel of a military offensive on Rafah is hardly credible. In this sense, the German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock boasted to the German Parliament just a few days ago that she had already traveled to the region seven times and called on the Israeli government to respect the humanitarian needs of the Palestinian civilian population.

I asked the Federal Foreign Minister in the plenary session of the German Bundestag whether the Federal Government would consequently now declare a ceasefire on Israel, as the UN Human Rights Council recently called for in a resolution, due to Israel’s blatant disregard for these calls and in view of the announcement of a ground offensive in Rafah and the bloodbath to be expected as a result. The German government representative’s verbose answer can be summarized in one word: No.

Like the Foreign Minister, the German legal representation in The Hague gave the impression that the German raison d’état of unconditionally defending Israel was above international law. Threats from Berlin against the most important judicial body of the United Nations that it would no longer be credible if it ruled against Germany fit into this picture. If the German government only accepts international law when it appears to be advantageous for its own government action, it has finally reached the level of the leading NATO member, the US, which has long understood international law only as an instrument of interest-driven politics.

Regardless of how the court decides, Germany and the West must finally fulfill their obligation to prevent genocide and war crimes in order to lend weight to the demand for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. The consequences of Western double standards, which seem to have reached a temporary climax in the Gaza war, are fatal. Not only does it lead to the West losing its last remnants of credibility in the eyes of the world. Above all, it promotes the erosion of international law, diplomacy and the United Nations as civilizational achievements for the protection of human life and the preservation of peace.

Sevim Dağdelen is a member of the German Bundestag and foreign policy spokesperson for the group “Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht”. She was the only parliamentary observer at the hearings in Nicaragua’s lawsuit against Germany before the ICJ.

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

Continue ReadingSevim Dağdelen: the double standards of the West are on full display at the ICJ

‘Genocidal Actions’ Persist in Gaza as Israel Blocks Aid and US Weapons Flow

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

Palestinian children, holding banners and empty bowls, gather to protest the food shortages in the city due to Israel’s attacks and blockade on humanitarian aid on March 12, 2024 in Gaza City, Gaza. (Photo: Omar Qattaa/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“President Joe Biden must act now to make famine prevention a top priority and be prepared to deploy meaningful U.S. leverage—including pausing arms sales,” said two humanitarian aid group leaders.

A week after Israeli officials promised the Biden administration they would open a border crossing and a port to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, relief organizations and the United Nations reported Friday that life-saving supplies are still being blocked, and warned that the White House must take more decisive action to force Israel to stop starving Palestinians.

The U.N. reported that just 212 aid trucks entered Gaza on Tuesday, far lower than the 467 reported by Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who promised to “flood Gaza with aid” after a tense phone call between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Joe Biden last Thursday.

The phone call came in response to Israel’s bombing of a World Central Kitchen aid convoy that killed seven aid workers. On the call, Biden reportedly threatened to halt weapons deliveries unless a surge in humanitarian aid was allowed into Gaza.

But as The Guardian reported Friday, the Ashdod port has not been opened yet, and instead of opening the Erez crossing last Sunday as promised, Israel has opened another crossing into northern Gaza but has not yet allowed U.N. agencies to use it.

“Netanyahu scammed Biden again: A week after he promised to open the Erez crossing and Ashdod port to increase aid to Gaza, the [Israel Defense Forces] & port authorities say they NEVER received any instructions of this nature,” said Muhammad Shehada, communications chief for Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, citing reporting from Israel’s N12 channel.

The Guardianreports that Israel has set an ultimate target of 500 aid trucks per day to enter Gaza—the same amount that delivered relief to residents before the Israeli bombardment rendered the enclave’s food system, healthcare facilities, and other public services inoperable.

“The call for 500 trucks, with a combination of commercial and humanitarian shipments, is the absolute minimum,” Juliette Touma, communications director for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) toldThe Guardian. “Probably what Gaza needs is at least 1,000 trucks a day.”

The U.N. found that just 141 aid trucks entered the enclave on Wednesday. The Washington Postreported that Israeli authorities have blocked aid deliveries containing items such as chocolate croissants, maternity kits, sleeping bags, stone fruits, and oxygen cylinders.

Jamie McGoldrick, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator, said Friday that “very limited” aid deliveries have continued to contribute to low birth weights in babies who have been born in northern Gaza in recent weeks.

“It’s very easy for Israel to say, ‘We’ve sent you 1,000 trucks so please deliver them inside Gaza,'” McGoldrick said, noting that Israel has held trucks up at checkpoints “for hours” and that many roads are not open to deliveries.

“At no point in time in the last month and more have we had three or even two of those roads working at the same time simultaneously,” said McGoldrick.

The news that Israel has not allowed a “flood” of aid into Gaza since Biden threatened Netanyahu with an end to weapons transfers came days after Samantha Power, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), admitted to U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) that reports of famine in parts of Gaza are now “credible.”

Save the Children confirmed on April 2 that at least 27 children have died of starvation and disease as a result of Israel’s blockade, and U.N. agencies said in February that 5% of children under age 2 were acutely malnourished.

At least 33,634 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed by Israeli forces since October, with U.S. weapons used in much of the bombardment.

At Foreign Affairs on Friday, Refugees International’s president, Jeremy Konyndyk, and vice president for programs and policy, Hardin Lang, wrote that “as negotiations about a econd cease-fire and hostages-for-prisoners swap gain steam, the United States has a crucial opportunity to press Israel to change course and allow a major famine-prevention effort.”

Namely, they said, Biden must make good on his threat to cut off Israel’s military aid—of which the U.S. is the largest international provider.

“The United States is likely the only outside power that can ensure a famine is avoided, given the leverage it has with its ally Israel,” they wrote. “U.S. President Joe Biden must act now to make famine prevention a top priority and be prepared to deploy meaningful U.S. leverage—including pausing arms sales—if the Israeli government does not comply. Famine would not only constitute a humanitarian cataclysm; it would also represent a geopolitical failure that would damage U.S. credibility in the Middle East for years to come.”

Konyndyk and Lang’s call was echoed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which said Power’s comments must push the president to take action.

“Inducing a famine by besieging an entire population and slaughtering innocent civilians are acts which no one can ignore, let alone justify,” said CAIR national executive director Nihad Awad. “President Biden and his administration are enabling this famine and the deliberate cruelty targeting the Palestinian people in Gaza. He must take action to prevent further atrocities by demanding an immediate cease-fire, securing full access to humanitarian aid, ending all weapons transfers and other funding for Israel, and holding the war criminals in the Netanyahu government accountable for their genocidal actions.”

Also on Friday, a U.S. coalition of groups including the Working Families Party, the Service Employees International Union, and the National Education Association wrote to Biden and urged him to enforce the Foreign Assistance Act, which bars the government from providing military support to countries that restrict humanitarian aid deliveries.

Ending arms transfers “will send a clear message that the Netanyahu government is not above the law and that the U.S. will not stand by while the war kills innocent Palestinians and continues to drive escalation throughout the region,” reads the letter. “U.S. law is unequivocal: Countries that obstruct U.S. humanitarian aid cannot receive U.S. military aid under the Foreign Assistance Act or the Arms Export Control Act.”

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

Continue Reading‘Genocidal Actions’ Persist in Gaza as Israel Blocks Aid and US Weapons Flow

USAID Chief Admits Famine Is Underway in Gaza as US Keeps Arming Israel

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

USAID Administrator Samantha Power testifies at a hearing in Washington, D.C. on April 9, 2024.  (Photo: Allison Bailey/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)

“In northern Gaza, the rate of malnutrition prior to October 7th was almost zero, and it is now one in three—one in three kids,” said Samantha Power.

The head of the U.S. Agency for International Development admitted during congressional testimony on Wednesday that famine is already underway in the Gaza Strip, publicly confirming an assessment that her agency’s officials outlined in a cable to the White House last week.

USAID Administrator Samantha Power, a well-known liberal interventionist and the author of a famous book on American leaders’ failure to act in the face of genocide, answered in the affirmative after U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) asked whether “famine is already occurring” in Gaza, which is under a suffocating Israeli siege and relentless bombing campaign.

“Yes,” said Power. “In northern Gaza, the rate of malnutrition prior to October 7th was almost zero, and it is now one in three—one in three kids.”

During her opening statement at Wednesday’s House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, Power said that “nearly the entire population” of Gaza is “living under the threat of famine.”

“USAID teams have been working day and night to address the catastrophic humanitarian crisis,” said Power, who earlier this year was confronted by current and former USAID officials over the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s assault on the Palestinian territory, which the United Nations’ highest court has deemed a plausible genocide.

The hearing was interrupted by peace activists with CodePink, who pointed to the number of children Israeli forces have killed in Gaza and condemned the USAID chief for “not using her power and influence to end” the assault.

“Will Samantha Power continue to be a bystander and be complicit in genocide? Or will she, in her own words, be an upstander to stop the genocide?” asked Jennifer Koonings, one of the activists who took part in the protest.

Power’s remarks to the House panel came after HuffPost‘s Akbar Shahid Ahmed reported that USAID officials drafted a cable describing the spread of malnutrition in Gaza as “unprecedented in modern history” and warning that deaths from starvation will likely “accelerate in the weeks ahead”—echoing the conclusions of U.N. experts and human rights organizations.

The cable, Ahmed wrote, “shows the Biden administration is aware of the risk that the death toll there will rise dramatically as it continues to support Israel’s operation and resist calls for a permanent end to the war.”

Last week, hours after Israeli forces killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers in a series of targeted airstrikes, The New York Timesreported that the Biden administration is pressing Congress to approve a proposed sale of $18 billion worth of F-15 fighter jets to Israel despite U.S. laws barring aid deliveries to nations committing war crimes and obstructing the delivery of American humanitarian assistance.

In late March, the Biden administration quietly approved weapons packages that included more than 1,800 2,000-pound bombs, which the Israeli military has repeatedly dropped on densely populated areas of Gaza.

“The idea that we have supplied and are continuing to supply 2,000-pound bombs which could wipe out an entire block and other military aid is unacceptable,” U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) told journalist Christiane Amanpour in an interview that aired earlier this week.

“There is an imminent risk of famine for the majority, if not all, the 2.2 million population of Gaza. This is not a point in debate.”

Fears of mass starvation in the Gaza Strip have mounted in recent days as Israel continues to restrict the flow of necessary aid to Gaza, sparking accusations that the Netanyahu government is using hunger as a weapon of war—a grave violation of international law.

“There is an imminent risk of famine for the majority, if not all, the 2.2 million population of Gaza,” David Satterfield, the U.S. special envoy for Gaza humanitarian efforts, said Wednesday during a virtual event hosted by the American Jewish Committee.

“This is not a point in debate,” he added. “It is an established fact, which the United States, its experts, the international community, its experts assess and believe is real.”

A report released earlier this week by the International Crisis Group found that the Israeli government has been directing limited Gaza aid to “big families who agree to embrace its agenda, while targeting those who refuse.”

“It has not coordinated military with humanitarian action, endangering aid workers and recipients, and frequently halting convoys,” reads the damning report. “It has attacked civilian police, citing links to Hamas, and compelled their retreat, which leaves supplies vulnerable to plunder, whether by profiteers or the desperately hungry. It has tried to work around the international aid system and its protocols for famine prevention and response, doling out assistance on an ad hoc basis in hopes of building a network to administer Gaza on its behalf after the war.”

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

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Continue ReadingUSAID Chief Admits Famine Is Underway in Gaza as US Keeps Arming Israel

UK Government ‘making a mockery’ of international law

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/government-making-mockery-international-law

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak departs 10 Downing Street, London, to attend Prime Minister’s Questions at the Houses of Parliament, March 20, 2024

‘Morally bankrupt’ Sunak doubles down on Israel arms sales

THE GOVERNMENT is “making a mockery” of international law, campaigners charged after Rishi Sunak doubled down on continuing arms sales to Israel.

Mr Sunak was ridiculed today after he said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “needs to do more” to alleviate suffering in Gaza while dodging calls to suspend arms sales to Israel.

Speaking to LBC, the British Prime Minister admitted that the humanitarian situation in Palestine is “dire” but that there had been “no change” in continuing arms sales.

When asked if the government had received fresh advice on arming Israel, after air strikes murdered three British aid workers earlier this month, Mr Sunak said assessments had been “carried out periodically.”

Lindsey German from Stop the War Coalition said that the decision to continue the exports while providing “weak criticism of Israel” demonstrates nothing but “moral bankruptcy and cowardice.”

…

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/government-making-mockery-international-law

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Killing humanitarian workers as a strategy: Israel’s endgame in Gaza

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/killing-humanitarian-workers-strategy-israels-endgame-gaza

TARGETING AID: World Central Kitchen vehicle hit in an Israeli airstrike in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, on Tuesday, April 2 2024

RAMZY BAROUD explains that Israel isn’t making mistakes, even due to callous carelessness — killing aid workers is part of a wider plan to make life in northern Gaza impossible, to facilitate ethnic cleansing

ISRAEL described its clearly deliberate killing of seven humanitarian aid workers on April 1 as a “grave mistake,” a “tragic event” that “happens in war.”

Israel is, obviously, lying. This entire so-called war — actually genocide — in Gaza has been based on a series of lies, some of which Israel continues to peddle.

For some, in the mainstream media, it took months to accept the obvious fact that Israel has been lying about the events that led to the war and the military objectives of its constant targeting of hospitals, schools, shelters and other civilian facilities.

So, it was only logical for Israel to lie about killing the six internationals, and their Palestinian driver, of the World Central Kitchen (WCK). Notwithstanding an event as atrocious as this, it is implausible for Israel to start telling the truth now.

Luckily, few seem to believe Israel’s version regarding WCK, or its continued massacres elsewhere in Gaza. Israel “cannot credibly investigate its own failure in Gaza,” the US-based NGO said in a statement on April 5.

The issue of targeting these internationals, however, has to be placed within a larger context.

Israel was hardly secretive about its intention to deny Palestinians even the most basic necessities of survival in Gaza, epitomised in the words of Israeli Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant on October 9: “There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed.”

Initially, this statement, and many others, were understood at the time to be an outcome of Israel’s desire to punish Palestinians for the October 7 al-Aqsa Flood operation, by resorting to its typical tactic of collective punishment.

With time, however, and based on statements made by other Israeli officials, it became clear that Israel wanted to ethnically cleanse Palestinians altogether.

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/killing-humanitarian-workers-strategy-israels-endgame-gaza

Continue ReadingKilling humanitarian workers as a strategy: Israel’s endgame in Gaza