UNRWA says nearly half a million forced out of Rafah by Israel
Displaced Palestinians have been forced back into uninhabitable cities previously besieged by Israel
News Desk
MAY 14, 2024
(Photo Credit: @UNRWA on X)
The UN Palestine refugee agency (UNRWA) said on 14 May that nearly 450,000 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced from Rafah over the past week.
“Empty streets in Rafah as families continue to flee in search of safety,” UNRWA said via a social media post. “People face constant exhaustion, hunger, and fear. Nowhere is safe. An immediate ceasefire is the only hope.”
The UN agency added that Palestinians leaving Gaza's southernmost city of Rafah have gone back to Khan Yunis and other destroyed areas “that are in no way fit for them to live in.”
“The infrastructure [in Khan Younis] is completely destroyed. There are no water, electricity, nor sewage services,” one displaced Palestinian told UNRWA.
Louise Wateridge, a UNRWA spokesperson in Rafah, said in a social media post that “families have moved as far west as possible, now reaching the shore and along the beach.”
“Inland in Rafah is now a ghost town. It’s hard to believe there were over 1 million people sheltering here just a week ago,” she added
This comes as the Israeli military is making a deeper push into the southern Gaza Strip as the eight-month mark of the war on the besieged enclave has passed.
The Israeli army has increased its air raids into Rafah; this includes the targeting of a UN Department of Safety and Security (DSS) vehicle, which led to the death of one staff member and the injury of another.
“With the conflict in Gaza continuing to take a heavy toll – not only on civilians but also on humanitarian workers – the [UN] Secretary-General reiterates his urgent appeal for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and for the release of all hostages,” Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesman for the UN Secretary-General said in a statement on Monday.
Another Israeli air strike on the displaced Palestinians in Rafah on Sunday led to the death of 18 civilians, many of whom were children.
This follows the evacuation order sent by Israel on Saturday, urging those already internally displaced to “flee anywhere.”
UNRWA has stated the importance of a ceasefire, emphasizing that “there is nowhere safe to go” in Gaza due to the Israeli attacks.
The humanitarian situation in Gaza has increasingly worsened, and the delays aid convoys face on their way into Gaza have only made the situation more dire.
“Restricted humanitarian access is a matter of life or death for people in the Gaza Strip, who are already suffering amid relentless bombardments and food insecurity,” UNRWA said in a social media post. “We immediately and urgently need safe passage for humanitarian aid and workers.”
Israeli settlers have also been blocking and attacking humanitarian aid convoys en route to the besieged Gaza Strip.
“Blocking the trucks is a noble and understandable act for anyone with a sound mind,” one settler said in a statement.
https://thecradle.co/articles/unrwa-say ... -by-israel
‘No return to north til Gaza war ends,’ Hezbollah chief reminds Israeli settlers
Israeli settlers from the Galilee are showing serious frustration with their government's inability to return them to their homes
News Desk
MAY 14, 2024
(Photo credit: EPA)
Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah confirmed in a speech on 13 May that the Lebanese resistance group will continue targeting Israeli forces until the war in Gaza is brought to an end.
“The Lebanon front’s first and foremost goal is to contribute to pressuring Israel to stop the war in Gaza,” Nasrallah said, adding that “the Americans and French have acknowledged this fact.” Proposals for de-escalation brought forth by Washington and Paris have continued to fail in pressuring Hezbollah to stop its operations.
During the speech, Nasrallah addressed the settlers of Israel’s north – tens of thousands of whom have fled from their homes in the settlements near the border.
“We say to the settlers in the north, if you want a solution, go to your government and tell them to stop the war on Gaza,” the resistance leader added.
Tens of thousands of Israeli settlers residing in the north have been evacuated as a result of Hezbollah’s operations and are dispersed across hotels and apartments in occupied Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and elsewhere.
The settlers of the north have complained that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government have done little to accommodate them and have shown significant frustration over the Israeli army’s failure to push Hezbollah away from the border and allow them to return to their homes.
Settlers from the Galilee, including the heads of local councils, held demonstrations on 14 May to protest their situation.
A Hebrew media report released last week said that the heads of settler communities in the north plan to announce a secession from the State of Israel in protest against the Israeli government’s inaction.
The announcement for an independent State of Galilee is scheduled for 15 May.
Nasrallah added during the speech that “no matter the sacrifices,” the ongoing battle against Israel is a “historic achievement” that will “continue quantitatively and qualitatively.”
“We estimate that the enemy has two options: returning to the mediators’ proposal, which means its defeat, or to remain in a [continuous war of attrition] that will be prolonged for them. In both cases, the resistance will be victorious,” Nasrallah said.
One day after Hamas accepted a truce proposal on 6 May, Israeli forces launched a military operation in the besieged and overpopulated city of Rafah. The Israeli army is facing fierce resistance in Rafah and elsewhere across the strip, particularly north Gaza’s Jabalia.
Hezbollah’s operations continue in southern Lebanon. The group carried out attacks on several Israeli sites on 13 May, including the destruction of a Merkava tank near the Yiftah barracks in the Galilee.
https://thecradle.co/articles/no-return ... i-settlers
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South Africa Seeks Urgent ICJ Order for Additional Provisional Measures & Modifications to Previous Measures
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MAY 11, 2024
The Republic of South Africa yesterday, 10 May 2024, returned to the International Court of Justice to seek an urgent order from the court for the protection of the Palestinian people in Gaza from grave and irreparable violations of their rights under the Genocide Convention, as a result of Israel’s ongoing military assault on Rafah.
The urgent application follows the escalation of Israel’s assault on Rafah, which poses extreme risk to humanitarian supplies, basic services into Gaza, the survival of the Palestinian medical system, and the very survival of Palestinians in Gaza as a group.
South Africa contends that the attack on Rafah further worsens the prevailing situation and causes irreparable harm to the rights of Palestinians in Gaza and that the situation has changed significantly since the Court’s Order of 28 March 2024.
Rafah is home to 1.5 million Palestinians. It is the last refuge in Gaza for those displaced by Israeli action, and the last viable centre for public administration and the provision of basic public services, including medical care.
Since the start of the military action in Rafah, Israel has seized control of both the Rafah and the Kerem Shalom (Karem Abu Salem) crossings, effectively controlling all movement in and out of Gaza and cutting off all critical humanitarian and medical supplies, goods and fuel.
Israel has further prevented medical evacuations and has treated evacuation zones as extermination zones as evidenced with the destruction of hospitals in Gaza and discovery of mass graves in other major health care facilities in the Strip.
Therefore, South Africa is calling for urgent interventions and investigations of all actions that continue to cause irreparable prejudice to the rights of Palestinians, including the use of Artificial Intelligence (‘AI’) for targeted killings.
South Africa has therefore requested that the Court indicate the following provisional measures:
The State of Israel shall immediately withdraw and cease its military offensive in the Rafah Governorate.
The State of Israel shall immediately take all effective measures to ensure and facilitate the unimpeded access to Gaza of United Nations and other officials engaged in the provision of humanitarian aid and assistance to the population of Gaza, as well as fact-finding missions, internationally mandated bodies or officials, investigators, and journalists, in order to assess and record conditions on the ground in Gaza and enable the effective preservation and retention of evidence, and shall ensure that its military does not act to prevent such access, provision, preservation or retention.
The State of Israel shall submit an open report to the Court: (a) on all measures taken to give effect to these provisional measures within one week as from the date of this Order; and (b) on all measures taken to give effect to all previous provisional measures indicated by the Court within one month as from the date of this Order.
South Africa further requested that the Court reaffirm and seek urgent compliance by Israel with the provisional measures ordered by the Court on 26 January and 28 March 2024. In particular, South Africa petitioned the Court to urgently reaffirm the application to the Rafah and Kerem Shalom (Karem Abu Salem) crossings of provisional measure 4 of its 26 January 2024 Order and provisional measures 2(a) and (b) of its 28 March 2024 Order.
These measures will require the immediate withdrawal of the Israeli forces from the two crossings to allow for the unimpeded movement of medical personnel, including the United Nations and other humanitarian personnel and medical evacuees, as well goods and services that are vital to addressing the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in Gaza.
South Africa remains firmly of the view that the necessary condition for the effective implementation of the Court’s provisional measures is a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
“We call on the international community, including the allies of the State of Israel, not to turn a blind eye to the ongoing genocide in Gaza. The gross human rights violations perpetuated by Israel have scaled to incomprehensible levels of cruelty, hate and extreme violent oppression. The world must do more to end the persecution of Palestinians, including that of many innocent women and children.
In this regard, South Africa is deeply heartened by the protest actions of university students in the United States and other parts of the world. We are also greatly encouraged by the adoption of the United Nations General Assembly draft resolution that recommends to the Security Council to reconsider favourably the application by the State of Palestine for full membership of the United Nations.
The support to this resolution shown by 143 countries is a further demonstration that the world is listening to the cries of the Palestinians,” says President Cyril Ramaphosa
For media enquiries:
Vincent Magwenya
Spokesperson to the President
E-mail:
Media@presidency.gov.za
Issued by The Presidency
Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel) – South Africa submits an urgent request for the indication of additional provisional measures and the modification of previous provisional measures
APPLICATION
ICJ PRESS RELEASE
South African Statement on the situation in Rafah
6 May 2024
The Government of South Africa is deeply disturbed about the unfolding developments in Gaza and is horrified by the Israeli military’s announcement that Rafah should be evacuated immediately as it will be operating in the area with “extreme force”.
This intended action amounts to forced displacement of Palestinians in Gaza that is unlawful under international law and cannot be justified by any military imperative.
The imminent military offensive in Rafah will erase the last refuge for surviving people in Gaza. Rafah has become a temporary shelter for Palestinians who have been forced to relocate there, with already limited access to food, medical care and other services after months of bombardment by Israel of their homes in the rest of the Gaza Strip.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres recently stated in the UN Security Council that in Gaza, “Israeli military operations have created a humanitarian hellscape. An Israeli operation in Rafah would compound this humanitarian catastrophe.”
On 26 January 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered an order on South Africa’s request for provisional measures determining that Israel’s actions in Gaza are plausibly genocidal. These provisional measures are directly binding on Israel, which is required pursuant to the Court’s order and to the Genocide Convention itself, to stop all acts by it that are plausibly genocidal. In response to the deteriorating situation in Gaza including in Rafah specifically, the ICJ issued additional provisional measures on 28 March 2024, to prevent Israel from causing irreparable harm to the rights invoked by South Africa under the 1948 Genocide Convention in respect of the ongoing siege of Gaza.
Unfortunately, since the Court’s orders on provisional measures, we have seen the Israeli Government continue its illegal actions in violation of the Court order and international humanitarian law.
The continued illegal military action in Gaza and the announcement of its action in Rafah are indications that the Israeli Government is not only ignoring the Court’s order, but that it also intends to increase its genocidal actions in Gaza.
The international community cannot ignore the grave violations of international law and the UN Charter by the State of Israel. Inaction in the face of these violations and public threats of more violations amounts to ignoring our collective responsibility to protect innocent civilians, including children.
South Africa reiterates that there must be an immediate ceasefire and negotiations to this end must continue. Hamas must release all hostages. Israel must release all political prisoners and urgent full, safe and unhindered humanitarian access must be provided for aid to reach the people of Gaza.
ISSUED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND COOPERATION
OR Tambo Building
460 Suspenser Road
Rationale
Pretoria
0084
https://libya360.wordpress.com/2024/05/ ... -measures/
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The US, Israel, and the ‘Anti-Semitism’ Fraud
Posted on May 14, 2024 by Yves Smith
Yves here. It may seem that some independent sites and anti-Israel-genocide pundits are going on overmuch about the heavy-handed campaign to smear throughly warranted criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic. Yours truly has to disagree. As long as the slaughter in Gaza and the ethnic cleansing in the West Bank continue, opponents need to keep up all their many forms of protest. And that necessitates forcefully (and it appears repeatedly) rejecting the anti-Semitism canard.
The Rob Urie post below has some acid phrase-making, as well as an interesting consideration of what makes for a religious state.
By Robert Urie, author of Zen Economics, artist, and musician who publishes The Journal of Belligerent Pontification on Substack
With Israel launching genocide 2.0 in Rafah (Gaza) as this is being written, the implied purpose of the violent police repression of protesters on college campuses last week, in conjunction with the media effort to label anyone who objects to the events unfolding as ‘anti-Semitic,’ is to provide political breathing room for the assault of Rafah. It won’t work. The implied logic is clear— the protesters must be cleared before the images of more murdered Palestinians light the world on fire. Missing from ‘the conversation’ is the self-reflection needed to understand that it is the genocide that is politically incendiary, not objections to it.
The same (state) media outlets in the US, including many of the same media personalities who promoted the Iraq WMD and Russiagate frauds, have been telling their rapidly dwindling audiences that it is hatred of Jewish people, rather than abhorrence of Israeli atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza, that is motivating student protests in the US. Surely, the media based this charge on extensive interviews with the protesters to uncover their true motives, right? Well, no. In fact, the media’s failure to engage with the protesters is evidence that these outlets don’t want to know what the protesters’ true motives are.
Bizarrely, thousands, likely tens of thousands, of the protesting students have made clear through their protests what their goals are. The practice of the propagandist class of calling every person and institution that opposes American imperial slaughters abroad, including those by proxy in Ukraine and Gaza, pro ‘the enemy’ may work in the tit for tat idiocy in the DC bubble where bought and paid for official blather is a currency of sorts. But it is stunningly socially destructive. It’s almost as if the goal of officialdom is to keep us at each other’s throats to take the focus off of their own failures.
The Russiagate and Iraq WMD frauds are cited here for a reason. They were both politically motivated, state-sponsored, psyops. Their implied goals were to defraud the American public into supporting the foreign policy goals of the CIA. And the way in which they were advanced was to silence critics with fabulated, demagogic, drivel regarding fake threats to the nation. And no one from the FBI or CIA has been arrested or charged for the Russiagate fraud.
Since the end of WWII at least, America has acted as a Wizard of Oz fronting for the Einsatzgruppen. There used to be clever and sincere operators working within the bowels of major state institutions. But the official line over recent decades has always, always, always, been fabulist bullshit put forward to kill, torture, starve, and maim, large numbers of people so that a few rich folks could pay for their 37th dream kitchen. And thoughtful and sincere opposition to these never-ending American slaughters has always been portrayed as support for whatever enemy-of-the-week the good Wizard has conjured.
In terms of political logic, the loaded charge of ‘anti-Semitism’ currently being applied to those who criticize the state policies of Israel reflects a category error that has been used by demagogues in the US and Israel for political benefit for several decades now. Some fair bit of the criticism of Israel’s state policies coming from American Jews is that the Israeli-right is overplaying its hand in slaughtering Palestinians, to the long-term detriment of Israel. While this view is critical of Israel’s state policies, the motive is to the ultimate benefit of Israel and Israelis. That the exterminationists in Israel lack the imagination to move their political vision forward without committing genocide makes them fascists.
A similar principle was at work in the US when the George W. Bush administration, acting in league with Congress, launched its misbegotten war against Iraq in 2003. While Mr. Bush and his minions were quick to claim that opposition to their war was ‘pro-terrorist,’ many of us who opposed it had concluded that gratuitously slaughtering a million Iraqis while lighting the rest of the Middle East on fire would diminish the US national interest, not improve it. In retrospect, Mr. Bush’s war was the beginning of the end of the US.
Within the terms of Mr. Bush’s political logic, the American slaughter in Iraq was a demonstration of America’s military might. Missing from this logic was that there were few in world at the outset of the war who doubted American military might. And few would have noticed if the US had ‘prevailed’ in Iraq. But it didn’t, demonstrating to the world that while the US is capable of killing a lot of people and destroying nations, it is incapable of the imperial management needed to sustain the empire.
Recall: while Mr. Bush knew that it was his father’s (and his own) business partners who attacked the US on 9/11, he lied to the American people and blamed the act on Iraq. To be clear, he didn’t just lie about Iraqi WMDs, he lied about who it was that perpetrated the 9/11 attacks for his own, and his family’s, benefit. This isn’t to suggest that Bush & Co. planned or participated in the attacks. In his letter to America, Osama bin Laden takes implicit credit for them. Nevertheless, missing from American discussion of 9/11 has been a single iota of truth regarding US military actions abroad, as well as al Qaeda’s true motives (bin Laden letter) for attacking the US.
Mr. Bush’s ‘they hate us for our freedoms’ was the ‘anti-Semitism’ (or ‘disinformation’) of its day, self-serving bullshit that flatters the malinformed public into psychologically reaffirming American empire. However, most Americans aren’t ‘privileged.’ Read Mr. bin Laden’s ‘letter’ (link above) to understand how insidious this unfounded belief in American ‘privilege’ really is. Living in a state that has a billionaire or two doesn’t make us all billionaires. And voting in a rigged system (the parties control ballot access) doesn’t mean that ‘we,’ the great unwashed, choose who governs us, or their policies.
With respect to Joe Biden, the Democrats have perfected their ‘powerless’ schtick in order to carry out heinous acts without angering their constituents. Despite Democrats holding the White House and both houses of Congress in 2021, Joe Biden was ‘powerless’ to enact his stated agenda. The Congressional bottle-washer (clerk) had the ultimate say, claimed Biden. Like Barack Obama before him, Biden has enacted one of the most audacious agendas of all time. He launched a pointless and gratuitous war against nuclear armed Russia in Ukraine for the benefit of ExxonMobil and Goldman Sachs as he is sponsoring a full-blown WWII-style genocide in Gaza.
While it’s difficult to avoid blaming the Israelis when watching images of the carnage unfolding in Gaza, it is the Americans who are funding Israel, supplying it with weapons and materiel, giving Israeli bombers air and logistical support— including assistance in targeting Palestinians for death, and holding competing regional interests at bay. Here(starts 2:48) is US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin stating that Israel’s attack on Palestine would end immediately if the US stopped supplying Israel with weapons. What will be revealed in coming months or years is that the Israeli genocide is a result of the long-term strategic ‘vision’ of the US. And all of the world except the American people knows it.
What makes Biden’s actual agenda so audacious is that it’s all Wizard of Oz-style bullshit. Of course, the killing is real. However, having participated in gutting the American manufacturing base (but not the military budget) as a neoliberal, neocon Senator, Biden is starting wars that the US can’t finish. Biden’s chosen targets, Russia and China, both have manufacturing bases with which to manufacture weapons and materiel. The US not only exported its industry starting half-a-century ago, it sent its engineers (knowledge base) to flip burgers at Mickie Dees until they died of old age.
While the impact of various state policies is always open to debate, the insistence that one side in the debate gets to claim the national interest for itself— in either Israel or the US, is the realm of demagogues, not legitimate political difference. This is why the US and Israeli governments are working so hard to delegitimate assessments of their policies that differ from their own. If legitimate differences with state policies are admitted, then the ability of particular state actors to define them unilaterally is diminished. Question: without ‘anti-Semitism’ to fall back on, what possible explanation could Israel give for its behavior in Gaza that would be deemed legitimate by outsiders?
Moreover, nation-states are political entities so organized to be able to conduct affairs of state with other nations. Given that all of the major religions have footprints that lie outside of any single national boundary, nations that claim state religions (e.g. Israel, Iran) don’t represent those religions politically outside of their national borders. In this way, criticism of Israel over its treatment of Palestinians in Gaza has no bearing on Jews living in Canada or Brazil. This, despite Israel calling itself a ‘Jewish state.’ No one holds Canadian or Brazilian Jews responsible for Israel’s state actions.
By analogy, the political right in the US has long claimed that the US is ‘a Christian nation.’ In terms of religious self-identification, this is most certainly true. Most Americans who are religious identify as Christian. Yet in all of my years of publicly opposing US foreign policy (1969 – 2024), I don’t recall being accused of being anti-Christian for doing so. A large contingent of the American anti-war movement during the Vietnam war was church-based, with prominent church leaders putting their lives and freedom on the line to end the slaughter.
The point here is that the political leadership in the US could have slandered American anti-war protesters of the era as ‘anti-Christian’ because the US , according to them, ‘is a Christian nation.’ But lots of Christians had already concluded that the war was an abomination. Israel is in a similar position today, with Zionists running the Israeli government. Many of the anti-genocide protesters in the US are Jewish. And for those who aren’t, there are multiple legitimate criticisms of Israeli and US state actions that bear no relation to the claimed religious status of Israel.
This latter point is crucial to the conception of how nation-states operate. When Venezuela negotiates legal arrangements with China, it is the nation-states that act as signatories. Religious communities within these nations may have input into the negotiations, but they aren’t the legal entities that act as signatories, and they aren’t the legal entities charged with enforcement. So, while history and religious passion may guide the tenor of state-to-state negotiations, every nation has internal interests acting behind the scenes.
Conversely, if some nations are religious-states, in the sense of being so governed, why aren’t religious entities (church, synagogue, mosque, etc.) the signatories to international agreements? For instance, since the Revolution in 1979, (the Islamic Republic of) Iran has had a hybrid secular – religious system of governance. While powerful religious figures (Ayatollahs) have significant say in the affairs of state, it is the nation-state of Iran with which international agreements are inked.
Within the Jewish community in Israel, half of Israeli Jews describe themselves as ‘secular,’ versus a combined maximum of around 25% who describe themselves as ‘orthodox’ or ‘ultra-orthodox.’ Secular Jews by definition aren’t interpreting scripture to determine state policies. This doesn’t mean that they are any less sincere in their religious beliefs than orthodox Jews. What it means is that the religious beliefs differ. They may all fall within the broad category of Judaism. But differences within the broad category make assertions that Israel’s state polices are ‘Jewish’ simplistic to the point of being misleading.
Again, by analogy, evangelical Christians in the US provide support for the political right to an extent that activist and political commenter Chris Hedges crafted the term ‘Christian fascists,’ to describe their politics. Conversely, variations on Liberation Theology inform the Christian ‘left,’ if such a descriptor can be claimed. Support by American liberals and the evangelical right for Israeli state policies with respect to the Palestinians is antithetical to the ‘secular’ Christian view that genocide is morally and politically repugnant. It was morally and politically repugnant to Israelis until the American MIC took over the West.
The commonly held view that evangelical Christians and orthodox Jews are ‘more’ Christian or Jewish, respectively, than other denominations is a denominational quibble, not religious doctrine. As the Spanish Inquisition and Irish orphanages illuminated, individual and institutional assertions of superior righteousness are often used to place evil people in charge of Christian institutions. This occasional rule by demagogues renders visible the political natures of both church and state. Religionists who act politically are politicians acting within the realm of state power.
Following each of the World Wars, maps of the world were redrawn by the victors with little concern for political, economic, cultural, and religious differences. Since WWII ended, part of the rationale for the US crushing movements for democracy around the globe has been the desire to ‘manage’ the resulting tensions through political repression. For instance, before he was ‘the new Hitler,’ Saddam Hussein (Iraq) was the CIA asset in Iraq put forward to quash ethnic tensions resulting from these externally drawn maps.
List: remarkably, five of the ten countries with the largest oil reserves have been governed by ‘the new Hitler’ in the last twenty years. Imagine, one Hitler in all of the twentieth century, but five in the last twenty years. In contrast to this Hitler-heavy concentration, four of the remaining countries, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, and the US, are liberal democracies (not). Readers are encouraged to read Osama bin Laden’s letter to America (link above) to understand how insidious fake liberal democracy (US) can be for we little people. Source: oilprice.com.
With respect to the timing of police violence against protesters coincident with the state media putting on its crazy pants to point and shout ‘anti-Semite,’ the likely reason is the resumption of the US / Israeli genocide Rafah. While the official lie coming from US / Israeli sources is that Hamas is ‘dug in’ in Rafah, the politicians of the Israeli right have spent recent months openly describing their genocidal aims. Their goal is to ‘clear’ Palestine of Palestinians. The nations surrounding Israel have stated publicly that they have no intention of absorbing Palestinians fleeing Israel.
While clever and knowledgeable people are (correctly) claiming that the police violence used against protesters was both unnecessary and excessive, the question back is: where in the hell have you been living? At the OWS (Occupy Wall Street) encampment at Zuccotti Park, the NYPD drove over protesters with their motorcycles. The NYPD soaked peaceful and compliant OWS protesters with pepper spray. In my first march against the Vietnam War at the tender age of twelve, boiling water was poured out of open windows onto us. I was threatened with being murdered twice by people with guns for my political views before my sixteenth birthday.
At Columbia University, an adjunct professor named Rebecca Weiner— who also works for the NYPD ‘anti-terrorism’ unit, coordinated the clearing of the encampment. In interviews after the campus was cleared, Ms. Weiner spoke in the conceptually-muddled techno-drivel of the ‘anti-terrorism’ industry. Ms. Weiner circuitously clamed that 1) free-speech wasn’t being suppressed because 2) it was a ‘change in tactics’ 3) with respect to the language, 4) used by the anti-genocide protesters, 5) that was shut down by the NYPD.
That Ms. Weiner’s political logic isn’t being reported as fallacious nonsense is likely a fashion issue particular to the industry that she works in. Briefly, a change in linguistic ‘tactics’ still leaves the actions of the students at the level of Constitutionally protected speech. If it hadn’t, legally actionable consequences unrelated to student speech would have ensued. But Ms. Weiner made no assertion that this was the case. What she did assert is that it was the change in tactics that rendered the protesters subject to legal sanction, not that illegal acts followed from doing so.
For example, my use of the term ‘industry’ to describe the ‘anti-terrorism’ industry is a tactic to place its motives in the commercial framework of political economy. In fact, the modern ‘anti-terrorism’ industry was created when George W. Bush put thousands of people to the task of ‘finding’ a very, very, small number of actual terrorists. The result: the FBI now exists to fabricate fake terrorist plots. What makes police entrapment a legitimate defense in criminal cases isn’t that the FBI thought about, or discussed (both are linguistic ‘tactics’), entrapping people, but that it actually entrapped them.
The problem that Ms. Weiner— as well as the Biden administration, the NYPD, and the exterminationist-right in Israel, are trying to overcome is that the protesting students have heard their explanations of the events in Gaza and come to different conclusions. Rather than trying to convince the students otherwise, the official response in the US has been slander, propaganda, censorship, and police violence. This is fundamentally different from making one’s views known as citizens regarding the affairs of state by protesting. Shutting down ‘free-speech’ isn’t its opposite. Coerced speech is. Shutting down ‘free-speech’ is political repression.
One illuminating / particularly troubling aspect of this police repression is that billionaires hired private militias to attack the protesters. The protesters didn’t attack these private militias, they were attacked by them (link above). At UCLA in particular, a private militia allegedly funded by Jessica Seinfeld (link above), wife of ‘comedian’ Jerry Seinfeld (listen to his stand-up and decide for yourself), had the look and presence of the Gestapo. Wearing masks to hide their identities, the ‘counter-protesters’ softened up the UCLA protesters for the violent police assault that followed.
To be clear, the ‘counter-protesters’ weren’t protesting anything. They are modern-day Pinkertons hired by Wall Streeters and ‘celebrities’ (links above) to commit violence against actual protesters. One of the defining characteristics of the rise of Nazism in Germany in the 1930s was violence committed by private militias. This makes the claim that the counter-protesters are ‘fighting anti-Semitism’ morbidly ironic. The comment by Chanamel Dorfman, aid to Israeli Security Chief Ben Givr, that the problem with the Nazis was that ‘they killed the wrong people,’ suggests that he (Dorfman) knows who ‘the right people’ are.
Finally, Donald Trump’s value to the American people in 2016 was in bringing to light that political and economic power in the US is dug in like ticks, or possibly tapeworms. Now that he has officially joined the uniparty by telling House Speaker Mike Johnson to fund the campaign war chests of Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu with $91 billion in arms ‘purchases,’ he has gone full AOC as a fake renegade sheep-dogging for empire. Cobbled to his Reaganesque Republican policies, this makes him, like Joe Biden, the wrong person for the age.
This written, it is the US war against Russia in Ukraine that is more ominous for the world, and in need of being taken out of American officialdom’s hands very quickly. For details of the nuclear back-and-forth, here is Scott Ritter. Most frightening from Ritter is the abject stupidity of the American political ‘leadership.’ George H. W. Bush was the last American political leader trained in statecraft (his father was ‘banker to the Fuehrer’ during WWII, Prescott Bush). Following H. W. Bush, the requirement that American President’s be able to speak at least one language (George W. Bush didn’t, Joe Biden is a toss-up) was apparently deemed too onerous.
With Biden’s recent ‘major speech’ on the ‘dramatic rise in anti-Semitism in the US,’ the calcification and irrelevance of American ‘leaders’ on the world stage is sealed. What Biden and his minions conspicuously cannot comprehend is that we dogs are no longer eating the dogfood. This isn’t ‘revolutionary’ in any political sense. The powers that be can either stop lying or come up with better lies. But having the same people from the same three-letter agencies promoting the same lies eventually loses its potency as social engineering.
Listen to the Scott Ritter interview (link above) as you channel Jennifer Lawrence’s character in Don’t Look Up shouting ‘we’re all going to $#!?& die.’ Allowing one, two, or three morons in the basement (or Oval Office) of the White House to decide the fate of humanity is not reasonable. To Democrats— get a handle on your boy. You inflicted this genocidal jackass on the rest of us. To Republicans— get a handle on your boy. You inflicted this uniparty jackass on us. Then consider: with no political bench to draw from, possibly the problems are systemic.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/05 ... fraud.html
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Strategic Setbacks for US, Israel as the Resistance Axis Gains Ground in Syria
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MAY 14, 2024
Khalil Nasrallah
Recent resistance operations in eastern Syria have established new rules of engagement that constrain both Washington and Tel Aviv’s once-untethered freedom to operate in this strategic theater.
For several years, the presence of the region’s Axis of Resistance forces in Syria has remained vulnerable to US and Israeli attacks across the country, from east to west. The US has persistently attempted to disrupt the communication routes along the Tehran–Beirut axis, through which Damascus plays an important link.
Starting in 2017, after eliminating ISIS from this key border crossing, Axis forces have safeguarded passage of vehicles through the vital Al-Qaim–Al-Bukamal road and effectively established rules of engagement in eastern Syria, gradually limiting Washington’s tactical flexibility and dominance. This was a strategically important development – maintaining a foothold west of the Euphrates River to the far southeast of Syria continues to be essential for both state and non-state actors in the resistance.
A shift in tactical approach
Since the Palestinian resistance’s Operation Al-Aqsa Flood last October, many new shifts have emerged on the ground in eastern Syria. With an uptick in Iraqi resistance activities targeting US bases in both Syria and Iraq, a sort of tentative peace emerged in early February, coinciding with Kataib Hezbollah’s temporary suspension of operations.
During this period, the resistance forces secured new advancements that solidified their position, primarily because Washington had to grudgingly acknowledge the new ground realities – a fait accompli, if you will.
Although the US continued to carry out “retaliatory” strikes targeting the Iraqi resistance, which, to many, seemed to restore some level of peace, this came with significant compromises.
According to information obtained by The Cradle, the resistance groups have not only established a more pronounced military and political stance during this period of relative calm but have also forced the US to accept crucial losses in the field.
In short, not only has Washington retreated from its provocative operations against regional resistance forces, but Tel Aviv has likewise shown reluctance to launch further raids – so far – in eastern Syria to assassinate fighters affiliated with Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
The Israeli retreat is not a unilateral decision but a result of US recalibration of these risks. The occupation army cannot launch operations without the American green light and intelligence data, and Washington is currently reluctant to cover Israeli actions that will draw the US deeper into the morass in Syria and Iraq. It also seeks to avoid further resistance attacks on US bases and occupied Syrian oil fields, especially now that it has experienced direct blows from targeted munitions.
It is also not insignificant that the Iraqi resistance has directly targeted key Israeli ports. Tel Aviv cannot afford opening up further military fronts eight months into a conflict in which it is incapable of winning on a single front, in Gaza.
Rules of engagement in Eastern Syria
The rules of engagement in eastern Syria are distinct from those governing interactions in the western and central regions of the country, which primarily involve the Israeli entity and Resistance Axis forces alongside Damascus.
In the east, the main opposition to the resistance forces is the illegal US military occupation and its Kurdish allies.
This region, stretching across the Euphrates River to Albu Kamal, which abuts Iraq’s Al-Qaim crossing, represents a strategic foothold for the Resistance Axis established in 2017. This was achieved during the “Great Dawn” operations, a series of offensives in three stages led by resistance forces, the Syrian army, and their Russian allies.
These operations enabled the Syrian and Iraqi resistance forces to reach and secure the Al-Qaim crossing, effectively reconnecting the two countries for the first time since 2011, which offered the Axis a world of new tactical advantages.
The establishment of this route, known as the Tehran–Beirut road, was perceived by the US and Israelis as a strategic geopolitical setback to their goal of severing relations and routes between Iran and the Mediterranean. In response, Washington intensified its efforts to destabilize this area through raids and pressures and by supporting attacks by ISIS cells and other militant groups, aiming to prevent the resistance forces from cementing their positions and achieving stability.
These tensions would escalate significantly towards the end of 2019 and into early 2020, following US claims that its forces in Kirkuk were targeted in a rocket attack attributed to the Iraqi resistance.
Washington responded provocatively by launching heavy strikes against an Iraqi resistance faction in Al-Qaim, killing at least fifty fighters in an operation closely followed by the targeted assassinations of Iranian Quds Force Commander General Qassem Soleimani and Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) Deputy Head Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.
One key goal of this unprovoked US escalation was to prevent the resistance connectivity project, specifically cutting off the roads of communication between Tehran–Baghdad–Damascus–Beirut, which is seen as threatening both the US presence and Israel’s security.
Following the strike on the Ain al-Assad airbase earlier this year, resistance forces moved to intensify their targeting of US military bases using missiles and drones, conducted multiple operations in the Syrian Desert to safeguard transit routes against Washington-backed terror groups, and established protective measures around the US occupation base in Al-Tanf, located near the Syrian–Jordanian–Iraqi border intersection.
Through these coordinated efforts, the Axis of Resistance imposed new rules of engagement, effectively balancing the scales by linking their actions at Albu Kamal and Al-Qaim with significant retaliatory strikes against US bases.
This approach led to a noticeable reduction in direct US military engagements – which, interestingly and unsurprisingly, coincided with a spike in ISIS cells attempting infiltrations in both Syria and Iraq.
This state of affairs persisted until the Iraqi resistance increased its operations against US troops in both Syria and Iraq, partly in solidarity with the Palestinian resistance in the Gaza Strip.
West Asia’s new reality
Between the rules of engagement that preceded the events of 7 October and those that followed the targeting of US bases, significant changes have occurred, especially after Iraqi resistance operations showcased the vulnerabilities of the American deterrence strategy.
The illegal US bases have been exposed as unsafe, not only in Syria and Iraq but also extending to Jordan. The results of the resistance operations can be summarized as follows:
The Axis has successfully established and strengthened its ground presence in areas Washington once viewed as its own stomping ground and has achieved a de facto truce that benefits long-term resistance goals across military, economic, and political domains.
Consequently, resistance troops are now more effectively pursuing the remnants of US-backed ISIS cells within the depths of the Syrian Desert. These terror cells, though engaged in continuous disruptive operations, are no longer seen as posing a strategic threat.
The Axis’ efforts can also now more effectively concentrate on the main front, against Israel, in support of the Palestinian resistance there. The rules of engagement with the US have been reinforced and are poised for further development in future stages, with plans to pose a more formidable challenge to the US presence across West Asia.
https://libya360.wordpress.com/2024/05/ ... -in-syria/
Sayyed Nasrallah: “Israel Faces Two Options – Defeat or the Abyss”
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on MAY 14, 2024
Al Manar
“These theatrics that we are witnessing nowadays should not deceive anyone, as Washington stands with Israel [no matter what],”
Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah on Monday stressed that the Israeli enemy is facing a historical dilemma in Gaza– if it halts the war, it will be a major defeat, and it will move into an abyss if it continues the military battle.
Addressing Hezbollah’s memorial ceremony marking the eighth martyrdom anniversary of military commander Martyr Sayyed Mustafa Badreddine, Sayyed Nasrallah concentrated on the challenge of goals between the Palestinian Resistance and the Zionist enemy.
Sayyed Nasrallah maintained that the Palestinian resistance wanted Al-Aqsa Flood Operation to be a chance to revitalize the Palestinian cause and remind the whole world with the Palestine and Palestinian rights thrown in the oblivion.
On the other hand, some Arab regimes promoted ‘Israel’ as a normal entity that preserves democracy, according to Hezbollah leader, who added that the steadfastness of women, children and resistance fighters in Gaza has changed this situation.
Nowadays, Palestinian and the Palestinian rights are being highlighted all over the world, Sayyed Nasrallah said, adding that over 140 states voted for granting Palestine a full UN membership.
Sayyed Nasrallah affirmed that the Israeli envoy’s act of shredding a copy of UN Charter over a vote in favor of Palestinian rights displays the Zionist arrogance and carelessness about the international resolutions.
The most important political media scene that reflects the victory of the Palestinian resistance is the moment the Israeli UN envoy raised the picture of Hamas military commander Yahya Al-Sinwar.
Sayyed Nasrallah underlined the pro-Palestine protests held by the university students in the United States, Australia France, Britain, Germany and several European countries, adding that those rallies outraged the Israeli and US officials.
The steadfastness of the Palestinian people since October 7 has obliged the whole world to accept the notion of establishing a Palestinian state, even the hypocritical US administration is now considering a Palestinian state, Sayyed Nasrallah said.
Al-Aqsa Flood Operation and the multi-front war between the resistance movements and the Zionist enemy have exposed the criminal and barbaric essence of the Zionist enemy, according to Hezbollah Chief.
Hezbollah Secretary General called for concentrating on the remarks of the Israeli presidents, ministers, generals and various officials, away from all what the pro-Zionist Arabs say.
Sayyed Nasrallah emphasized that none in the Zionist entity is capable of claiming victory in Gaza eight months since the start of the war, adding that the Israelis mock Netanyahu when he says the occupation army is about to achieve victory in the Strip.
Sayyed Nasrallah mentioned that the Israelis tell the Zionist officials that three main targets of the war–eradicating Hamas, liberating the captives, and protecting the settlements from Gaza missiles– have not been achieved yet.
Hezbollah leader said that Hamas continues fighting the Zionist occupation forces across Gaza, holding most of the Israeli captives, and firing missiles at the Zionist settlements in the south of occupied Palestine.
Sayyed Nasrallah added that the Israelis also failed to achieve the implicit targets, including displacing Gaza locals, noting that the Gazans showed a great steadfastness against this scheme.
“‘Israel’ presents itself as the most powerful ‘state’ in the region, claims to have the most powerful army in the region, and obtains the support of the most powerful country in the world, the United States of America which provides it with hundreds of war jets, dozens of warships, military bridge, expertise, technology, satellites, and intelligence agencies.”
The United States of America even interferes to defend ‘Israel’ against the Yemenis in the Red Sea and in face of the Iranian missiles as well as drones, Sayyed Nasrallah noted.
“Imagine how ‘Israel’ with such capabilities and US support fails to achieve any of its targets in Gaza over 8 months.”
“Gaza, an area of around 270 square kilometers, has been besieged since 20 years, with modest military capabilities.”
Sayyed Nasrallah asserted that this reflects inability, not just failure, and leads the Zionists to lose confidence in this entity with its political, security and military command.
Sayyed Nasrallah cited the Israeli polls which indicated that 30% of the Israelis consider that the entity is unsuitable for a decent life and 70% of them demand the resignation of the commander-in-chief.
Sayyed Nasrallah noted that ‘Israel’ has also failed to reconstruct the deterrence image in face of the entire resistance axis in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Iraq and Yemen.
According to Sayyed Nasrallah, ‘Israel’ does not even have any minimal assumption about the political era in Gaza after the war, which leads the army into successive daunting battles.
Sayyed Nasrallah indicated that the pro-Zionist Arabs utilize the numbers of martyrs in Gaza to promote surrender instead of denouncing the Israeli criminality in an act treachery.
Hezbollah chief dismissed the US ploy of blocking military shipment to the Zionist entity, warning against the American deception.
Sayyed Nasrallah underlined that Hamas approval of the Egyptian ceasefire proposal shocked Netanyahu and made the US officials swallow their tongues and abstain from denouncing the Zionist obstruction of the solution process.
“The US administration also vetoes any vote for Palestine’s membership,threatens to sanction any state that voices intention to recognize a Palestinian state and the ICC judges if they issue an arrest warrant against Netanyahu, and persecutes the students protesting in favor of Gaza despite all the freedom and human rights slogans.”
Sayyed Nasrallah reiterated that Hezbollah will continue its border battle against the Israeli enemy in support of Gaza and impose more rules of engagement, adding that the Resistance command may escalate the front.
Sayyed Nasrallah called on the Israeli settlers displaced from Northern Palestine to demand their government to stop its war on Gaza in order to return to “their houses” before September 1.
Displaced Syrians
Hezbollah Secretary General pointed out that all the Lebanese parties, except for some beneficiaries, agree that the displaced Syrians file is now problematic and must be addressed.
Sayyed Nasrallah stressed that the USA and Europe are responsible for preventing the displaced Syrians in Lebanon from returning to Syria, calling on the Lebanese authorities to challenge the foreign will by letting the displaced Syrians move into Europe by sea.
This issue can be easily addressed whenever bravery and political will are presented in face of the foreign pressures, threats, and interventions, Sayyed Nasrallah said.
Sayyed Nasrallah indicated that the Lebanese authorities must communicate with the Syrian government in order to facilitate the return of the displaced, underlining the importance of demanding the revocation of Caesar Act overburdening Syria economically.
Martyr Badreddine
Sayyed Nasrallah recalled the real badges gained by the Islamic Resistance Commander Sayyed Mustaf Badreddine, mentioning martyr Sayyed Zulfiqar’s Medals of the Combatant Man, the Wounded, the Detainee, the Commander, the Achievements’ Maker, and the martyr.
Sayyed Nasrallah reiterated condolences and felicitations to the noble family of martyr Badreddine, adding that the Resistance might on the borders recalls the martyred commanders, including Hajj Imad Mughniyeh, Sayyed Mustafa Badreddine, Hajj Qassem Suleimani, Hajj Mohammad Rida Zahedi, and Radhi Al-Mousawi.
Sayyed Nasrallah said that Hezbollah combat drones striking the Israeli enemy nowadays recall the martyred commander Hassan Al-Lakkis.
Sayyed Nasrallah summarized the achievements of Sayyed Badreddine in face of the Zionist enemy and during the negotiations aimed at concluding prisoner swap deals, concentrating on his feat of fighting the terrorist groups in Syria.
Sayyed Nasrallah indicated that the foreign plots wanted Syria to move into the US influence circle, adding that, however, the sacrifices of Sayyed Zulfikar and the rest of the martyrs preserved the pro-resistance stance of Syria.
https://libya360.wordpress.com/2024/05/ ... the-abyss/
BREAKING
The fighting returned; First video from Al Qassam operations defending #Rafah got released :
