In a bid to undermine resistance groups in the occupied West Bank, Israel is strategically targeting key individuals to incite discord between armed factions and the Palestinian Authority, intensifying an already volatile situation marked by unprecedented violence and political maneuvering.
Robert Inlakesh
JUN 14, 2024
Photo Credit: The Cradle
After failing to destroy resistance factions in the occupied West Bank, The Cradle has learned that Israeli forces plan to target specific individuals to create tensions between the armed groups and the Palestinian Authority (PA).
This effort includes an alleged meeting held in Tel Aviv between Hussein al-Sheikh, head of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) ’s executive committee, and Major General Ghasan Alyan, head of Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT).
The Tel Aviv trip by Sheikh, the man favored by Israel to lead the PA once President Mahmoud Abbas retires, was organized to discuss methods of “de-escalating tensions and allowing West Bank workers to travel into Israeli territory for work,” according to an anonymous source in his office.
The rise of West Bank resistance
Over 530 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank since 7 October, making the past eight months the most violent period there since the Second Intifada. Although the Hamas-led Operation Al-Aqsa Flood was formally staged in the Gaza Strip, the fighting in the northern West Bank has now coalesced into what can be called a second Palestinian front against the Israeli military.
Since the start of the war in Gaza, there have also been quantitative jumps in the complexity of ambushes and the effectiveness of explosive charges manufactured by resistance groups in the West Bank.
Many of the West Bank’s armed resistance groups, as we know them today, formed in the wake of the events of May 2021, when Hamas led its 11-day ’Sword of Jerusalem’ battle against the Israeli military. Simultaneously, the concept of the ‘Unity of Fronts,’ or ‘Unity of the Squares,’ emerged in defense of Al-Aqsa Mosque across occupied Palestine, and the ‘Joint Operations Room of Resistance Factions’ was established.
Initially consisting of only a few dozen young armed men from the Jenin Refugee Camp, by September of that year, a group organized by Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ)’s armed wing, the Quds Brigades, would officially declare themselves the Jenin Brigade.
What was interesting about the Jenin Brigade was that despite being led by PIJ, it also included members from the Fatah-aligned Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, along with members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), and Hamas armed wings.
Israel’s knee-jerk response was to raid Jenin and kill both fighters and civilians, triggering conflict even more broadly. In February 2022, Israeli special forces carried out a reckless daytime assassination of three Palestinians traveling in a civilian car in Nablus, who were later identified as members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.
On 31 March 2022, after several “lone-wolf” attacks against Israelis that left 19 dead, the military announced “Operation Break the Wave” in the West Bank. This operation would begin with arrest campaigns, focusing clearly on the areas where the newly formed resistance groups emerged, which had begun expanding beyond the area of Jenin by that time.
The operation, formulated from an earlier Israeli strategy to combat hundreds of lone-wolf attacks between October 2015 and early 2016, inflicted mass civilian casualties and only succeeded at encouraging the growth of the armed resistance groups.
According to local Nablus-based journalist Ahmad al-Bazz, the Israeli military’s violence played a large role in fueling armed struggle in his city and would later give birth to the Lions’ Den armed faction, formally announced in the Old City of Nablus in October 2022.
Another influencing factor was the assassination of 19-year-old Ibrahim Nabulsi, who valiantly fought to the death when cornered by an Israeli special forces team that August.
In early 2023, when it had become apparent that Palestinian armed resistance groups were effectively taking control of areas like the Jenin Refugee Camp and the Old City of Nablus, US security coordinator Michael Fenzel proposed a “security plan” to the PA.
The proposal, dubbed the “Fenzel Plan,” was reportedly accepted by the PA and included the US-backed formation of a special PA force to counter the armed groups and retake security control in the northern West Bank.
Israel’s divide and rule strategy
While this was underway, Tel Aviv was already working on implementing its own divide-and-rule strategy to sow chaos between Palestinians in the West Bank. Younis Tirawi, a reporter known on social media for his intimate knowledge of the PA and Palestinian armed groups in the West Bank, tells The Cradle that Israel had already begun arresting PA officers involved with the resistance back in November 2022.
Then, in the summertime [2023], they arrested a Palestinian intelligence officer who was coordinating on the ground between the PIJ and Fatah groups.
According to two PA sources who wish to remain unnamed, the Fenzel Plan has now been effectively forgotten and won’t proceed, allegedly due to the Ramallah-based PA’s strained relationship with Washington.
Although it is impossible to confirm whether this information is fully accurate, there have been no known developments regarding the creation of a PA-specialized anti-resistance force.
The PA’s complicated relationship with the resistance
The Palestinian resistance groups in the West Bank may fight under the same banners in many cases but have varying relations and predicaments with the PA throughout the territory. In Jenin, for instance, many of the fighters belonging to Jenin Brigade were the sons of high-ranking PA-linked figures, like Fathi Khazem, while many others were actually PA Security Force (PASF) officers who had chosen the path of armed resistance.
In early 2023, the interconnectivity between the PASF and Jenin Brigade was such that a direct line of communication via handheld radios allowed for continuous coordination when needed. It appears the Israelis caught on to this and cracked down, as the obvious ties between the resistance and local PA forces made it difficult to characterize the fighters as bandits or outlaws seeking to violently challenge the PA’s security control. As Tirawi describes the scene at the time:
During the second invasion of Jenin, after the beginning of the Gaza war, they arrested all the Fatah members who were dual fighters and [PA] security officers who were not going to work, and people who were part of al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. That was the main point when they began arresting senior figures coordinating between armed groups and the Palestinian Authority. There is always going to be tensions in any place or any city where there are [two armed forces] because you are taking away the Palestinian Authority’s influence and their ability to enforce the law in the area.
Tirawi gives the example of the Tulkarem Brigade, which finds itself in a different predicament than Jenin and operates in an area with greater tensions with the PA. He explained that fighters often conceal their identities, and the PA forces there cannot distinguish between fighters and criminal elements.
This is especially the case, he says, when it comes to issues of weapons transfers into the city, and can often cause confusion in a setting where the PASF is tasked with managing security there.
There are, however, blatant examples, especially in Tulkarem, of PA forces outrageously opening fire upon resistance fighters and confiscating their weapons from them.
A source from Tulkarem, speaking with The Cradle on the condition of anonymity, reveals that the financing and ammunition that supplies Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades there reach these fighters through the PIJ’s armed wing in the city.
This information matched what local journalists from Nablus and Tulkarem had also come to understand, further demonstrating the interconnectivity between the resistance factions.
PA’s stance on PIJ and Hamas
Last year, a group emerged from Tulkarem’s Nour Shams refugee camp, calling itself Jund Allah and stating it was independent of any political party. However, after a number of their fighters were killed during Israeli incursions into the camp, this group later evolved into a small Qassam Brigades (armed wing of Hamas) aligned group.
While the PA will allow PIJ-aligned fighters to exist, they have little tolerance for anyone belonging to Hamas. According to the same source, once it was understood that the PIJ was aiding Hamas-aligned fighters in Tulkarem, this caused further friction with the PA.
On 6 November, Israel decided to assassinate the 24-year-old leader of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Tulkarem, named Jihad Ishhadeh, whose father is a Brigadier General in the PA’s security forces and is known to be friendly toward PA President Mahmoud Abbas. This is again an example of the Israeli occupation forces specifically going after fighters who maintain strong connections with the ruling PA.
The Nablus Equation
When the group known as the Lions’ Den emerged from the Old City of Nablus, it was a major cause for concern in both the PA and Israeli security establishments. Having witnessed the power that the Jenin Brigade had generated and the fact that they were able to openly hold military parades in Jenin City, the fear arose that this could soon be the case in Nablus and that it could lead to resistance fighters emulating this model in other cities too.
Nablus, unlike Jenin, is surrounded by Israeli settlements and military sites that are more open to armed attacks. The Lions’ Den emerged as a group that managed to command enormous support throughout occupied Palestine and even into the refugee camps in Lebanon. Formed of young fighters from a range of Palestinian factions, it formed alliances with other resistance groups in the surrounding refugee camps, like Balata camp.
It didn’t take the Israeli military long to begin carrying out assassinations and large-scale attacks in attempts to break up the Lions’ Den. For instance, Tamir al-Kilani, one of the founding members of the Lions’ Den and a member of the PFLP’s armed wing, the Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, was murdered in an Israeli booby-trapped motorbike explosion.
Many of the Lions’ Den’s leading members, affiliated with the PIJ movement, were also killed during various invasions of Nablus, while the PA arrested and imprisoned Musab Shtayyeh, the most prominent Hamas member who helped lead the group.
This left a much less diverse crowd of fighters to lead the Lions’ Den, who were commanded by Oday al-Azizi. Unlike Hamas members, some Fatah-affiliated fighters are given the option to remain under PA detention temporarily, avoiding assassination and arrest by the Israeli occupation forces.
Azizi, who is married to a woman from a prominent family loyal to PA President Abbas, is also a PA security officer himself and has worked to manage the relationship between the PA and the Lions’ Den for some time.
However, the Lions’ Den gradually saw its power decline and was left isolated due to its difficult predicament. The US Biden administration has just recently targeted the group with sanctions for its participation in armed activities in the West Bank, but it now plays a marginal role, if any.
While Tirawi informs The Cradle that “it is already over … the main structure has been dismantled,” two anonymous sources affiliated with West Bank resistance groups say that it has reduced in power and is not really present, as other armed groups are currently resisting Israeli incursions into Nablus instead of it.
Despite Israeli attempts to disband the resistance groups throughout the West Bank and to sever their ties to local PA elements to encourage internecine fighting, the groups persist.
Whether they will expand their operations in the near future is contingent on their ability to navigate their way through a complicated environment, evading persecution from the PASF and the Israeli military while implementing more sophisticated tactics and developing greater weapons capabilities.
https://thecradle.co/articles/the-israe ... nst-the-pa
Washington 'cannot verify' whether Israel using US intel to massacre civilians
The US has provided an 'extraordinary amount' of intelligence to Israel amid its genocidal campaign in Gaza
News Desk
JUN 14, 2024
A Palestinian man walks amid rubble following an Israeli military operation that rescued four hostages held by Hamas in the Nuseirat camp, in the central Gaza Strip, on June 8, 2024. (Photo credit: Eyad Baba/AFP)
US lawmakers fear Israel may be using US-supplied intelligence to carry out bombings that kill civilians in Gaza, the Washington Post reported on 14 June.
Since the beginning of the war in Gaza, the US has shared “an extraordinary amount of drone footage, satellite imagery, communications intercepts, and data analysis using advanced software, some of it powered by artificial intelligence,” current and former US and Israeli intelligence officials told the newspaper.
Some US officials described Israel’s demand for more intelligence as “insatiable.”
However, given Israel’s regular targeting of civilians and repeated claims that there are no “innocent” Palestinians in Gaza, including children, this raises questions about how the intelligence is being used.
Israel has killed over 37,000 Palestinians in its horrific eight-month bombing campaign while turning huge sections of Gaza into a “moonscape.”
The Post reports that some US lawmakers worry that the intelligence provided by the US is making its way into data repositories that Israeli forces use to conduct airstrikes or other military operations and that there are no effective means of monitoring how the information is used.
The White House claims it has forbidden Israel from using any US-supplied intelligence to target regular Hamas fighters in military operations. The intelligence is only to be used for locating the captives held by Hamas and targeting the top leadership of the group, including Yahya Sinwar and Mohammad Deif.
However, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said last month that the intelligence is “not tied or conditioned on anything else,” and Israel killed 247 Palestinians during an operation to rescue four captives last week that relied in part on US intelligence.
The Post adds that “practically speaking, Israel is on its honor not to use US-supplied intelligence for proscribed purposes,” current and former US officials familiar with the intelligence-sharing relationship said.
US Congress member Jason Crow, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, has questioned how White House officials can be sure that Israel is not using the intelligence it receives as part of its bombing campaign in Gaza, which has killed tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians and is widely viewed as genocide by the international community.
Crow, an Army combat veteran, co-authored legislation enacted last year requiring the director of national intelligence to notify Congress if intelligence that the US provides another country results in civilian casualties.
“Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu is pursuing a failed strategy in Gaza. The terrible civilian toll, famine, and lack of a coherent strategy are deeply concerning,” Crow said in a statement to the Post. “I will continue to conduct robust oversight to ensure intelligence sharing is in line with US interests."
https://thecradle.co/articles/washingto ... -civilians
US lawmakers block funding for Gaza reconstruction
Despite global outrage over Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, the US Congress has doubled down on support for Washington’s ‘best ally’
News Desk
JUN 13, 2024
(Photo Credit: AFP)
The US House of Representatives on 12 June approved an amendment to the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act that prevents the Pentagon from allocating any of its ballooning budget for reconstruction efforts in Gaza.
“None of the funds authorized to be appropriated by this Act or otherwise made available to the Secretary of Defense for fiscal year 2025 may be made available to build in or rebuild the Gaza Strip on or after the date of the enactment of this Act,” the amendment reads.
The provision was introduced by Republican lawmakers Brian Mast, Claudia Tenney, and Eli Crane. Although House Democrats opposed the amendment, they did not request a recorded vote and allowed it to pass by a simple voice vote.
“[The Palestinians] are absolutely at war with one of our major and best allies anywhere across the globe,” Mast said during Wednesday’s session, adding that it is “nonsensical” to suggest the US should spend a fraction of its nearly $1 trillion defense budget on rebuilding a place that has been razed to the ground by US-made weapons and with direct support from the Pentagon.
“The House advancing anti-Palestinian amendments into legislation at this stage reaffirms that many in Congress do not value the lives of their Palestinian constituents,” Mohammed Khader, a policy manager at US Campaign for Palestinian Rights Action, told reporters.
“Blocking funds to rebuild Gaza while actively providing taxpayer dollars, weapons, and intelligence to destroy Gaza and Palestinian society reaffirms that lawmakers intend for the US to be an active participant in Israel’s atrocities,” he added.
Since the start of Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, the US has delivered hundreds of arms shipments to the country and has provided persistent political cover for Israeli authorities.
US lawmakers have gone as far as to threaten sanctioning officials from the International Criminal Court (ICC) and cutting funding for UN agencies due to their support for an end to the genocide of Palestinians.
https://thecradle.co/articles/us-lawmak ... nstruction
Israeli warplanes kill civilians in south Lebanon as Hezbollah intensifies attacks
Earlier this week, Hezbollah launched its largest attacks on Israel since the start of the war after Israel killed a top Hezbollah commander
News Desk
JUN 14, 2024
Two men stand by a truck as they watch smoke plumes rising from a fire in a field after rockets launched from southern Lebanon landed near Katzrin in the Golan Heights on June 13, 2024. (Photo credit: Jalaa MAREY / AFP)
A powerful Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon overnight killed two women, including a medic, and injured at least twenty more, L'Orient Today reported on 14 June.
The strike resulted in the most casualties of any Israeli attack since the start of the war on 8 October.
Israeli warplanes fired missiles, destroying a three-story house and damaging nearby buildings located between the towns of Jannata and Deir Qanoun al-Nahr near the coastal city of Tyre (Sur).
The female victims were Sally Salaiki, who worked as a paramedic with the Amal Movement, and Dalal Ezzedine. The twenty injured included children and infants, who were taken to hospitals in Tyre for treatment.
L'Orient Today adds that Deir Qanoun is the home village of Hashem Safieddine, the chair of Hezbollah's Executive Council and cousin of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
A spokesperson from Hezbollah dismissed rumors that Safieddine and other officials from the resistance had been killed in the strike.
Rescue teams are still working to clear the debris and search for more victims under the rubble. Videos circulating online show piles of rubble and large fires caused by the strikes.
The overnight strike comes amid a broader escalation of the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel this week.
In an airstrike on Tuesday, the Israeli army assassinated Talib Abdallah, the highest-ranking Hezbollah official killed since the start of the war.
In response, Hezbollah fired hundreds of rockets and missiles at multiple Israeli military bases and critical positions on Wednesday. On Thursday, Hezbollah launched missile attacks against nine Israeli army sites simultaneously, the largest rocket attack of this kind since October.
Hezbollah's attacks from Lebanon have become increasingly more precise over recent months after the resistance managed to take out more than 1,500 Israeli intelligence posts and devices.
Israeli analysts have determined that launching a wide-scale attack against Lebanon would prompt Hezbollah to fire thousands of rockets and precision missiles at Israel per day, which they predict would collapse its air defense systems and cause major destruction in Israel's cities.
But many in Israel's political and defense establishment continue calling for a full ground invasion of Lebanon and the bombing of its capital, Beirut.
On 5 June, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called to expand the war in Gaza and invade southern Lebanon during Jerusalem Day speeches.
Leading the crowd in a chant of “victory,” Ben Gvir said that Israel would only win after it “enters all of Gaza and fights until victory.”
“And for victory, we need to go into the north and fight Hezbollah and destroy them,” he shouted to the crowd.
On 12 June, Hebrew daily Walla reported that senior US officials expressed concern that Israel plans to make a “proactive move” against the Lebanese resistance on its northern front and spark a full-blown war “without a clear strategy.”
“The US fears that Israel will make a proactive move that will lead to a war with Hezbollah or will be dragged into such a war without a clear strategy and without thinking a few steps ahead about the consequences of such a scenario,” Israeli journalist Barak Ravid quotes the unnamed US officials as saying.
https://thecradle.co/articles/israeli-w ... es-attacks
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Aggravation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict zone
June 14, 2024
Rybar
In the north of the Gaza Strip, Israeli troops also attacked the capital of the enclave. The hits occurred in the Az-Zeitun region , located in the south of Gaza . Sporadic clashes also continue between IDF units and members of Palestinian militias.
In the south of the Gaza Strip, according to preliminary information, the IDF has begun activities to complete the ground operation in Rafah . The situation in the coastal area of Al-Mawasi remains unclear : after violent clashes days earlier, fighting has virtually ceased.
Along the Lebanese-Israeli border, large Hezbollah rocket salvoes continue to be launched into northern Israel. About 40 missiles were launched in the direction of the Upper Galilee regions. And last night the Israel Defense Forces bombed the southern part of Lebanon .
In the Red Sea region, the Yemeni Houthis attacked three merchant ships with cruise and anti-ship ballistic missiles, managing to document one of them. And Iranian proxies from Iraq again reported launching kamikaze drones against Israel.
https://rybar.ru/obostrenie-v-zone-izra ... flikta-13/
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Operation Prosperity Guardian failed
June 14, 17:17
Against the backdrop of regular Houthi attacks on various merchant ships in the Red Sea (with the help of drones, missiles and BECs), the United States mournfully announced that “Operation Guardian of Prosperity, which was supposed to force the Houthis to stop attacks on ships associated with Israel, has failed.”
In fact.
1. The attacks not only did not stop, but intensified. Their performance is increasing.
2. The Houthis’ attack tools are steadily expanding - they started with drones, moved on to missiles of various types, and now BECs are being actively introduced.
3. The range of Houthi attacks has extended to the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. The risk zone is increasing, which is already affecting the routes of merchant ships.
4. The US AUG was forced to retreat from the shores of Yemen after direct attacks on it. The United States and Britain are making efforts to conceal the possible consequences of attacks on warships off the coast of Yemen.
5. Traffic of ships connected to the USA, Britain and Israel through the Suez Canal is steadily declining. Promises to protect them with warships do not reduce risks.
6. Israel's economy is suffering billions of dollars in systemic damage due to the knock-on effects of Houthi attacks, which have forced many shipowners to send ships through the Cape of Good Hope rather than through the Suez Canal.
7. The Houthis, in fact, right during Operation Guardian of Prosperity, established a permitting regime for passage off the coast of Yemen, which is carried out by some shipowners who publicly indicate that they have no relations with Israel.
8. Frightened by the actions of the Houthis, some countries in the region dependent on the United States actually refused to support direct US attacks on the Houthis, fearing that the Houthis’ missile strikes in response would be very painful.
9. US attempts to reach an agreement with the Houthis diplomatically, with promises to lift some of the sanctions and remove the Houthis from the list of “terrorists,” failed, as the Houthis took a principled position in supporting Hamas and the Gaza Strip.
10. In general, the Houthis are successfully achieving strategic and tactical goals, while the United States and Britain are clearly failing - once again the United States cannot achieve anything worthwhile with conventional bombing in the Middle East. The blows of the American hammer get stuck in the sands of Iran's proxy strategy. Qassem Soleimani would be pleased with this development.
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9206541.html
Google Translator
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US Service Members to Congress: ‘Stop Genocide’
June 14, 2024
As Israel continues its genocide against the Palestinians, the number of active-duty U.S. conscientious objectors is increasing, writes Marjorie Cohn.
Protesters form “the people’s red line” around the White House to demand end of Gaza genocide on June 12, 2024. (Diane Krauthamer, Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
By Marjorie Cohn
Truthout
On June 4, a coalition of active-duty service members, veterans and G.I. rights groups launched a campaign called Appeal for Redress V2 to encourage military personnel to tell Congress to stop funding genocide in Gaza.
Israel’s genocidal operation, now in its ninth month, has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians and wounded nearly 85,000.
The campaign is sponsored by Veterans For Peace (VFP), the Military Law Task Force of the National Lawyers Guild, About Face: Veterans Against the War and the Center on Conscience & War. It is modeled after the 2006 Appeal for Redress issued during the occupation of Iraq.
During that campaign, almost 3,000 active-duty, Reserve and Guard personnel sent protected communications to their members of Congress urging an end to the wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Appeal for Redress V2 was formulated to help G.I.s directly tell their representatives that they oppose U.S. support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
“We will not stand by silently while genocide unfolds,” Senior Airman Juan Bettancourt, an active-duty member of the U.S. Air Force, stated at a June 4 press conference announcing the campaign. “We refuse to be complicit” in the “unspeakable carnage,” said Bettancourt, who is seeking separation from the U.S. military as a conscientious objector.
Kathleen Gilberd, executive director of the Military Law Task Force of the National Lawyers Guild and my coauthor for Rules of Disengagement: The Politics and Honor of Military Dissent, told Truthout there has been an increase in the number of applications for conscientious objection (CO) and other types of honorable discharge from the military.
“Many military personnel have serious objections to the U.S. support for Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians,” Gilberd said.
According to a June 3 statement from Bill Galvin, counseling director at the Center on Conscience and War, “Almost all of [the CO applicants] cite the carnage in Gaza as something that their conscience would not allow them to ignore. Some have expressed feeling complicit in the violence.”
Gilberd noted the significance of these protests, saying: “As in the Vietnam War, Iraq War and Afghanistan War, G.I. resistance is a powerful force for peace. The National Lawyers Guild’s Military Law Task Force and our allies stand in support of these military dissenters and resisters.”
Senior Airman Larry Hebert, who recently conducted a hunger strike in front of the White House in solidarity with the people of Gaza, noted at the press conference that, “Genocide didn’t start on October 7.” He added: “It’s been going on for 76 years. It’s time for it to come to an end.”
Hebert was referring to the 1947-48 Nakba, when 750,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from their land in the process of creating the state of Israel. Hebert said the groups sponsoring the Appeal for Redress are calling for a ceasefire, an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory and protection of the human rights of Palestinians and their right to self-determination.
Hebert stands outside of the White House with a sign explaining his hunger strike. (Veterans for Peace)
“I have been taught that honor and integrity are pivotal to being a soldier,” Army Sergeant Johnson said in the June 3 press release. “It hurts me to my core that the same country that instilled these values in me would proudly support a genocide.”
He added, “It is our duty as service members to uphold Geneva Conventions and international law. That is why I am pleading for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and for humanitarian aid to be distributed throughout the entire Gaza Strip.”
Will Hopkins, former executive director of Veterans For Peace, said at the press conference it was “absolutely unconscionable” that U.S. money has been used to kill more than 14,000 children in Gaza.
“The Appeal for Redress, initiated by military personnel, provides an important, protected way for service members to tell their members of Congress that they oppose the U.S.’s funding and support of Israel’s genocide in Gaza,” Gilberd told Truthout. “It is literally the tip of an iceberg of military dissent about the war and the U.S.’s role.” She cited the significance of individual, small, silent protests — in addition to bold and public acts of refusal.
Indeed, some of the speakers at the press conference honored the memory of Aaron Bushnell, an active-duty member of the U.S. Air Force who set himself on fire on Feb. 25 outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C. to protest Israel’s genocide and U.S. complicity in it. He live-streamed the act, stating, “I will no longer be complicit in genocide” before he lit himself on fire, repeatedly yelling “Free Palestine!” as the flames engulfed him.
Remembering Aaron Bushnell sign at a Pro-Palestine demonstration on April 21, 2024, in Marseille, France. (AN2303, Wikimedia Commons, CC0)
Major Harrison Mann, a Jewish officer who worked for the Defense Intelligence Agency, recently resigned from the U.S. Army over what he called the United States’ “nearly unqualified support for the government of Israel,” which he says has “enabled and empowered the killing and starvation of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians.”
Mann went public with his resignation in May after the State Department issued a report concluding it was “reasonable to assess” that Israel had used U.S. weapons in ways “inconsistent” with international law. Shortly after that report was published, the Biden administration decided to send Israel $1 billion more in weapons and ammunition.
The Appeal for Redress
“We know many young people join the military out of necessity to get their needs met. But they are not obligated to contribute to genocide and unjust, unlawful wars that go against their conscience,” said Shiloh Emelein, U.S. Marine Corps veteran and operations director of About Face: Veterans Against the War, in the Appeal’s June 3 press release. “You do have rights, you do have options to object, and there’s a large community of post-9/11 veterans ready to welcome you.”
The Appeal for Redress employs the language of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which says,
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” (emphasis added).
“Though their rights are somewhat limited by military law, service members can still speak out about their beliefs and protest the travesty of this war,” Gilberd said. Department of Defense Instruction 1325.06 protects the First Amendment rights to free speech and protests.
Moreover, a federal statute, 10 U.S. Code § 1034, says, “No person may restrict a member of the armed forces in communicating with a Member of Congress or an Inspector General.”
Bill Galvin said at the press conference that military personnel have the right to be politically engaged as long as they’re off duty, off base and out of uniform and make clear they’re not speaking on behalf of the military. They can’t show disrespect to the chain of command, including the commander-in-chief.
The Appeal for Redress warns service members that they could face illegal retaliation by their command; the letter could be used against them in a court-martial for civil disobedience; and they could be punished if they reveal classified information without permission, make threats, use “contemptuous words” about chain of command (including the president) or make “disloyal” statements.
This courageous effort by service members and veterans follows in a long tradition of dissent in the U.S. military, from Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan. The G.I. movement during the Vietnam War was integral to ending that war.
Weapons to Israel Violates U.S. Statutes
Following an Israeli airstrike, Palestinians transport the injured to the Indonesian Hospital in Jabalia, north of the Gaza Strip on Oct. 9, 2023. (Wafa in contract with a local company, APAimages)
These active-duty service members oppose U.S. funding of Israel’s genocide both because it’s immoral and because U.S. government employees are violating several federal statutes when weapons are shipped to Israel.
In a Feb. 11 letter to the U.S. State Department, Veterans For Peace urgently demanded that the State Department “immediately suspend ongoing shipments of military weapons and munitions” from the U.S. to Israel. VFP also demanded “that the consideration of approvals of prospective shipments be terminated immediately.”
The VFP letter cited violations of the Foreign Assistance Act, Arms Export Control Act, Leahy Laws, Conventional Arms Transfer Policy, U.S. War Crimes Act and the Genocide Convention Implementation Act.
Those laws prohibit the transfer of weapons and munitions when there is credible evidence that the arms will be used by the country to commit, or aggravate the risk that the country will commit, war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, and other serious violations of international humanitarian law or international human rights law.
The letter quoted the sworn declaration of Josh Paul that was filed in the Defense for Children International–Palestine v. Biden lawsuit in which Palestinians sued President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Lloyd Austin for failure to prevent genocide and complicity in genocide.
Paul served as director of congressional and public affairs in the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs before resigning in October 2023 in protest of U.S. arms transfers to Israel.
Josh Paul resigned from the State Dept over sending arms to Israel. “I have heard from actually so many hundreds of colleagues at this point who support what I did,” he says. “They are finding what is happening both a moral disaster and a policy disaster for the United States.” pic.twitter.com/1M07cxeAwG
— Christiane Amanpour (@amanpour) December 4, 2023
“I believe it is clear that the U.S. government is failing not only to execute the due diligence required under existing U.S. laws, but is actively creating and utilizing processes that help insulate Israel from accountability or sanctions in accordance with existing U.S. laws and policies,” Paul wrote in his declaration in the lawsuit.
“The failure to execute meaningful due diligence or adequately apply existing U.S. laws permits the unfettered flow of military assistance to Israel forces with minimal oversight that leads to unnecessary civilian harm, gross violations of human rights, and impunity for violations of international law.”
Meanwhile, on June 6, Israeli airstrikes on a United Nations-run school in central Gaza killed at least 40 people with explosive weapons provided by the United States. The school was sheltering about 6,000 displaced Palestinians, UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini said.
And on June 8, Israeli occupying forces, with U.S. support, killed at least 274 people, including dozens of children, and injured nearly 700 in a raid to rescue four hostages held by Hamas.
The same day, tens of thousands of people demonstrated at the White House in Washington, D.C., to protest the use of U.S. weapons and diplomatic support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
The organizers of the Appeal for Redress encourage civilian supporters to share the appeal with their networks so that it reaches a larger number of service members.
Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, and a member of the national advisory boards of Assange Defense and Veterans For Peace, and the bureau of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. She is founding dean of the People’s Academy of International Law and the U.S. representative to the continental advisory council of the Association of American Jurists. Her books include Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral and Geopolitical Issues. She is co-host of “Law and Disorder” Radio.
This article is from Truthout and reprinted with permission.
https://consortiumnews.com/2024/06/14/u ... -genocide/
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Hezbollah Military Media released a video clip showing vital Israeli targets. In the video: Ben Gurion Airport, Haifa, Hadera Port and Ashdod Port. pic.twitter.com/4AoyBThH0N
