Since 1945, the US has issued 34 vetos against any UNSC draft resolutions critical of Israel or calling for Palestinian statehood
News Desk
APR 17, 2024
(Photo Credit: AP)
The US is actively working to prevent a draft resolution supporting the granting of full membership in the UN Security Council (UNSC) for Palestine, Sky News Arabia reports on 17 April.
“Washington is pressing the Arab Group to withdraw the draft resolution to accept Palestine as a full member of the United Nations scheduled to be voted on tomorrow, Thursday,” a Palestinian official told Sky News Arabia.
The source also added that the US threatened to veto the draft resolution if it was put to a vote.
However, the source told the news channel that “the Palestinian decision and the Arab group is not to withdraw the decision and put it to a vote on it despite the threat of the American veto.”
This comes after the US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said that Palestine becoming a full UN member would not lead to a “two-state” solution.
Thomas-Greenfield made her comments during a news conference in Seoul, South Korea, when she was asked whether the US was willing to recognize the Palestinian Authority’s request for full UN membership.
“We do not see that doing a resolution in the Security Council will necessarily get us to a place where we can find... a two-state solution moving forward,” Thomas-Greenfield said.
The US diplomat added that US President Joe Biden said that Washington supports a two-state solution and was actively working to implement it as soon as possible.
A draft proposed by Algeria on behalf of the Arab Group to the UN Security Council (UNSC) recommending Palestine’s admission to the UN is set to be voted on this Thursday.
The Arab Group at the UN issued a statement on 16 April affirming the bloc’s “unwavering support for the State of Palestine’s application for full membership.”
“Membership in the United Nations is a crucial step in the right direction towards a just and lasting resolution of the Palestinian question in line with international law and relevant UN resolutions,” the statement read.
The bloc’s statement added, “It is high time that the Palestinian people are fully empowered to exercise all their legitimate rights on the global stage as an important step towards promoting the rights of the Palestinian people … The denial of Palestine’s rightful place among the community of nations has gone on for far too long.”
The US has been using its power among the UNSC members to prolong the ethnic cleansing of Palestine throughout the years, issuing multiple vetos against resolutions critical of Israel or calling for Palestinian statehood throughout the history of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
Since 1945, 36 UNSC draft resolutions related to Israel and Palestine have been vetoed, and 34 of those vetoes were at the hands of the US.
Following multiple UNSC ceasefire draft resolutions since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza in October, one was finally passed on 25 March after the US abstained from the vote.
From the ‘Battle of Dignity’ to the shield of shame: How Jordan has fallen
Amman's collaboration with Tel Aviv peaked last Saturday with its shocking defense of Israeli territory from Iranian drones and missiles, a move that may prove fateful for the future of the Hashemite Kingdom.
Khalil Harb
APR 16, 2024
(Photo Credit: The Cradle)
The most dangerous development during Iran’s massive 13 April retaliatory strike against Israel last weekend was the defensive military alliance – comprising the US, Britain, Jordan, and France – that coalesced to defend the occupation state.
Jordan has jumped to Israel’s full defense at a time when Arabs have never been more collectively outraged by its crimes.
Particularly notable was Jordan’s role in thwarting Iran’s incoming drones and missiles. The Hashemite Kingdom was the only Arab or Muslim state to act as Israel’s “firewall,” providing direct military protection for Tel Aviv within a multilateral, regional military framework.
Despite Amman’s long-standing pro-Israel stance, this sudden reassertion of its position is indicative of some broader shifts in military strategies across West Asia.
Patterns and calculations of confrontations across West Asia will be readjusted to adapt to this new equation and others that have emerged in the region as alliances shift to and away from the west.
That includes the Axis of Resistance, which will likely reassess the expected range of responses in a future confrontation, given that western anti-missile capabilities are well spread throughout strategic locations – strategic sites from the Ain al-Assad base in Anbar, Iraq, to the Al-Tanf base at the Syrian–Jordanian–Iraqi border and from the Mashabim base in the Negev desert to the King Faisal base in northwestern Jordan.
Strategic shifts
Over the years, the Jordanian government has dramatically shrunk its commitments to the Palestinian cause and “Arabism.”
This can be traced from its 1968 “Battle of Dignity” against Israel to 5 November, when King Abdullah II boasted of his country’s “success” in airdropping medical aid to the Jordanian field hospital in the Gaza Strip, and now, quite stunningly, employing its air force to protect Israel’s security from retaliatory Iranian strikes.
This shift is not merely a reactionary measure but the culmination of years of extensive security and military coordination with the occupation state, as highlighted by a Jordanian opposition activist speaking to The Cradle. This deep-seated integration into anti-missile and drone operations reflects a strategic evolution rather than a spontaneous response.
Eyewitness reports from multiple sources to The Cradle describe the audible presence of warplanes over the Amman region, followed by the sound of explosions hours later when overhead projectiles were intercepted and downed.
One Jordanian witness relays that the suburb of Marj al-Hamam saw the most interceptions against Iranian drones and missiles, with debris reported across the area.
Jordanian writer and journalist Rania Jabari informs The Cradle that “citizens in Jordan have felt jammed on the GPS for about two weeks,” that is, since after the Israeli airstrike on Iran’s consulate in Damascus.
Amid rising concerns about a swift Iranian counterattack through drone incursions, Israel reportedly initiated GPS jamming operations across several regional countries, including Jordan.
Jabari suggests that this electronic interference might have precipitated the Jordanian Air Force’s readiness to intercept any unauthorized aerial objects in its airspace, given the potential risks to national security from mistakenly guiding Iranian drones into Jordanian territory.
However, the Jordanian opposition activist casts doubt on the capability of Jordan’s Air Force – equipped with only about 60 older F-16 and F-5 aircraft – to single-handedly manage the response against hundreds of Iranian drones and missiles destined for Israel.
Regional repercussions
Supporting these suspicions, Israeli Channel 12 reported that Israeli fighter jets had intercepted drones launched by Iran in the airspace of Jordan and Syria.
The day after the Iranian Operation True Promise, the Jordanian government issued a vague statement, only saying that “some unidentified flying objects that entered our airspace last night were dealt with and intercepted to prevent endangering the safety of our citizens and inhabited areas.”
The statement conspicuously omitted any mention of the scale of involvement of the Israeli Air Force or the nature and role of US fighter jets participating in the operation.
Given the limitations of Jordan’s aerial fleet and the extensive geographic area these planes need to cover – a “firewall” stretching approximately 1,500 kilometers from western Iran to the occupied territories of Palestine – the involvement of international forces seems credible.
Additionally, Iraqi sources inform The Cradle that coalition forces had shot down about 30 drones and missiles over Iraq, with explosions heard in regions like Erbil, Najaf, Wasit, and Anbar. This indicates that a significant number of the drones and missiles traversed Jordanian skies, where they were intercepted before reaching their intended targets in Israel.
The role of the Jordanian Air Force is so significant that the Iranian Mehr news agency quoted an Iranian military source as saying, “Iran will monitor Jordanian movements, and if they cooperate with Israel, Jordan will be our next target.”
The source is said to have “warned Jordan and other countries in the region before the start of the attack against cooperating with the occupying entity.”
This statement seems to have aroused the ire of the Jordanian government. On Sunday, authorities summoned the Iranian ambassador in Amman to warn against Tehran’s “questioning of Jordan’s position.”
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi also issued a statement saying that his government would “intercept any drone or missile that breaches our airspace, whether Iranian or Israeli.”
However, the Jordanian oppositionist questions the accuracy of Safadi’s statement, especially about his country’s readiness to confront a similar threat coming from Tel Aviv, noting numerous occasions when Israeli fighter jets infiltrated Jordanian airspace to carry out raids on Syria.
A history of betraying Palestine
Jordan’s historical antagonism towards Palestinian resistance dates back to the “Black September” massacres of 1970, aimed at expelling the PLO from the country – allegedly with the support of former King Hussein bin Talal, who reportedly received backing from Israel and the US.
During the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel’s Air Force shot down and destroyed dozens of Jordanian aircraft. Following the 1994 Amman–Tel Aviv peace agreement, the two states have struck multiple defense deals, including Israel supplying Jordan with F-16 jets and Cobra helicopters.
Since the 1970s, when Israel supported Jordan during the Palestinian revolt against King Hussein, the two air forces have not engaged in combat. Israeli belligerence persists despite this. On the eve of the 1991 Gulf War, when asked about potential opposition from the Jordanian Air Force should Israel strike Iraq, then-retired Air Force Commander Avihu Ben-Nun boldly stated, “There would be no more Jordanian Air Force.”
It is very likely, moreover, that the western militaries involved in Israel’s defense last weekend utilized Jordanian bases. For example, US troops are stationed at the Mashabim air base in the Negev desert, supporting operations like the Iron Dome system.
Similarly, UK and French military forces are present at multiple strategic locations within Jordan, including the King Faisal Air Base in Al-Jafr and the Humaymah base near Aqaba, where they play roles in regional defense and run intelligence operations.
There are also French troops at King Faisal Air Base, known as Al-Ruwaished Base, which is close to Al-Tanf. From this base, activities involving espionage operations in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Iran are carried out through a state-of-the-art reconnaissance center, and its airport is believed to be used by both Israeli and US drones.
Sacrificing Jordan’s stability for Israel’s security
But Jordan’s relations and collaboration with Tel Aviv remain deeply unpopular among the country’s citizenry, with protestors amassing for weeks near the Israeli embassy in Amman – many of them subsequently subjected to repression and tight security restrictions by Jordanian authorities.
Adding to the pressure on Amman, the Iraqi resistance faction, Kataib Hezbollah, announced earlier this month its readiness to arm “12,000 fighters with light and medium weapons, anti-armor launchers, tactical missiles, millions of bullets and tons of explosives, so that we can be united to defend our Palestinian brothers,” adding that it would seek to “cut off the [Jordan] land route that reaches the Zionist entity.”
By participating in the interception of Iranian drones, Jordan has made a significant contribution to alleviating some pressure off Israel, but one that comes with a much more significant domestic consequence for the stability of the kingdom.
Will Amman’s blatant alignment with Tel Aviv in this context prove to be politically detrimental for its monarch? In years to come, this decision may be viewed as a strategic error of gargantuan proportions. For now, Jordan’s political future and its position in regional politics remain uncertain – certainly as Tel Aviv and Tehran gear up for further confrontations.
King Abdallah can jump into the fray as he did last weekend and suffer through further waves of domestic and Arab outrage, or he can resolve to stay neutral and quiet – as many larger, more powerful neighbors chose to do – and let Iranians and Israelis adversaries fight their own battles.
The point made in the opening paragraph is ignored or minimalized by pro-Palestinian commentators and is well worth considering.
Expert disputes ‘crazy’ claim that Israel downed 99 percent of Iranian projectiles
Analyst Or Fialkov said falsifying numbers creates inaccurate perceptions among the army and people in Israel
News Desk
APR 17, 2024
(Photo credit: Iranian Army via AP)
Israeli military expert Or Fialkov said on 17 April that authorities gave false information about the rate of interception of Iranian drones and missiles during Tehran’s operation against Israel over the weekend.
Israel had claimed on 14 April following Iran’s Operation True Promise that 99 percent of the projectiles fired during the operation were intercepted.
“The interception percentage of the missiles is about 84 percent, a very high percentage but not comparable to the numbers that the IDF provided, which gave the feeling that there had been an absolute interception of all Iranian threats,” Fialkov told Hebrew newspaper Maariv in an interview released Wednesday.
“When they publish crazy success rates (99 percent) and create a [false] state of perfection, it can cause complacency in the citizens as well as in the military,” the Israeli researcher added.
He also said that an Iranian attack on settlements would have resulted in “significantly higher casualties.”
Iran chose to target military sites instead. Following the Iranian operation, Tel Aviv admitted that the Nevatim airbase in southern Israel was damaged in the attack. Iran’s Armed Forces said the Nevatim base was the site from which Israeli jets took off to attack the Iranian consulate in Damascus.
Tehran also targeted intelligence sites in the Jabal al-Sheikh mountains between Syria and Israeli territory, which “provided the intelligence for the Israeli airstrike on Iran’s diplomatic mission in Damascus,” Iranian army chief Major General Mohammad Hossein Baqeri said on Sunday.
Authorities in Iran also said that their operation was purposefully limited and measured, and aimed to send a strong message that Tehran is capable of much more.
Several Iranian officials have vowed a much harsher attack if Israel escalates the situation with a response.
"This operation showed that our armed forces are ready," Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said in a speech on 17 April, adding that Operation True Promise “brought down the glory of the Zionist regime.”
"The slightest act of aggression" by Israel will lead to "a fierce and severe response," he warned.
Iran’s recent military strikes have exposed weaknesses in Israel’s ‘advanced’ air defense systems, overturning assumptions of their invulnerability while showcasing Tehran’s strategic pivot from ‘patience’ to ‘active deterrence.’
Shivan Mahendrarajah
APR 17, 2024
(Photo Credit: The Cradle)
In the movie The Untouchables, there’s a scene where a member of the so-called “untouchables” federal investigative team is killed inside an elevator. The assassins leave a chilling message written in blood: “Touchable.”
This scene essentially mirrors a statement made by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force (IRGC/A) on 13–14 April, demonstrating that even well-guarded air defenses, like those of Israel and similar systems used by the US in the Persian Gulf, are, in fact, vulnerable.
Until now, the concept of “strategic patience” practiced by the Islamic Republic was often dismissed by its adversaries as mere rhetoric. However, Iran’s recent shift from passive to active deterrence showcases a strategic evolution that needs some context.
Strategic Patience and Grand Strategy
Tehran’s foreign policies today are underpinned by what is termed “political rationality,” a move away from the ideology-driven policies of the past. From this rationality, a comprehensive grand strategy emerges, utilizing all facets of state power – diplomatic, technological, industrial, economic, and military – to achieve Iran’s supreme political objectives.
This multifaceted grand strategy is shaped by several significant historical events that left an indelible mark on Tehran’s calculations. Firstly, the traumatic Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988) – commonly referred to in Iran as the “Imposed War” – that left deep scars from the sheer scale of brutality, including Iraq’s use of chemical weapons and the extensive urban and trench warfare that devastated both populations. Secondly, the post-2002 geopolitical scene defined by former US President George W. Bush’s “Axis of Evil” speech and subsequent aggressive postures towards Iran by US officials, which often portrayed the country as the foremost malign actor threatening global security.
The Iranians were existentially motivated to ‘never again’ endure the kind of vulnerability they experienced during the Iran–Iraq war. They resolved to achieve this on both military and strategic fronts. Step one was to develop a domestic armaments industry so that in the future, Iran could fight alone. Impressively, within a few decades, the country’s remarkable drone and missile programs were fully operational and stocked.
Strategically, Iran has aimed to keep conflicts away from its borders, adopting an “area denial” strategy, or what some would call establishing “strategic depth.” This strategy focused heavily on diplomacy and trade, soft power tools to engage positively with direct and far neighbors alike.
Strategic depth was also achieved in tandem with Iran’s military production goals, developing capabilities to neutralize threats at a distance, effectively denying enemy access within a 2,000-kilometer radius from central Iran through a combination of missiles, drones, electronic warfare, and air defenses.
The objective is to preemptively strike potential threats in the Red Sea and the eastern Mediterranean, deterring enemies before they can pose a direct threat to Iranian soil.
‘We’re ready now’
Iran’s IRGC, however, required considerable time to develop, test, and amass the desired stockpile of drones, missiles, and bombs within their subterranean ‘missile cities’ spread throughout Iran. The period of “strategic patience” in these past few decades was, therefore, crucial for Tehran, particularly in the Bush years.
But on 1 April 2024, the fruits of this preparation period became visible after Israel effectively declared war on Iran by targeting its consulate in Damascus.
In a recent post on X, Mahdi Mohammadi, a prominent Iranian defense official, stated: “For any rational actor, there is a point where cost-benefit calculations suddenly change, and strategies are re-written from scratch. For Iran, the Damascus attack was that point.”
In effect, Tehran was able to shift gears from “strategic patience” to “active deterrence” because the IRGC was finally ready.
Reconnaissance-in-force
Reports on drone and missile types launched by the IRGC are contradictory. Claims that hundreds of drones and missiles were launched are likely exaggerated. For Iran’s military objectives that night, employing “hundreds” of projectiles was simply unnecessary.
What is true is that the venerable Shahed-136 “suicide” drone was used, alongside possibly four medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) models, in addition to the Paveh cruise missile. The targets, in order of importance, were as follows:
First was the Mount Hermon intelligence base in the occupied Golan Heights (33°19’00.3” N 35°48’ 22.6” E), which was struck by Paveh missiles – but given its desolate location, no images are available online.
Second was the Ramon Airbase (30°46’ 06.6” N 34°40’ 24.0” E). Given that it was a clear night, there is independent photographic and video evidence captured from different angles of manifold IRGC/A missiles striking the site.
Thirdly, the Nevatim Airbase (31°11’ 37.3” N 35°01’18.7” E), which Israel’s military admits sustained minor damage and has published some satellite imagery.
The IRGC/A raid, despite striking three pre-determined targets, was principally a reconnaissance-in-force (RIF), which is essentially a military tactic employed by an adversary to acquire intelligence using considerable – but not decisive – force.
Iran’s aerial raid compelled the Israelis to reveal both its strengths and weaknesses, which happens when air defense (AD) systems ‘light up’ their electronic sensors, activate electronic warfare (to jam or spoof missiles and drones), and launch interceptor missiles to down incoming targets.
It is common for Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV, or drones) to follow attack drones – while remaining at a distance – to monitor the battlefield and capture film, photographs, and electronic intelligence. If this was done, and ISR drones captured data despite intensive jamming efforts by the Israelis, it would allow the IRGC/A to develop a detailed map of Israeli air defense locations for future strikes.
Nonetheless, IRGC/A evidently had sound information on Israeli air defense capabilities and systems. Despite Israel and its allies (US, UK, France, and Jordan) already being on high alert that night, and rapid intelligence provided by reportedly Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the Iranian missiles successfully missiles struck all targets at Mount Hermon, Ramon, and Nevatim.
Israel’s defenses laid bare
The Israeli military has an integrated air defense system that includes the Iron Dome, Arrow, David’s Sling, Patriot, and more. This system is supplied with data from an advanced US radar system in Har Qeren, in the Negev Desert.
Its mission, as former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter explained on X: “is to detect Iranian missile launches, and pass targeting data to Israeli Arrow and David’s Sling and US THAAD ABM batteries deployed to protect sensitive Israeli sites, including Dimona and the Nevatim and Ramon air bases.”
It is clear that Israel’s highly advanced system failed to protect Nevatim and Ramon. The latter is one of Israel’s largest air bases, and home to the top-line F-35l Adir fighter jets, stealth fighters, transport and tanker and recon aircraft, and Israel’s Air Force One, reserved for the country’s two top political leaders.
As such, Nevatim is defended by the world’s most advanced integrated anti-missile defense shield, specifically designed to protect against the Iranian missile threat.
The IRGC/A employed a strategic mix of drones as ‘bait’ and missiles with built-in countermeasures such as decoys and chaff to penetrate Israel’s air defense.
Despite the use of older MRBM models like Ghadr, Emad, and Dezful, alongside one of its newest and most advanced missiles, the Kheibar Shekan – and despite the limited number of missiles launched (reasonably approximated at 30–40 projectiles) – the majority of Iran’s missiles successfully reached their intended targets.
This occurred even as Israel and its allies launched hundreds of interceptors – at an estimated cost of $1.1 to $1.3 billion over the span of a few hours. But cost is the least of Tel Aviv’s problems: availability of replacement interceptors is, and will always remain, its chief concern.
This situation parallels challenges faced by Ukraine, which has depleted its air defense interceptors. A sustained campaign of raids by IRGC/A could similarly exhaust Israeli interceptor stocks, particularly if the US needs to conserve its own reserves.
US bases are on notice
The success of Iran’s Truthful Promise operation was partly due to Israel’s heightened alert, set into motion by Iran’s clever 72-hour warning to neighboring countries. Notably, members of the Axis of Resistance, like Yemen’s Ansarallah and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, did not participate in the attack, which was a strategic Iranian initiative as indicated by Leader Ali Khamenei’s statements that Israel “will be punished by our courageous men.”
Looking forward, the post-13 April implications for regional security are profound. If additional allied forces within the Axis of Resistance were to coordinate with IRGC/A in a prolonged offensive, the strain on Israel’s air defense system could be overwhelming.
If we think of Israel’s air defense coverage as a thick blanket that was penetrated by IRGC/A, then air defense coverage for US bases in Syria, Iraq, and the Persian Gulf states is a thin and tatty blanket. Any potential direct US conflict with Iran could expose US bases to severe attacks, with the possibility of these military sites being overrun and American troops being at great risk.
‘Touchable’ is Iran’s message
Iran’s aerial operation last weekend sent a clear message about the penetrability of sophisticated air defense systems, leading to significant concern among Israeli and US intelligence and military professionals.
The IRGC/A struck very precisely – and even had fun with IDF – when they dropped warheads into the officers’ swimming pool and recreation center at Nevatim. The message being: if you don’t dial back, we can do serious damage.
Whether this will translate into a strategic reassessment and earnest push towards de-escalation remains uncertain, despite the tactical ingenuity displayed by IRGC/A, which one American analyst described as a ‘masterpiece.’
Blinken shelves special request to probe Israeli war crimes: Report
Many of the crimes listed by the special State Department panel include Israeli torture, rape, and executions of Palestinians
News Desk
APR 18, 2024
(Photo credit: Reuters).
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has failed to act on a State Department proposal to bar certain Israeli police and army units from receiving US funds over human rights abuses of Palestinians.
Blinken has disregarded this despite the growing concern over Israeli army conduct in Gaza, according to current and former State Department officials.
A special panel at the State Department made the proposal months ago. Recommendations for action against Israeli units were sent to Blinken in December but have “been sitting in his briefcase since then,” one official told ProPublica on 17 April.
The Israeli rights abuses in question mainly took place in the occupied West Bank before Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on 7 October. They include the execution of Palestinians by Israeli border police, as well as torture and rape during interrogation.
“This process is one that demands a careful and full review … and the department undergoes a fact-specific investigation applying the same standards and procedures regardless of the country in question,” ProPublica cites a State Department spokesman as saying.
“Blinken’s inaction has undermined Biden’s public criticism [of Israel], sending a message to the Israelis that the administration was not willing to take serious steps,” according to several officials at the department who have worked on Israeli relations.
US President Joe Biden has publicly expressed frustration with the unprecedented number of Palestinian civilians killed in the Gaza Strip. However, US funds and arms continue to fuel the Israeli war effort, and no formal effort has been made to investigate the growing number of documented war crimes committed by Israel against Palestinians in the strip.
On Tuesday, the Washington Post published an in-depth investigation detailing Israel’s role in the killing of a six-year-old and her family who were trapped in a car in northern Gaza. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Washington will ask Tel Aviv “for further information” on the matter.
The US has said it would look into several incidents, including late February’s Flour Massacre against dozens of starving and desperate aid seekers. Yet no US probe has been launched into the matter since an internal Israeli army investigation absolved Israel of blame, and Washington refused to condemn the killings.
The Guardian reported in January, citing interviews and State Department documents, that “special mechanisms have been used over the last few years to shield Israel from US human rights laws.”
The ProPublica report comes days after dozens of Palestinians detained by Israel in Gaza were released, with many giving testimonies of horrific treatment by Israeli forces, including humiliation and torture.
'Unparalleled' Israeli settlement expansion underway in East Jerusalem: Report
Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories violate international law, and their expansion has been described by UN officials as a 'war crime'
News Desk
APR 17, 2024
(Photo Credit: REUTERS/Ammar Awad)
The Israeli government has dramatically accelerated the pace of expanding illegal settlements in occupied East Jerusalem since the start of its genocide in Gaza, according to planning documents reviewed by The Guardian, which detail that over 20 projects totaling thousands of housing units have been "approved or advanced."
“The fast-tracking of these plans has been unparalleled in the last six months … While many government bodies were shuttered or had limited operation following 7 October, the planning authorities continued to plow forward, advancing these plans at unprecedented speed,” Sari Kronish, from Israeli human rights group Bimkom – Planners for Planning Rights, told the British daily.
Israeli officials approved the construction of two new settlements following the events of 7 October, the first to be approved in occupied East Jerusalem in over 10 years.
Construction for many other settlement projects was also given the green light by the Jerusalem Development Authority, a statutory body that “promotes Jerusalem as a leading international city in the economic sector and in quality of life in the public domain.”
“Since the war, life goes on but they approved the plan and dismissed all our objections. We are appealing, but I’m not optimistic,” Ahmed Salman, chair of Beit Safafa’s community council, told The Guardian.
Beit Safafa is a Palestinian community in East Jerusalem that is now flanked by two illegal settlement projects.
Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem are illegal under international law, as the Fourth Geneva Convention stipulates: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”
Furthermore, UN Security Council resolution 2334 states that settlements have “no legal validity” and constitute “a flagrant violation under international law.”
Last month, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk called the expansion of illegal settlements by Israel a “war crime.”
"Settler violence and settlement-related violations have reached shocking new levels, and risk eliminating any practical possibility of establishing a viable Palestinian State," Turk said in a statement.
In February, the White House called the settlements "inconsistent" with international law.
The rapid settlement expansion is underway as violence has spiked across the occupied territories.
Over recent days, hundreds of settlers carried out pogroms in the occupied West Bank under the protection of the Israeli army and police, killing at least two Palestinians and destroying homes, vehicles, and agricultural land.
Health officials say over 460 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops and extremist settlers in the flashpoint region since October, as the country's national security ministry has issued thousands of gun permits and directly armed the settlers.
APRIL 18, 2024 BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR Israel grapples with its “Suez moment”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with newly drafted soldiers, Israel, April 16, 2024
The United States’ diplomatic initiative to issue a joint statement condemning Iran on its “Attack on the State of Israel” has ended in fiasco, as there were hardly any takers for it from outside of the western bloc of nations.
This is a crushing blow to American self-esteem. The unkindest cut of all is that Turkey, an important NATO power and a West Asian powerhouse, whom President Biden is personally wooing lately, refused to sign up on the joint statement.
The 8 defectors from the Global Majority who complied with the US diktat are two mavericks each from Latin America and the Eurasian region, South Korea and three Pacific island nations.
The entire Africa, West Asia, Central Asia, South Asia and the ASEAN region refused to associate with the US initiative! Of course, not a single Muslim country would touch the joint statement with a barge pole.
This tells a humiliating story of US isolation in the UN. The international community understands fully well the hypocrisy and the notorious doublespeak that characterises American diplomacy. In the emerging multipolar world, this awareness will inevitably translate as the propensity of the Global Majority to cherrypick.
The bottom line is that Iran did not attack Israel. Iran instead retaliated to a blatant attack by Israel against its sovereignty in violation of international law and the UN Charter, which was tantamount to an act of war.
More important, Iran’s retaliation was restricted to Israeli military targets that were involved in the Damascus attack on April 1 and was patently aimed at demonstrating its deterrent capability in future to discourage Israel from climbing the escalation ladder any further — and, all this while taking care to avoid civilian casualties.
Tehran publicised the raison d’être of its move against Israel and kept world powers informed about it much in advance, including, ironically, the Biden Administration with the full awareness that the US would alert Israel.
Therefore, the most charitable explanation that can be given to this idiotic move by the Biden Administration to drum up international condemnation of Iran is that President Biden’s tail is on fire in the campaign circuit in the US and is nowhere to be seen Iran punctures the Jewish state’s aura of invincibility anchored on American military prowess.
The big question is how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will view Biden’s initiative — and, more importantly, US’ desperate attempt to block Palestinian statehood bid at the UN Security Council without casting a veto. In fact, ignoring the joint statement issued in New York, he proclaimed from Tel Aviv that Israel has a mind of its own and will take its own decisions in its interests no matter what its allies or friends might counsel. It is a barely disguised barb even as the representatives of Christian nations from Europe are journeying to Israel in the recent days to buttress the US attempts to mollify Netanyahu.
Apparently, Netanyahu asserted in the presence in Tel Aviv of the UK foreign secretary David Cameron and German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock that Israel will indeed climb the escalation ladder — showing the middle finger at the two visiting politicians who were on the other hand, bending over backward to show solidarity with Israel as it faces the moment of truth. What is secret behind such reckless audacity on the part of Netanyahu?
Clearly, Netanyahu, a seasoned fighter in the dark and vicious jungle of Israeli politics, is dancing to several tunes. First and foremost, he is playing to the domestic gallery to assuage the hawkish sentiments of public opinion, especially the ultra-nationalists in his coalition.
Both Cameron and Baerbock reportedly urged Netanyahu to show restraint, warning that any additional direct hostilities against Iran might trigger a regional war. Both visiting dignitaries acknowledged publicly Israel’s right to make its own decisions. On his part, Netanyahu also expressed the hope that any Israeli retaliation to Tehran’s retaliation of April 13 would be executed “in a way that is smart as well as tough and also does as little as possible to escalate this conflict.”
Such play of words comes easily to the veteran British politician, but what lends poignancy to Cameron’s words is that Britain also would realise that may as well be Israel’s “Suez moment” in West Asian politics.
In 1956 during the so-called Suez Crisis when the UK along with France and Israel invaded Egypt to seize control of the Suez Canal, Washington, appalled that military operations had begun without its knowledge, put pressure on the International Monetary Fund to deny Britain any financial assistance, which in turn compelled London to reluctantly accept a UN proposed ceasefire and withdraw.
Indeed, historians later estimated that the British misadventure to punch above its weight only highlighted the UK’s declining status and confirmed it as a second-tier world power.
Of course, Biden is not Dwight Eisenhower. But Cameron’s journey to West Asia at this point in time jogs memory. And his warning will not ring hollow in Netanyahu’s ears.
At any rate, Times of Israel reported earlier today, quoting Israeli television, that “Netanyahu shelved pre-prepared plans for retaliation against Iran’s weekend barrage,” after speaking with Biden. The Kan public broadcaster quoted a senior source, “The response won’t be what was planned any longer, diplomatic sensitivities won out. There will be a response, but it seems it will be different from what was planned.” The TV noted that the comment likely pointed to a weaker Israeli response than what had been approved.
The heart of the matter is that Tehran has given a strong message that it has formidable strategic capability in reserve to directly attack Israel. In reality, the western/Israeli propaganda that nearly all the projectiles fired at Israel were interjected and “there was little damage,” blah, blah, is irrelevant.
Israeli decision makers are hard-headed realists who know that taking on Iran on own steam is way beyond their country’s capability — unless Biden orders direct US intervention in the ensuing war. This is really Israel’s “Suez moment.”
Israel is in critical need of new thinking to douse the “rings of fire” lit by the late Iranian general Qassem Soleimani that are closing in on it, which are endemic to the new era of hybrid wars. Ukraine is just about learning that bitter lesson when it seems all too late.
It is no coincidence that Iran’s president Ebrahim Raisi called Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday to convey, according to the Kremlin readout, that Tehran’s “actions had been forced and limited. At the same time, he emphasised that Tehran is not interested in further escalation of tensions.”
The readout underscored that “the unresolved Palestinian-Israeli conflict was the root cause of the current developments in the Middle East. The presidents confirmed Russia and Iran’s principled stance in favour of immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, alleviation of the grievous humanitarian situation and creation of conditions for a political and diplomatic settlement of the crisis.”
Herein lies the germane seeds of new thinking, if only there are any takers in Israeli leadership. Russia can be helpful, if the signals from Moscow in the most recent days are to be weighed in.
Succinctly put, Raisi’s call to Putin on Wednesday followed a telephone conversation between Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Iran’s Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian (at the initiative of the Iranian side) on previous Sunday, which itself was preceded just a day earlier by a discussion on phone between the Secretary of the Russian Security Council Nikolay Patrushev and head of Israel’s National Security Council Tzachi Hanegbi.
The Kremlin spokesmen Dmitry Peskov has since drawn attention to these ongoing “constructive” exchanges on the heightened tensions in the West Asian situation.
Palestine Rejects Israel's Plan to Change Al-Aqsa Mosque Status
Eid Prayer at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem, April, 2024. | Photo: X/ @RichardHardigan
Published 18 April 2024 (4 hours 18 minutes ago)
Al-Aqsa, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, is regarded by Muslims as their third holiest site.
On Wednesday, Adnan Al-Husseini, a member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization and head of the Jerusalem Affairs Department, rejected the plan to change the current status quo in the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the eastern part of Jerusalem.
Al-Husseini told reporters that Israel's national security minister's decision to change the current situation in the Al-Aqsa Mosque is rejected and constitutes an assault on Muslims' rights and their Jordanian guardianship.
His remarks came after Israel's public radio KAN reported that Itamar Ben-Gvir planned to "enhance governance in the Jerusalem holy site, granting basic rights, and preventing discrimination and racism on the Temple Mount (Al-Aqsa Mosque compound)."
The discrimination in this clause referred to limited visiting hours imposed on Jews, according to the Israeli radio.
The Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, is regarded by Muslims as their third holiest site. The site is supervised by the Jordanian Waqf but is located in East Jerusalem, a territory annexed by Israel after the 1967 Middle East war.
Al-Husseini added that the Islamic endowments in Jerusalem are responsible for managing the legal and historical situation in the Al-Aqsa Mosque, as well as all legal activities related to Muslims, under Jordanian sponsorship.
He claimed that the Israeli authorities and Ben Gvir "have no right to anything in Al-Aqsa and Islamic sanctities."
Jordan is responsible for overseeing the Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem according to the peace agreement signed between Jordan and Israel in 1994.
US Vetoes Bid for Palestine’s Full Membership Status at UNSC
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on APRIL 18, 2024
Al Mayadeen
Members of the UNSC and the Palestinian Presidency slam the United States for vetoing a proposal awarding Palestine full membership status in the UN.
The United States vetoed a decision to award Palestine full membership status in the United Nations, in a meeting of the UN Security Council on Thursday, Al Mayadeen‘s correspondent reported.
Washington lobbied several nations to vote against the proposal, this past week, however, its efforts failed to produce the sought-after results, as 12 nations in the UNSC voted for awarding Palestine full membership status.
Two other nations abstained from voting, including Switzerland and the United Kingdom, leaving the US stranded with only no vote in the UNSC. Being a permanent member of the UNSC, a US no-vote would nullify any proposal, even if it had garnered the full backing of all other members. France’s representative in the UN said that the country backed the proposal after it was reported that Paris abstained from voting.
Palestinian Authority slams US “aggression”
The Palestinian Authority (PA) whose delegates represent the State of Palestine in the international body slammed the US veto on Thursday. The Palestinian Presidency said that Washington’s use of the veto power is “unfair, immoral, and unjustified.”
The PA called the US’s actions an “aggression” that pushes the region towards an “abyss”.
The US veto “represents a blatant aggression against international law and an encouragement to the pursuit of the genocidal war against our people… which pushes the region ever further to the edge of the abyss”, the Presidency said in a statement.
It is worth noting that Palestine has long fought for full membership status in the United Nations, which would award it internationally-recognized sovereignty over Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories in 1967 and the Gaza Strip.
On Wednesday, The Intercept reported that the US State Department lobbied other nations in the past week to vote against the proposal, in order to avoid embarrassment. The plot was unveiled in a series of leaked cables issued by President Joe Biden’s State Department, highlighting the US’s hypocrisy, as it worked behind closed doors to hinder the Palestinian people’s right to statehood, while publicly advocating for it.
UNSC members denounce US actions
Algeria’s representative said that the failure to award Palestine full UN membership status will be a permanent stain on the international body.
The draft resolution was originally introduced by Algeria and “recommends to the General Assembly that the State of Palestine be admitted to membership of the United Nations.”
On his part Russian Ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia said that Washington’s use of its veto power was a hopeless attempt to change the course of history.
“Today’s use of the veto by the US delegation is a hopeless attempt to stop the inevitable course of history. The results of the vote, where Washington was practically in complete isolation, speak for themselves,” Nebenzia said after the vote.
Nonetheless, Nebenzia said that history will not forgive the United States for its actions.
Palestine Asks U.S Clarifications About Offensive in Rafah
Palestinian presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh, April 18, 2024 | Photo: X/ @marisaturno_
The spokesman said that, if so, the United States knew that a military offensive in Rafah, where the largest number of displaced persons and refugees are located in the country, would be and was a catastrophe, with huge amounts of human losses.
Palestinian presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh has asked the US administration for clarification of media reports alleging approval for an Israeli military offensive in the city of Rafah, in exchange for allowing a limited Israeli attack on Iran.
The spokesman said that, if so, the United States knew that a military offensive in Rafah, where the largest number of displaced persons and refugees are located in the country, would be and was a catastrophe, with huge amounts of human losses.
"The withdrawal of the United States from previous positions, including its declared support for a two-State solution, its commitment to resolutions of international legitimacy and its efforts in the UN Security Council to prevent Palestine from gaining full membership in the United Nations, together with its aggressive smear campaign against UNRWA, are pushing towards greater tension and escalation, for which everyone will pay the price," Abu Rudeineh added.
The Presidential spokesperson reiterated the demand for immediate US intervention to halt the ongoing Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people, holding the US administration responsible for pushing the region towards a regional war by continuing to support the Israeli occupation.
According to the UN, the situation in Rafah is catastrophic due to the lack of food, water, medicines and other vital products, in addition to the overcrowding, the lack of hygienic conditions and the systematic Israeli air strikes.
It is necessary to remember that, during February of this year, the UN, assured about an offensive in Rafah, "UN agencies fear a humanitarian disaster "unimaginable" if there is a large-scale incursion of the Israeli army in Rafah, in the south of Gaza. They point out that the enclave’s hospital facilities are overloaded and on the verge of collapse, and humanitarian workers continue to be at risk from the lack of security guarantees and continued attacks."
US to expand flow of arms to Israel as Biden faces backlash
Recent polling shows increased voter disapproval of the US President for his continuous fueling of Israel's war effort in Gaza
News Desk
APR 19, 2024
(Photo credit: AFP via Getty Images)
US President Joe Biden is considering a new $1 billion arms deal with Israel, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
The deal is in addition to a $96 billion foreign aid package that includes funds for Ukraine and Israel.
It includes “$700 million in 120 mm tank ammunition, $500 million in tactical vehicles, and less than $100 million in 120 mm mortar rounds,” according to US officials who spoke with WSJ. The officials said that the deals are under consideration and need to be approved by Congress.
The deal may take months or even years to be fulfilled, according to WSJ. Neither Washington nor Tel Aviv have confirmed the report.
Since the start of the Israeli war in the Gaza Strip, over 100 US arms sales to Israel have been approved, among them $106 million worth of tank munitions and $147.5 million worth of shell components.
The WSJ report coincides with a global and domestic wave of criticism that Washington is facing due to its continued military support for the Israeli war in Gaza, which has killed tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians.
The continued fueling of the Israeli war effort has resulted in a significant decrease in Biden’s approval ratings. According to three surveys carried out exclusively for Newsweek by Redfield & Wilton Strategies, US voter disapproval of Biden's participation in the war has surged drastically since December.
The UN has repeatedly warned in recent months that states exporting arms or military goods to Israel are at high risk of being complicit in war crimes. Last month, Canada announced its intention to impose a ban on arms sales to Israel. Several countries, including Spain, the Netherlands, Japan, and Belgium, have taken similar steps.
At the start of March, over 200 MPs from 12 states signed a letter urging their governments to impose a ban on weapons sales to Israel. In the letter, organized by Progressive International and signed on 1 March, the MPs said they refused to be complicit in “Israel’s grave violation of international law” in Gaza.
Israel sent assurances to the US that month, claiming that the weapons were being used in line with international law. The State Department will assess by early May if the assurances are credible and report to Congress.
Israel 'badly misjudged' Iranian response to consulate bombing: Report
Tel Aviv's reckless attack caught US planners by surprise and ignited a forceful response from Iran that saw the launch of hundreds of drones and missiles
News Desk
APR 18, 2024
(Photo Credit: Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Israeli and US officials who spoke with the New York Times (NYT) say the leadership in Tel Aviv “badly misjudged the consequences” of their attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus on 1 April, which received an unprecedented response from the Islamic Republic.
“The Israelis had badly miscalculated, thinking that Iran would not react strongly,” NYT cites several US officials and one senior Israeli official involved in high-level discussions after the attack as saying.
According to the sources, Israel started planning for the attack two months earlier, and the war cabinet approved the plans on 22 March. However, the US was not informed until moments before the attack was launched, in what is described as “a relatively low-level notification.”
After flattening the Iranian consulate in Damascus and killing Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force commander Mohammad Reza Zahedi alongside two other Iranian generals and several Syrian nationals, Tel Aviv “outlined the range of responses” officials expected from Iran.
The intelligence assessments reportedly changed on a near-daily basis, first expecting “small-scale attacks by proxies and a small-scale attack from Iran,” to eventually consider the launch of “no more than 10 surface-to-surface missiles at Israel.” However, expectations grew as the days passed, with officials in Tel Aviv reaching the conclusion Tehran would launch “60 to 70 surface-to-surface missiles.”
As Tel Aviv awaited the Iranian response, officials in the Islamic Republic publicly vowed retaliation, but, in private talks with intermediaries, they also informed the US that Iran did not seek open war with Israel. This included Turkiye informing US officials that the Iranian retaliation “would be proportionate to the Damascus strike.”
“[The US] had been kept in the dark about an important action by a close ally, Israel, even as Iran, a longtime adversary, telegraphed its intentions well in advance,” the NYT report says, highlighting the “uncomfortable” position Tel Aviv had put Washington in.
When the day of the retaliation finally came, western officials say the Islamic Republic launched 185 drones, three dozen cruise missiles, and 110 ballistic missiles seeking to overwhelm the air defenses of Israel and its allies as it targeted a handful of military bases involved in the Damascus attack.
According to the report, 75 of the projectiles entered Israeli airspace. On Wednesday, Israeli military expert Or Fialkov denied claims made by authorities in Tel Aviv that said “99 percent” of the Iranian drones and missiles had been intercepted, putting the figure closer to 84 percent.
Following the attack, Tehran summoned the Swiss ambassador to an IRGC base to “convey a message that the United States should stay out of the fight and that if Israel retaliated, Iran would strike again, harder and without warning.”
The Islamic Republic also denied a US request made by mediators to allow Israel to make a “symbolic strike” inside its territory. On Thursday, a top IRGC commander warned Israel against targeting its nuclear facilities, saying the country could “revise” its nuclear doctrine.
US backs Israeli plans for Rafah in exchange for ‘soft response’ to Iran: Report Israel’s allies have expressed fear than an Israeli response could trigger unprecedented regional escalation
News Desk
APR 18, 2024
(Photo credit: Evan Vucci/AP)
Washington has greenlighted Israeli plans for an invasion of Gaza’s southern city of Rafah in exchange for Israel limiting its response to the Iranian operation last weekend, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reported.
“The American administration showed acceptance of the occupation’s plan regarding the operation in Rafah in exchange for not carrying out a large-scale attack against Iran,” Egyptian sources told the outlet.
According to the sources, Egyptian forces and agencies are “at full readiness” in northern Sinai and along the Egyptian border with Gaza as part of a plan “to deal with the scenario of preparation for the repeated Israeli announcements of an [upcoming] invasion of the city of Rafah.”
The increased readiness came after “contacts from the Israeli side” relating to preparations for the operation in the southern city, which Israel claims is Hamas’ final stronghold.
“The Israeli plan relies on the method of displacement, by dividing Rafah into numbered squares, so that one square after another is targeted, prompting those in it to move away from it, specifically towards Khan Yunis and the Al-Mawasi area,” the sources added.
The sources said camps run by the Egyptian Red Crescent are already present in the city of Khan Yunis and are being expanded, coinciding with an increase of humanitarian aid to these areas in coordination with Israel.
The first two Egyptian Red Crescent camps in Khan Yunis were set up in January, and are capable of accommodating thousands of Palestinians, according to Al-Araby Al-Jadeed. Egyptian authorities have been working to establish a third camp.
Prior to the Iranian operation against Israel, Washington had been trying to mold Israel’s planned operation in Rafah into more limited incursions rather than a full-scale assault, citing concerns for over one million Palestinians besieged there. On Monday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant held an assessment on “necessary civilian operations” that need to be taken ahead of the Israeli attack on the city, in line with US pressure to secure a plan for the safe evacuation of civilians from Rafah.
According to what an informed western diplomat told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, “Netanyahu was able, through political maneuvering, to obtain American [acceptance] for the [planned] military operation in Rafah, which had not been welcomed by the United States, in exchange for retreating from carrying out a large-scale military operation against Iran.”
Iran has vowed a tenfold response to Israel should it retaliate to the hundreds of drones and missiles launched at Israel on 13 April, which came as a response to an attack on Iran’s consulate in Damascus at the start of the month.
Israel’s allies have expressed major concern over Tel Aviv's plans for a response – which they fear could result in an unprecedented regional escalation.
The extremist group has stepped up its attacks on pro-Syrian forces since the beginning of Israel's war on Gaza
News Desk
APR 19, 2024
ISIS militants in Syria (Photo credit: Hosam Katan/Reuters)
At least 20 fighters from Liwa al-Quds, a Palestinian armed group supporting the Syrian army, were killed when their bus was ambushed by unknown militants in the eastern countryside of Homs Governorate in Syria, Sputnik reported on 19 April.
Sputnik’s correspondent added that the ambush was carried out by militants likely affiliated with ISIS. The militants attacked the bus with heavy machine guns and B7 artillery shells while it was traveling between the village of Al-Koum and the city of Al-Sukhnah in the eastern Badia desert near Palmyra.
Several Liwa al-Quds members were also seriously injured, suggesting the death toll may rise.
The Syrian army sent reinforcements to the area and began extensive combing operations in search of ISIS cells.
The Badia desert near Al-Suknah lies north of the 55-kilometer “protected” area surrounding the illegal US military base at Al-Tanf on the Syria–Iraq–Jordan border.
Pro-Syrian forces are not allowed to enter the protected zone and are bombed by US warplanes if attempting to do so.
The Syrian and Russian governments have accused the US of training militants from ISIS and other mercenary armed groups in the protected zone and allowing them to use it as a base for attacks on Syrian forces elsewhere in the Badia desert region.
The Russian military has supported the Syrian army’s effort to defeat ISIS since 2015. On Thursday, Russian Major General Yuri Popov confirmed that the Russian Air Force destroyed three militant bases in remote areas in Homs Governorate.
During a press conference, Popov said, “The Russian Air Force destroyed three bases for militants who left the Al-Tanf area and were hiding in inaccessible areas in the Al-Amur mountain range in Homs Governorate.”
In recent months, ISIS has escalated its operations, targeting civilians, soldiers, and forces supporting the Syrian army.
ISIS attacks on Syrian forces have coincided with Israel’s ongoing shadow war with Iran, including in Syria. On 1 April, Israel bombed the Iranian consulate in Damascus, killing a prominent Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) general.
Iran responded last week by launching hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel, damaging the Nevatim airbase and an intelligence collection center on Jabal al-Sheikh mountain on the Lebanon border.
Syria is part of the Axis of Resistance forces, along with Iran, Hezbollah, Ansarallah, and the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, that have sought to resist Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Dockworkers in India take a collective stand against Gaza genocide
Indian trade unionists lead the way in boycotting Israeli arms shipments.
Water Transport Workers Federation of India
Thursday 18 April 2024
The following statement was issued by the Water Transport Workers Federation of India in February this year, setting an example to organised workers everywhere.
*****
To whomsoever it may concern
The Water Transport Workers Federation of India, representing more than 3,500 workers at the 11 major ports in the country, has decided to refuse to load or unload weaponised cargoes from Israel or any other country which could handle military equipments and its allied cargo for war in Palestine.
We the port workers, part of labour unions, would always stand against the war and killing innocent people like women and children. The recent attack of Israel on Gaza plunging thousands of Palestinians into immense suffering and loss. Women and children have been blown to pieces in the war. Parents were unable to recognise their children killed in bombings which were exploding everywhere.
At this juncture our union members have collectively decided to refuse handling all types of weaponised cargoes. Loading and unloading these weapons helps provide organisations with the ability to kill innocent people.
Therefore we, the Indian port and dock workers from various major ports active in the ground of cargo handling sector, call on our members to no longer handle any ships which carry military material to Palestine/Israel.
We therefore also call for an immediate ceasefire. As the responsible trade unions, we declare our solidarity with those who campaign for peace. We call upon the workers of the world and peace-loving people to stand with the demand of free Palestine.
The Voice of Israel’s Defeat: A Confession by Israeli Newspaper Haaretz
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on APRIL 19, 2024
Michael Pröbsting
Journalist Chaim Levinson debunked the atrocity propaganda lie that “Hamas baked a baby in an oven.”
In a recent article he confesses that Israel is losing the war, despite military superiority and genocide.
A few days ago, Haaretz – one of Israel’s most influential Israeli newspapers – published an extraordinary article. Under the revealing title “Saying what cannot be said: Israel has been defeated, a total defeat”, the author presents an absolutely pessimistic picture of Israel’s war in Gaza and its overall situation. As this is not an “opinion piece” but written by the newspaper’s “Political Correspondent”, it is fair to say that this paper represents the viewpoint of Haaretz.
Let us first reproduce the most important parts of this remarkable article.
“We have lost. The truth must be told. The inability to admit it sums up all that needs to be known about Israel’s individual and mass psychology. There is a clear, clear and predictable reality that we should begin to probe, process, understand and draw conclusions from for the future. It is no fun to admit that we have lost, so we lie to ourselves.
[…] We can’t say it, but we have lost. People have a tendency to believe for the best and be optimistic, hoping that tomorrow everything will be fine, that we will be in a process that will be more successful in the end. That is the most fundamental flaw in human thinking: the notion that the direction we are going is good, that we simply have to get there now, that in a little more time, with a little more effort, the hostages will be returned. Hamas will surrender and Yahya Sinwar will be killed. After all, we are the good guys and good will triumph.
It is the same mentality that leads to the notion that “the Iranian regime will soon implode” and other notions that have more to do with Hollywood scripts than with life itself. They are not the truth and relate to something that is uncomfortable. After all, it is uncomfortable to tell the truth to the public.
[…] No cabinet minister will restore our sense of personal security. Every Iranian threat will make us tremble. Our international standing suffered a severe blow. The weakness of our leadership was revealed to the outside world. For years we managed to fool them into believing that we were a strong country, a wise people and a powerful army. In reality, we are a village with an air force, and that is on condition that they wake up in time.
[…] Rafah is the latest bluff the spokesmen are plotting to fool us into thinking that victory is only minutes away. By the time they enter Rafah, the real event will have lost its significance. There may be an incursion, perhaps a small one, sometime, say in May. After that, they will peddle the next lie, that all we have to do is ____ (fill in the blank), and victory will be on the way. The reality is that the war aims will not be achieved. Hamas will not be eradicated. The hostages will not be returned through military pressure, and security will not be restored.
The more the spokesmen shout that “we are winning,” the clearer it is that we are losing. Lying is their trade. We need to get used to that. Life is less secure than it was before October 7. The beating we took will hurt for years. The international ostracism will not go away. And, of course, the dead will not return. Neither will many of the hostages. For some of us, life will return, with the petrifying fear of an imminent repetition. And for some of us, life will not get back on track. Those people will walk among us like the living dead. That’s what we voted for. That’s the way it is. We need to get used to the sad reality of our homeland.”
Basically, the article acknowledges that Israel has lost the war. Of course, Israel’s armies have not been eradicated. But in a war between the world’s fourth strongest official army against the guerrilla forces of the Palestinian resistance in the tiny enclave of Gaza (population 2.3 million), the standards for success are different.
It is true that Israel has “succeeded” in committing genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza, massacring tens of thousands of people, destroying most of the homes and displacing most of the population. But despite all these horrible war crimes and despite the fact that Israel is waging the longest war in its history, it has not been able to defeat the heroic Palestinians!
In fact, Israel’s all-powerful army – with total superiority in air, sea and land, with artificial intelligence-driven killer programs, the latest missiles and bombs, and with unlimited financial, political and military support from US imperialism – failed to conquer the strip, failed to defeat the resistance forces and failed to bring back their hostages. What a remarkable achievement for the resistance forces, as my comrade Yossi Schwartz, an anti-Zionist Jew in Israel and a Trotskyist for six decades, pointed out some time ago.
Not only this: never before has Israel been so isolated in international politics, it has become a country hated and despised by the masses of people all over the world. The genocidal war of the Zionists has provoked an unprecedented pro-Palestine solidarity movement that continues to mobilize relentlessly against the Apartheid and Terror State. Several trade unions have already taken active boycott actions against military and economic supplies to Israel.
Under pressure from the masses, an increasing number of bourgeois governments feel compelled to criticize and distance themselves from the Zionist entity. The same pressure has pushed the ICJ to open an investigation into Israel’s genocide in Gaza and even the UN Security Council felt obliged to vote in favor of a cease-fire, against the furious resistance of Israel and its US masters.
This is not to deny all the difficulties and dangers ahead, not at all, as the murderers will continue to kill and the traitors will continue to betray. Still, it is fantastic to see the heroic Palestinian people inflict a political defeat on the Zionist state!
Pogroms Surge Across West Bank
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on APRIL 19, 2024
Oren Ziv
Hussein Dawabsheh, head of the Duma town council, inside a burned house in the town, occupied West Bank, April 14, 2024. (Oren Ziv)
Armed Israeli settlers raided more than a dozen Palestinian communities under the army’s guard, leaving a trail of death and destruction in their wake.
Israeli settlers embarked on a murderous rampage across the occupied West Bank over the weekend, killing at least three Palestinians and destroying property in more than a dozen villages and towns. The immediate trigger for the attacks was the disappearance on Friday, April 12 of Binyamin Ahimeir, a 14-year-old Israeli who went out shepherding that morning from the recently “legalized” Malachei HaShalom (“Angels of Peace”) outpost. By the time Israeli authorities found Ahimeir’s body the following day and declared him a terror victim, the settlers’ rampage through the surrounding Palestinian communities was already in full swing.
According to the human rights group Yesh Din, Israeli settlers attacked 11 Palestinian villages and towns on Saturday alone. They threw stones, set fire to more than 100 vehicles, damaged scores of homes and businesses, and slaughtered hundreds of livestock. In the village of Beitin, near Ramallah, settlers shot dead 17-year-old Omar Hamed. In Al-Mughayyir, slightly further north, 25-year-old Jihad Abu Aliya was killed in circumstances that are still somewhat unclear: settlers were attacking the village at the time, but the Israeli army stated that Abu Aliya was killed by their fire. Another incident captured on a security camera shows Israeli soldiers standing guard while settlers set fire to a car in the town of Deir Dibwan, also near Ramallah.
The pogroms continued into Monday, when Israeli settlers shot dead two Palestinian shepherds — Abdelrahman Bani Fadel, 30, and Mohammed Ashraf Bani Jama, 21 — on land belonging to the community of Khirbet al-Tawil, east of the town of Aqraba near Nablus. According to testimonies from villagers, a large group of settlers, some of them armed, entered privately-owned Palestinian land near the residents’ homes at around 4 p.m. with a herd of cows (settlers are increasingly choosing to herd cows over sheep and goats because they eat more and are harder to frighten). Later, more settlers arrived, some of them armed and masked. Soldiers also arrived on the scene.
Shortly thereafter, according to eyewitnesses, in broad daylight, settlers opened fire on the Palestinians, killing the two men. The IDF Spokesperson subsequently announced that the shooting had not been carried out by soldiers. The event was live streamed on the Facebook page of the adjacent Palestinian town; in the video, dozens of shots can be heard ringing out in several clusters for more than a minute.
Nidal, whose cousin, Abdelrahman, was killed yesterday and who was present at the scene, told +972: “I told the soldiers to push the settlers out and we’ll leave. Some had weapons and clubs, some were masked.” According to Nidal, one of the settlers then pepper sprayed one of the Palestinians, and a brawl ensued. “The soldiers fired in the air, and seconds later the settlers fired M16s from up close,” he said. “I’ve lived here for 35 years — there’s no law here. The settlers are above the law.”
Police investigate the scene of a settler attack in Khirbet al-Tawil, east of the town of Aqraba near Nablus, occupied West Bank, April 16, 2024. (Oren Ziv)
For now, it appears that the Israeli authorities are taking the incident seriously: the military did not allow the bodies to be evacuated, transferring them instead to the National Center of Forensic Medicine for autopsy, which theoretically could enable the police to identify the shooters. On Tuesday morning, officers from the police’s Forensic Science Unit were seen at the scene of the shooting, collecting evidence and photographing the area.
The chances of a violent settler being brought to justice under Israeli law, however, are extremely low: since 2005, only 3 percent of Israeli police files opened regarding settler violence ended in conviction. In response to our request for comment, police told +972 that no arrests have been made so far in connection with the incident.
‘The soldiers stood by and didn’t intervene’
In the mourning tent in the center of Aqraba on Tuesday, Maher Bani Fadel, father of Abdelrahman, recounted the incident to +972. “At first, they came — four settlers with their cattle — and went into the olive grove near the houses,” he said. “They called for more settlers: a few dozen came, and they threw stones at us. There were about 20 of us, and four or five soldiers were present. The settlers fired live ammunition at us, maybe 30-40 bullets, from a few meters away. A lot of them had weapons; I don’t know which ones fired. It’s a new weapon they received from [Israeli National Security Minister Itamar] Ben Gvir.
“When the army saw the two dead bodies, they started separating [the settlers and the Palestinians],” Maher continued, adding that he was hit with a club and a stone during the incident. Before the shooting, “we told [the settlers] they weren’t allowed to be here. They said the government gave them permission, but it’s land belonging to our parents and grandparents.”
The mayor of Aqraba, Saleh Jaber, who arrived at the scene before the shooting, told +972: “Residents called me, saying there was a [settler’s] herd of cattle near the houses. We contacted the Civil Administration [the bureaucratic arm of the Israeli occupation] but the police came only after the killing.”
Maher Bani Fadel (right), whose son, Abdelrahman, was killed by settlers during a pogrom near the town of Aqraba, occupied West Bank, April 16, 2024. (Oren Ziv)
The IDF Spokesperson announced after the incident that soldiers had arrived in the area after reports of an attack by Palestinians on a Jewish shepherd. Jaber rejects this characterization of events, clarifying that it was settlers who initiated the attack. “It’s not true that the shepherds attacked,” he said. “I was there and there was no attack by the shepherds. The settlers who fired were dressed in civilian clothes and armed with M16s. The soldiers first fired in the air and then settlers fired [at the Palestinians]. The soldiers stood by and didn’t intervene.”
About a month ago, Israeli soldiers shot dead the Palestinian shepherd Fakher Jaber, 43, in the same area. According to a testimony published by Haaretz, Jaber was sitting under a tree when he was shot. Then, too, the IDF Spokesperson claimed that the army arrived at the scene following a report of an attack on a settler.
Dror Etkes, a researcher with the organization Kerem Navot which closely monitors Israel’s takeover of Palestinian land in the West Bank, confirmed that the attack took place on private Palestinian land. In recent years, two settler outposts have been encroaching on Palestinian land in the area: “Jackson’s Farm,” near the settlement of Gitit, and “Itamar Cohen’s Farm,” to the north. “The settlements, outposts, firing zones, and declarations of state land are closing in on Aqraba and the communities in the area from three directions,” Etkes told +972. “They have a lot of fertile land, so they have become a target for plunder.”
Last month, the state declared 8,160 dunams (around 2,000 acres) of land in Aqraba as “state land,” not including the land where the two shepherds were shot on Monday. According to Jaber, the takeover of Palestinian land in the area has accelerated under Israel’s far-right government. “Their goal is to take over all the land in the Jordan Valley,” he said. “What happened [on Monday] is the direct result of settler harassment and land expropriation.”
‘The settlers came back five times’
Another Palestinian town hit badly by settler attacks on Saturday was Duma. According to residents who spoke to +972, around 200 settlers — many of them masked, and some of them armed — raided the town shortly after the body of the teenager Ahimeir was found. They set fire to homes, cars, and farm equipment, and attacked residents. Soldiers were also present, as seen in videos from the incident, and even fired tear gas at Palestinians who tried to repel the settlers.
Palestinians inspect the damage to a house that was burned by settlers during a pogrom in Duma, occupied West Bank, April 14, 2024. (Oren Ziv)
“If they weren’t masked, I might have recognized them,” Murad Dawabsheh, a 52-year-old father of five, said of the settlers who attacked his home on Saturday; before October 7, he worked as a construction worker in one of the nearby settlements. Speaking to +972 on Sunday, he sat in front of his burned garden offering visiting well-wishers some of the ful that he managed to salvage from the blackened plants.
In addition to the garden, settlers burned to the ground a small building next to his house which served as an office and storage room, as well as a warehouse containing wooden construction planks worth thousands of shekels. The attackers also tried to set fire to the front door of the house using clothes and shoes that they’d found nearby. “There were soldiers with them,” Murad recounted. “When I saw them coming, I went into the house. Later, I opened the door for a moment, poured water and pushed the burning clothes away with my foot. The settlers came back five times.”
In his former office, settlers set alight many books, including religious books and poetry. “This is my archive,” he lamented. “Who burns books? I understand Hebrew, I heard them telling each other to burn down the gray house [the main building where Dawabsheh’s family was hiding]. I didn’t have time to be afraid for myself, I was afraid for my wife and children.”
The head of the town council, Hussein Dawabsheh, told +972 that according to initial information, three agricultural buildings and seven houses were partially burned during the attack, and five houses were burned completely. Fifteen vehicles, an excavator and three tractors, farmland, and olive trees were also set ablaze.
“We are all in danger when the army enters with the settlers,” he said. “The settlers walked in a large group. The older ones gave instructions to the younger ones — where to go and what to burn.” According to Hussein, the military prevented fire trucks and ambulances from entering the village during the attack.
The remains of a car that was burned by settlers during a pogrom in Duma, occupied West Bank, April 14, 2024. (Oren Ziv)
‘If residents hadn’t fled, entire families would have burned’
Most of the damage in the attack on Duma was in the Khalat al-Dara neighborhood, located parallel to the Alon Road which connects the Ramallah area to the Jordan Valley. On Sunday, Mohammed Salawdeh stood in his workshop and appraised the extensive damage. Here, as in other houses, piles of straw and twigs could be seen in different corners of the house — evidence of the settlers’ attempts to set fire to the building.
When the attack began, Salawdeh fled to another house in a safer, more central part of the village. “On the way, we saw armed people — some with bottles of gasoline and Molotov cocktails, some in military uniforms — guarded by the army. If someone tried to defend [the village], they shot him.”
A few meters away from Mohammed’s house stands the charred remains of the home of his relative, Anwar Salawdeh. The elegant house, which 27-year-old Anwar had only recently finished building and furnishing, was set on fire by settlers on Saturday, causing severe damage.
“I left school to work at the age of 13, and saved up since then until I could build a house,” Anwar told +972, his voice muted. “At the time of the attack, I was working in Anata [a Palestinian town near Jerusalem]; I only came back today.” The cost of building the house, he said, was about NIS 150,000 (around $40,000). “I have another NIS 100,000 in loans. I started building the house in 2020 and finished this year with the intention of getting married and living here,” Anwar continued, showing me photos of the house before it was destroyed.
Elsewhere in the neighborhood, Mohammed Rashid Dawabsheh stayed to protect his home during the attack after his wife Abir fled in a car with their four children and another relative toward the town center when the settlers arrived. “When I was in the car, I saw a settler dressed in black opening fire,” Abir told +972. The lower apartment in the building, which was recently renovated, sustained extensive damage: windows were shattered, and the stones that the settlers threw and the wooden beams they shoved into the broken windows to push burning straw inside were still visible.
Palestinians inspect the damage to a house that was burned by settlers during a pogrom in Duma, occupied West Bank, April 14, 2024. (Oren Ziv)
During the attack, Mohammed hid in the building’s stairwell and, with a wooden beam, blocked the door. “I heard them say, ‘Open up you son of a bitch.’ I hid there, then went up to the roof and hid behind a closet.”
According to Mohammed, four Israeli military jeeps were positioned outside the house, from where they fired teargas at the residents who tried to protect themselves and their property. On Sunday, many tear gas canisters could be seen scattered around the site.
“Three minutes after my family fled, [the soldiers] came here. After many minutes, the settlers continued on and some of the army stayed here. The soldiers opened the way for the settlers and let them attack.” On the road near his home, there was still a stone barrier set up by settlers “so that ambulances and assistance couldn’t arrive,” Mohammed added.
The village of Duma made headlines in Israel and around the world in 2015 after an Israeli settler, Amiram Ben Uliel, set fire to the home of Sa’ad and Riham Dawabsheh, killing them together with their 18-month-old son, Ali. Ahmad, Sa’ad’s brother, suffered severe burns in the attack. Since then, there haven’t been attacks of this magnitude in the village, and Saturday pogrom evoked traumatic memories.
“Of course it reminds us of what happened to the Dawabsheh family,” Mohammed Dawabshe said. His house, like many others in the village, has a thick mesh covering the windows to make it impossible to insert burning objects — a lesson learned from 2015. “There is no security, neither on the roads nor at home,” the council leader added. “If the residents hadn’t fled, entire families would have been burned in their homes.”
In a statement to +972, an Israeli army spokesperson said of the soldiers’ presence in the village: “On Saturday, IDF forces operated throughout Judea and Samaria in order to disperse the friction that developed in the area, and to protect property and the lives of all civilians. Any complaint received about inappropriate conduct by IDF soldiers will be examined as is customary and dealt with accordingly.”
+972 contacted the police for comment on whether any suspects in the attacks on Duma and other villages over the weekend have been arrested; their response will be added as and when it is received.
WATCH: US Vetoes Palestine UN Membership as Russia Walks Out
April 19, 2024
UPDATED: Video of U.N. Security Council meeting Thursday when the U.S. vetoed full U.N. membership for Palestine as the Russian delegation walked out in protest before Israel’s speech. Joe Lauria reports.
Updated with information on the definition of a state.
By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News
The United States on Thursday vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution granting Palestine full membership in the United Nations. Palestinian statehood was recognized by the U.N. General Assembly in November 2012 when it was given non-member, Observer State status.
Western media has incorrectly reported Thursday’s vote as one to determine Palestinian statehood. The resolution, sponsored by Algeria, was instead to grant full U.N. membership, with voting rights in the General Assembly, to Palestine, which is already recognized by 139 countries.
The United Nations therefore already recognizes Palestine as a state, as seen in the nameplate before Palestine’s U.N. Ambassador Riyad Mansour.
Definition of a State
Only states can recognize other states bilaterally. The U.N. can only confer membership or non-member observer state status to already existing states. The U.N. Charter is clear. Article 4 says that only existing states may apply for U.N. membership. The very act of the U.N. secretary general in 2011 accepting a Palestinian membership application was an acknowledgement from the U.N. that Palestine is already a state.
The definition of a state is contained in Article 1 of the 1933 Montevideo Convention, according to which Palestine is indeed a state: The Convention’s requirements for statehood are: “a) a permanent population, (b) a defined territory, (c) government and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states.”
Palestine has all four. Since 1967 its defined territory has been Gaza and the West Bank.
[See: Why Palestine Is Already a State(CN, 2012)]
Ambassador Riyad Mansour of the State of Palestine addressing the U.N. Security Council on Thursday. (U.N. Photo from U.N. TV)
US Defiance
The U.S. defied 12 council members who voted for full membership by vetoing the resolution.
“It remains the U.S. view that the most expeditious path toward statehood for the Palestinian people is through direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority with the support of the United States and other partners,” said Robert Wood, the U.S. deputy ambassador. “We also have long been clear that premature actions here in New York, even with the best intentions, will not achieve statehood for the Palestinian people.”
Britain and Switzerland abstained. France was the only one of the three Western powers on the council to vote in favor of membership. Switzerland had had Observer Status, the same as Palestine now enjoys, before it became a full member in 2002.
The resolution would have formally recommended to the General Assembly to admit Palestine, which would have become the 194th U.N. member state.
“It is time for Palestine to take its rightful place among the community of nations,” said Algerian Ambassador Amar Bendjama as he introduced the resolution. “Peace will come from Palestine’s inclusion, not from its exclusion.”
The United States was also one of only nine countries in 2012 to vote against Palestine’s Observer State status, which received 138 votes in favor with 41 abstentions. That vote allowed Palestine to join various U.N. bodies and agencies, including the International Criminal Court, where Palestine has brought a case against Israel.
Russia Walks Out
Russia, which voted with the majority on Thursday for full membership, walked out of the meeting just before Israeli U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan was about to begin speaking.
“This won’t be a regular state. It will be a Palestine-Nazi state, an entity that achieved statehood despite being committed to terror and Israel’s annihilation,” Erdan then said, as his country continues to commit genocide in Gaza.
? RUSSIA EXITED UN MEETING AFTER U.S. VETO ON PALESTINE
Russia's UN delegation walked out during a session following a U.S. veto that prevented Palestine from achieving full UN membership.
Precision over power: How Iran’s ‘obsolete’ missiles penetrated Israel’s air defenses
Iran’s successful breach of Israel’s highly regarded air defenses, despite the multi-nation alliance that joined those defense efforts, ultimately served as an Iranian political message to Tel Aviv.
A Cradle Contributor
APR 19, 2024
(Photo Credit: The Cradle)
Iran’s 13 April retaliatory missile strike on Israel, dubbed Operation True Promise, managed to overcome the occupation state’s integrated air defense systems and external foreign support.
The strike, intended to deter future actions by Israel against Iranian personnel and facilities, was notably executed to avoid casualties and serious damage. The operation was especially bold as it targeted Israel, an undeclared nuclear power.
Open-source intelligence from videos and photographs identified multiple warheads striking Ramon airbase in the Negev, not Nevatim, as previously reported, although the occupation army confirmed strikes on Nevatim and released images showing minor damage. This suggests a systematic failure of Israel’s lauded air defenses against those five missiles that hit their target, one after the other.
A look at the missiles used
As Brigadier-General Ali Hajizadeh, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Force’s commander, later stated:
We attacked Israel using obsolete weapons and minimal means. At this stage, we did not use Khorramshahr, Sejjil, Shahid Haj Qassem, Kheibar Shekan[-2], and Hypersonic-2 missiles.
So what missiles did Iran deploy from its significant domestically-produced arsenal, and why?
Ghadr: Despite being 20 years old, this missile proved effective by deploying decoy warheads to exhaust Israel’s Arrow-2 intercept capabilities. While traversing in space, the Ghadr releases about 10 decoy warheads to lure Arrow-2 to launch 10 interceptors each at all 10 Iranian decoys – draining the enemy’s munitions stock.
The images of Israeli interceptors responding to a range of “lights in the skies” were, in fact, often just firing at decoys. The actual Iranian warheads, if not differentiated by Arrow-2’s systems and destroyed by its interceptors, reached their targets.
The missile is still relevant in Iran’s arsenal as it can create additional targets for the enemy’s missile defenses and suppress the operation of large-area assets, such as airbases.
Dezful: A compact, cost-effective missile with a 600 to 700-kilogram payload, apparently used specifically to strike at an Israeli intelligence base in the occupied northern Golan, demonstrating its strategic deployment within its range limits.
This is a low-cost, single-stage precision missile weighing just about 6 tons, yet able to reach Israel – a revolutionary advancement for Iran when Dezful entered service five years ago – but not Nevatim, because its range is about 1,000 kilometers.
Emad: Approximately a decade old, this was used to test Iran’s countermeasures against newer air defense systems like Israel’s Arrow-3 and the American SM-3. It releases inflatable decoys in space to evade interception before re-entry.
Kheibar-Shekan-1: (early model, not the Kheibar-Shekan-2): IRGC’s answer to Israel’s Arrow-3. Kheibar-Shekan-1 entered service with IRGC Aerospace Force in 2022. It counters Arrow-3 by flying on a “depressed trajectory.”
During the terminal phase of its flight, the Kheibar-Shekan-1 performs aerodynamic maneuvers designed to evade interception from multiple defense systems, including Arrow, Patriot, and David’s Sling.
These maneuvers, likened to a boxer dodging punches, complicate the interception process by forcing defense systems to delay their responses or deploy multiple interceptors, reducing their overall effectiveness.
The Kheibar-Shekan-1 forces missile defenses to launch in the “launch-on-remote” mode, meaning several interceptors are required against a single missile. The successful strikes attributed to this missile, as indicated by Israel – with nine confirmed hits – underline its effectiveness and represent a significant evolution in missile technology despite being a generation behind the most recent IRGC models.
Kheibar-Shekan-1’s maneuverability makes it the most likely candidate to have achieved the successful strikes captured by video imagery.
Iranian media has since quoted Hajizadeh saying, “At this stage, we did not use the Khorramshahr, Sejjil, Shahid Haj Qassem, Kheibar-Shekan[-2], and Hypersonic-2 missiles,” which are all part of Iran’s advanced missile arsenal. That does not necessarily preclude Iran’s use of the older Kheibar-Shekan-1 missile, which still appears to be the most likely Iranian missile used to achieve direct hits successively.
‘Weaker than a spider’s web’
Despite Israel’s integrated air defense system, which is bolstered by data from a US monitoring station in the Negev Desert and 36-hour prior notification of the strike from Tehran, multiple Iranian missiles successfully struck their targets.
The US station monitors Iranian missile launches, with the collected data intended to enhance Israel’s defensive response. But despite the support of a multi-nation coalition, which included Jordan defending its airspace and Saudi Arabia and the UAE providing intelligence, Israel’s defenses were breached.
While Israel engaged in GPS jamming before the Iranian attack, its efforts proved futile. Such “electronic warfare” measures cannot counter Iran’s ballistic missiles. Although older drone models are susceptible to this, Iran’s Shahed-136 drone models have been “hardened” against GPS jamming.
This is likely based on Russian experiences in the Ukrainian military theater that were shared with the IRGC Aerospace Force. IRGC’s missiles use “inertial guidance systems,” which rely on built-in guidance systems like gyroscopes and computers.
An inertial guidance system receives input at and just after launch. At this point, it ceases to receive data from the IRGC launch base and relies solely on its onboard systems. That the missiles traveled 1,000 to 1,200 kilometers and struck targets with pinpoint accuracy guided solely by onboard systems is a superlative achievement by Iran.
Israel’s defense credibility at stake
Israel and its allies claim hundreds of missiles and drones were launched by Iran. However, estimates favorable to the Iranian side suggest only 50 to 60 missiles were launched, with 9 to 15 striking their designated targets.
The Israeli military's propagandist claim of a 99 percent interception rate would fall to about 50 or 60 percent if the above estimate is accurate. The Israeli claim on the number of missiles may be inflated if they are counting the decoys deployed by Ghadr missiles. If so, the picture would look much grimmer for Israel’s missile defense performance.
Hence, to save face and contain escalation, a politically driven inflation of overall launches is evident. This is in line with US interests, which seek to prevent escalation by Israel. Whether Washington’s aim of containing the crisis would allow it to publish the true number is unclear, particularly if the Iranian salvo was small. If it were proven that a relatively small Iranian salvo managed to defeat a complex missile defense system, Israel would lose its aura of invincibility.
Sending a clear message
The types and quantities of missiles Iran chose to use in this strike are not just military tactics but also political messages intended to demonstrate capabilities and expose vulnerabilities in Israel’s air defense systems.
What is evident, though, is that once multiple Iranian warheads penetrate Israel’s air defense systems and strike critical targets, an equation-changing political-military event has occurred. This is to say, Iran made a powerful statement by breaking through Israel’s air defenses and doing so with older ballistic missiles.
In response to threats from Israel about targeting Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities, the resilience of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure poses a significant challenge to the occupation state’s conventional capabilities.
Despite the drawbacks, the potential political gains from such an attack might be considered favorable by embattled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing, nationalist government.
In contrast, Iran’s response to any Israeli attack on nuclear facilities like Natanz or Fordow would likely be intense, drawing on the full capabilities of the IRGC Aerospace Force. It would also – to the horror of Tel Aviv and Washington – potentially lead to a revision of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear doctrine – as was suggested on 18 April by Iran’s Nuclear Centers Protection and Security Corps, Brigadier General Ahmed Haq Talab.
Pentagon denies involvement in massive attack on Iraqi security forces
A huge explosion rocked a PMU base south of Baghdad less than a day after Israel launched a 'limited' attack inside Iran and its jets heavily bombed Syria
News Desk
APR 20, 2024
(Photo Credit: Telegram)
The US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced on 20 April that it had no involvement in a powerful overnight attack that rocked a military base of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), located 50 kilometers south of Baghdad.
“The United States has not conducted air strikes in Iraq today,” the CENTCOM statement reads.
The huge explosion hit Kalsu base in the city of Babel just after midnight on Saturday. Security officials announced that at least one PMU member was killed, and eight others were injured.
“At 01:00 after midnight last night, an explosion and fire occurred inside [Kalsu Base] north of Babel Governorate on the international line, which includes the headquarters of the army, police, and Popular Mobilization Units," a statement by Iraq's Security Media Cell reads. “A member of the Popular Mobilization Units was killed, and eight others were injured, including a member of the Iraqi army, with moderate and minor injuries,” the statement adds.
The PMU – also known as the Hashd al-Shaabi – was formed in 2014 in response to the ISIS invasion of northwest Iraq, including Mosul. Ali Sistani, the top Shia cleric in Iraq, called for the establishment of the PMU to protect Baghdad and defeat the US-proxy terror group in Mosul.
With the support of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force, the PMU played an instrumental role in defeating ISIS in December 2017 and later received official government recognition as a military outfit with similar legal rights as the national army.
In January, US forces bombed the PMU headquarters in Baghdad, destroying a building adjacent to the Iraqi Interior Ministry and killing the leader of the PMU's 12th brigade, Mushtaq Talib al-Saidi.
The blatant violation of Iraqi sovereignty came in response to near-daily operations by factions allied with the PMU against US bases in Iraq and Syria. Following the January attack, Baghdad intensified diplomatic efforts to guarantee a long-awaited withdrawal of US troops from the country while Iran pressured the factions – operating under the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI) umbrella – to stop attacking US bases.
Nevertheless, the IRI has continued to launch attacks on southern Israel in support of the resistance in Gaza. The latest of these took place just hours after Kalsu base came under heavy bombardment, as Iraqi drones targeted the Israeli port city of Eilat.
Saturday's attack came about 24 hours after Israel launched a “limited response” to last weekend's retaliatory strike by Iran. However, an Israeli official told CNN that the country was “not involved” in the attack on the PMU base.
West Bank on strike following Israel's Tulkarem massacre
Israel's three-day raid in Tulkarem resulted in widespread destruction of infrastructure in the city's Nour Shams camp
News Desk
APR 21, 2024
(Photo credit: Reuters)
A comprehensive strike was declared across the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarem on 21 April in mourning of at least 19 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces during a three-day raid there.
Israeli troops withdrew from the city earlier on 21 April, after inflicting widespread destruction in Tulkarem’s Nour Shams refugee camp.
Hamas called in a statement after midnight on Saturday for all people “to ignite confrontations with the criminal Zionist occupation … in the West Bank and Al-Quds, in response to the criminal massacre in Nour Shams camp in Tulkarem.”
“As we mourn the noble martyrs of Tulkarem who faced the occupation forces with determination and defiance, we affirm that Zionist criminality will not bring security to the occupation and that the resistance of our people continues … We also call on our people in the West Bank to adhere to the general strike tomorrow, Sunday, and for all squares and confrontation points to turn into a blaze of flames in the face of the occupation,” the Hamas statement added. Streets were emptied after the strike was called.
The Palestinian Authority's (PA) Fatah party also called for a strike and an escalation across the West Bank in response to the massacre in Tulkarem and the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Israeli troops invaded Tulkarem’s Nour Shams refugee camp on 18 April. Clashes between the army and several Palestinian resistance factions in the camp were ongoing until Israeli forces withdrew fully on Sunday morning. Several Israeli soldiers were injured by the resistance.
Among the at least 19 Palestinians killed were several resistance fighters. At least four of their bodies are being held by Israel.
Children are among those who were killed by Israeli forces during the raid, including 16-year-old Qais Nasrallah.
The Israeli army cut off water, electricity, and internet services across Nour Shams camp on 20 April. Ambulance crews were prevented from entering and retrieving the bodies of several who remained inside the camp.
Snipers were deployed in the homes of several residents, who were detained and kept in Israeli custody inside their houses.
Israeli army bulldozers persisted with deliberate destruction of infrastructure across the camp. Video footage from Saturday afternoon showed an Israeli bulldozer destroying Nour Shams’ Haifa bakery.
Violent and destructive army raids in West Bank cities, particularly Tulkarem, have increased – and settlers continue to launch wide-scale attacks on villages, burning homes and vehicles and attacking Palestinian civilians. As a result, resistance operations have surged in the occupied West Bank.
An Israeli reservist was wounded on 21 April after kicking over a Palestinian flag that had been rigged with explosives.
The operation took place in Al-Mughayyir in the city of Ramallah, where settlers had rampaged violently last month.
Chilling evidence of Israeli war crimes unearthed in Gaza's mass graves
Gaza's Government Media Office said that some of the bodies found in Khan Yunis' Nasser Medical Complex had their organs stolen
News Desk
APR 21, 2024
Illustrative: Israeli soldiers, near Bethlehem, in the West Bank, September 30, 2022. (Photo credit: Wisam Hashlamoun/Flash90)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected in the coming days to announce sanctions against the Netzah Yehuda battalion of the Israeli army for human rights violations in the occupied West Bank, Axios reported on 20 April.
The US has never imposed sanctions on an Israeli military unit in the past, despite many reports the Israeli army commits war crimes and targets civilians from international rights groups and the UN during decades of occupation.
The Netzah Yehuda battalion is a special unit for male ultra-orthodox Jewish soldiers. It became a magnet for "Hilltop Youth," religious settlers not accepted into other combat units. The unit was stationed in the occupied West Bank, allowing its soldiers to terrorize Palestinians.
The sanctions will ban the battalion and its members from receiving US military assistance or training, three US sources with knowledge of the issue told Axios.
Any such sanctions would be based on the "Leahy Law," passed in 1997 and authored by then-Senator Patrick Leahy. The law prohibits the US from providing military aid and training to foreign security, military, and police units credibly alleged to have committed human rights violations.
On Thursday, ProPublica reported that a special State Department panel recommended in December that Secretary of State Antony Blinken blacklist multiple Israeli military and police units from receiving US aid on the basis of the Leahy Law.
But Blinken sat on the recommendation and took no action, according to current and former State Department officials.
“They’ve been sitting in his briefcase since then,” one official said.
At the same time, Blinken used emergency measures to accelerate US weapons shipments to the Israeli army for its war on Gaza. The army has killed some 13,800 children and laid waste to wide swathes of the besieged enclave since the start of the war in October.
The incidents upon which the recommendation to impose sanctions on Israeli army units are based mostly took place in the West Bank before the Gaza war began.
The allegations include extrajudicial killings by the Border Police; the killing of an 80-year-old Palestinian-American man, Omar Assad, who was gagged, handcuffed, and left in the cold to die; the rape and torture of a teenager who had been accused of throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails at soldiers.
At a press conference in Italy on Friday, Blinken was asked about the recommendation and said he was finally prepared to act.
"You can expect to see them in the days ahead," Blinken said.
One source speaking with Axios said several other army and police units were investigated but did not have sanctions imposed on them after they allegedly changed their behavior.
The Commander of the Netzah Yehuda Battalion responded to the anticipated US sanctions by claiming to the Israeli daily Maariv, "The ethics of our army are higher than those of the American army."
"Sanctions must not be imposed on the Israel Defense Forces," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
He said the intention to impose the measures on the Israeli army is the "height of absurdity and a moral low" and that his government will "act by all means against these moves."
Secretary of State Blinken imposed sanctions on a handful of Jewish Israeli settlers in February for violence against Palestinians. However, the sanctions were limited to banning the settlers from carrying out foreign financial transactions and traveling to the US. After several Israeli banks closed the accounts of the settlers and blocked access to their assets in response to the sanctions, the US Treasury intervened to ensure the banks reopened the accounts.
As the US presidential election nears, officials from the Biden White House are under pressure from their Democratic Party voting base to end support for Israel due to its ongoing genocide in Gaza. At the same time, they are under pressure to satisfy the major Jewish donors to the party, who are demanding continued military and diplomatic support for Israel.
Meanwhile, as much as Baerbock is stupid she pressed the right point:
МОСКВА, 20 апреля/ Радио Sputnik. Премьер-министр Израиля Биньямин Нетаньяху повысил голос при обсуждении с главой МИД ФРГ Анналеной Бербок ситуации в секторе Газа и напомнил ей о действиях нацистов, сообщил израильский Channel 13. Бербок предложила Нетаньяху взглянуть на фотографии голодающих палестинских детей, передает РИА Новости сообщение телеканала. В ответ глава правительства Израиля рассказал ей о снимках, сделанных на рынках и пляжах Газы, намекая на недостоверность информации, которой располагает глава МИД Германии, говорится в публикации. Тогда Анналена Бербок заявила, что израильскому кабмину не следует распространять подобные фото, поскольку они не отражают реальную ситуацию. После этого, по данным Channel 13, Биньямин Нетаньяху повысил голос и напомнил главе МИД ФРГ о действиях нацистов. "Это реальность. Это не похоже на то, что инсценировали нацисты, мы не похожи на нацистов, которые создавали сфабрикованные изображения фальшивой реальности", – сказал он. Посол Германии в Израиле Штеффен Зайберт назвал приведенные телеканалом подробности встречи неверными и вводящими в заблуждение, отмечает РИА Новости.
Translate: MOSCOW, April 20/ Radio Sputnik. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raised his voice when discussing the situation in the Gaza Strip with German Foreign Minister Annalena Bärbock and reminded her of the actions of the Nazis, reported the Israeli Channel 13. Bärbock suggested Netanyahu look at photographs of starving Palestinian children, RIA Novosti reported. In response, the head of the Israeli government told her about the photographs taken in the markets and beaches of Gaza, hinting at the unreliability of the information held by the German Foreign Minister, the publication says. Then Annalena Berbock said that the Israeli Cabinet should not distribute such photos, since they do not reflect the real situation. After this, according to Channel 13, Benjamin Netanyahu raised his voice and reminded the German Foreign Minister about the actions of the Nazis. "This is reality. This is not like what the Nazis staged, we are not like the Nazis who created fabricated images of a false reality," he said. German Ambassador to Israel Steffen Seibert called the details of the meeting provided by the TV channel incorrect and misleading, RIA Novosti notes.
Well, at this stage Holocaust "defense" is the only thing Israel has left.
The photo speaks volumes. When you cannot fight a real war, this is what is left for them, both NATO and Israel--fight a media one.
Iran, Jordan FMs sit down in wake of Amman's defense of Israel
Jordan has been criticized for allowing Israeli warplanes to use its airspace to shoot down Iranian drones during Iran's recent retaliatory attack on Israel
News Desk
APR 19, 2024
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi gives a joint press conference with his German counterpart on April 3, 2023 at the Foreign Office in Berlin. (Photo credit: John Macdougall/AFP)
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian met his Jordanian counterpart, Ayman Safadi, on 18 April in New York following Jordan's controversial effort to help Israel repel an Iranian retaliatory attack.
Press TV reported that the foreign ministers met on the sidelines of a UN Security Council meeting to exchange views on the latest developments in Gaza, where Israel has killed over 33,000 people, and across the region, as a possible full-scale war between Israel and Iran looms.
The top Iranian diplomat cited Washington's continued support for Israel and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's “warmongering attitude” as the main reason for the continuation of genocide against the Palestinians.
Amir-Abdollahian called for decisive action by the international community, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), and its member countries to confront Israel's crimes.
He also discussed Iran's retaliation against Israel late on Saturday, describing it as within the framework of legitimate self-defense after Israel's recent bombing of the Iranian consulate in the Syrian capital of Damascus.
Underlining that Iran's military action against Israel was “very precise and calculated,” the Iranian foreign minister said, “Iran's military response to Israel's attack was only a limited and minimal operation, and in case of any further adventurism by the Israeli regime, Iran's response will be decisive, immediate and maximum.”
For his part, Jordanian Foreign Minister Safadi expressed gratitude for the Islamic Republic's diplomatic efforts to stop the Israeli war against Palestinians in Gaza.
Safadi described the situation in Palestine as “tough and complicated,” claiming that Jordan will continue its efforts to stop the war against Gaza through all possible means.
Safadi informed his Iranian counterpart that Jordan will not allow Iran or Israel to turn Jordan into a war zone, and will confront any violation of its airspace and a threat to the security and safety of its citizens.
Jordan has come under heavy criticism following reports it allowed Israeli warplanes to use its airspace to shoot down Iranian drones during Saturday's attack.
Jordan has a large Palestinian population but signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994, hosts US military bases, and is heavily reliant on US economic aid.
The Jordanian foreign minister also pointed to his country's views on the political solution to the Palestinian crisis and stressed Amman's firm opposition to Israel's attempts to forcibly displace Palestinians to neighboring countries.
The war in Gaza began on 7 October when Hamas attacked Israeli military bases and settlements to break the near two-decade siege on the enclave and win the release of thousands of Palestinians held captive in Israel's prisons.
The attack led to the deaths of 1,200 Israeli soldiers and civilians. Some were killed by Hamas, while others were killed by Israeli forces themselves using attack helicopters, tanks, and drones. Under the Hannibal Directive, Israeli troops killed many of their own civilians and soldiers to prevent Hamas from taking them captive.
US bases fall under rocket, drone attack in northern Syria
The attacks came one day after a massive explosion hit a base belonging to the Popular Mobilization Unit in Iraq, which the US and Israel denied involvement in
News Desk
APR 22, 2024
(Photo credit: AA/Getty Images)
Two US military bases in northern Syria were targeted with rockets and a drone late on 21 April.
Four rockets hit the base in the US-occupied Al-Omar oilfield, and another three rockets and a drone struck the Kharab al-Jir military airport, Al-Mayadeen’s correspondent said, adding that the two attacks took place within hours of one another.
In late January, following an attack that killed three US soldiers on the Jordanian–Syrian border, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI) coalition announced that it would be halting operations against US military bases in Iraq and Syria – which had been ongoing since the start of the Israeli war on Gaza.
Reuters had reported that the IRI announced resuming operations against US bases in Iraq and Syria.
In a statement, the Kataib Hezbollah resistance faction said: “No statement has been issued by the Islamic Resistance, Kataib Hezbollah, during the past 48 hours, and what is being reported by the media is fabricated news broadcast by Reuters, which will bear the consequences of it later.”
Earlier, Kataib Hezbollah said a decision had been taken “to resume military action,” and that “what happened a little while ago is the beginning” in reference to the attack on the two US bases. The statement did not directly claim responsibility for the attack nor explicitly announce any resumption of attacks on US bases.
The statement also condemned Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani’s recent trip to Washington and his meetings with US President Joe Biden, part of which revolved around discussions on an eventual end to the US military’s combat mission in Iraq.
“After the end of the visit, it became clear that some political parties were lying. There is no foreign intention to leave Iraq,” Kataib Hezbollah said.
The attacks on the US bases came a day after a huge explosion hit Kalsu base in the city of Babel just after midnight on Saturday. Security officials announced that at least one Popular Mobilization Unit (PMU) member was killed, and eight others were injured.
Saturday's attack on Iraq came about 24 hours after Israel launched a “limited response” to Iran’s retaliatory drone and missile strikes against Israel. However, an Israeli official told CNN that Tel Aviv was “not involved” in the attack on the PMU base. Washington also denied involvement.
Syria and Russia Launch Joint Military Operations Against IS
Syrian soldiers, 2024. | Photo: X/ @NPA_English
Published 22 April 2024 (3 hours 46 minutes ago)
So far this year, the Islamic State has carried out 117 operations, resulting in 333 deaths.
On Sunday, Syrian and Russian forces carried out military operations against strongholds of the Islamic State (IS) in eastern Syria.
The Syrian Defense Ministry said the operations, which involved warplanes, drones, and artillery, were conducted in the countryside of the eastern province of Deir al-Zour and the ancient city of Tadmur in the eastern countryside of Homs province.
The operations led to the destruction of several IS headquarters and the elimination of dozens of IS members, including the group's leaders.
In the southern Syrian province of Daraa, a terrorist group made an attempt to attack a military checkpoint and clashed with Syrian forces, resulting in casualties and the seizure of the terrorists' weapons, the statement said, adding Syrian forces in the northern Syrian province of Aleppo shot down several drones belonging to terrorists.
So far this year, the Islamic State has carried out 117 operations, resulting in the deaths of 333 people. Among the victims, 24 were IS members, 37 civilians, and the rest being government forces and pro-government fighters, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Despite suffering a defeat in 2019 at Baghouz of Deir al-Zour Province, the last inhabited area controlled by IS, the group has launched attacks in the region, primarily targeting Syrian forces.
Although Syrian forces, in cooperation with Russian forces, are taking actions to dismantle the group's cells, its military activities have not been completely halted, said the Britain-based watchdog.
The drones play recordings of crying babies and women screaming in distress in order to lure people out into the open, and then shoot them.
Caitlin Johnstone
April 22, 2024
They’re hunting civilians with armed quadcopters in Gaza.
The drones play recordings of crying babies and women screaming in distress in order to lure people out into the open, and then shoot them.
This is reportedly happening at the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, where people live in total darkness at night and have no connection to the outside world.
Other times the drones play the sounds of explosions and gunshots and rolling tanks, and sometimes songs in Hebrew or Arabic, all to terrorize these refugees hiding in the darkness afraid for their lives.
This is the sort of report that a critical thinker would normally dismiss as absurd atrocity propaganda if it was being made about any other military power, but this is the IDF we’re talking about, and this specific allegation is pretty well-supported now.
When the destruction of Gaza first began I used to read the jarring claims about the horrific things the IDF were doing and often think, “No, no way. That can’t be the whole story. It’s too cartoonishly evil. There must be some information missing.” Then a few days or weeks later confirmation would come out, showing it’s even worse than I thought before.
I don’t experience that kind of dubiousness when reading such stories anymore. There are only so many atrocities you can see documented, so many videos of IDF troops recording themselves gleefully behaving like monsters, so many hospitals you can see attacked, so many journalists you can see assassinated, before you read a new report about new unfathomable acts of depravity and find yourself saying “Yeah, that sounds about right.”
This baby-crying-sniper-drone story is something else, though. It’s like something out of a weird post-apocalyptic horror movie or something. It’s the kind of information that makes you sort of re-evaluate your previous assumptions about humanity, the world, and the kind of reality we’re experiencing here.
It is really astonishing, how cruel people can be. How cruel a whole nation of people can be made to be, if they’re indoctrinated just right. You spend your whole childhood being indoctrinated into the belief that one group of people are inferior to your own and don’t deserve the same rights and treatment your group receives, and before you know it you’re blockading aid trucks from bringing that group food, and playing recordings of crying babies on an assassination drone in order to murder civilians at a refugee camp.
That’s how Nazi Germany happened, it’s how the genocidal apartheid state of Israel has happened, and it’s how the murderous US-centralized empire has happened. It turns out it’s not all that hard to manipulate a population into supporting shocking abuses at mass scale with modern propaganda and indoctrination from early childhood. It turns out the human mind is a lot more hackable than we’d like to believe it is, and that this can be used to unleash living nightmares upon our world a lot more easily than we’re comfortable acknowledging.
This is how the entire western world has been manipulated into accepting nonstop war, militarism, nuclear brinkmanship, imperialism and exploitation as fine and normal, and into assuming that a better world isn’t possible. As long as the powerful are able to manipulate the way a sufficiently large percentage of the population thinks, speaks, acts and votes, we’re going to be stuck in this horrifying dystopia where the sky rains fire upon the innocent, where war profiteers reap vast fortunes from machines which rip apart human bodies, and where sniper drones cry like babies.
We can help weaken the empire’s propaganda machine by spreading awareness of what it’s doing and how it operates, because propaganda only works if you don’t know it’s happening to you. Help people to see the ways in which the mass media are deceiving them, point out all the signs that we live under an empire of lies, and help spread awareness of what’s really true and what’s really possible.
All positive changes in human behavior of any scale are always preceded by an expansion of consciousness. Spreading awareness is the first step toward a healthy world, and we can each do that in our small way every single day.
As Ms Johnstone occasionally relates, every time you think the US or Israel couldn't be more despicable they go ahead and top it. No, we don't have verification on this but almost as bad as the reported deed is the fact that such tactics from these monsters are easily believable.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."
Arab al-Aramshe: Hezbollah issues a notice to Israel’s assassins
Hezbollah has moved to counter Israel’s targeted killings strategy by hitting high-value Israeli assets and showcasing stunning intelligence-gathering feats meant to humble Tel Aviv.
Khalil Nasrallah
APR 22, 2024
(Photo Credit: The Cradle)
On 17 April, Hezbollah launched a series of qualitative military operations on the western sector of the Lebanese–Israeli border, culminating in a sophisticated attack using guided missiles and an explosive-laden drone that struck the headquarters of an Israeli reconnaissance unit in the village of Arab al-Aramshe.
The attack resulted in 18 casualties, some serious, including an enemy general who succumbed to his wounds, according to Israeli reports.
The primary aim of these operations was to deliver a stern message to Israel: further targeted killings of Hezbollah members will not be tolerated. The resistance response was specifically provoked by the assassination of its fighters in the villages of Ain Baal and Chehabiya the previous day, where Israeli drone strikes martyred several fighters in quick succession.
Hezbollah strikes, Israel reacts
On the morning of the retaliatory operation, Hezbollah executed additional notable attacks in the western sector. These included striking the Branit barracks with a powerful Burkan missile and launching an Almas-3 missile at the Meron base’s air control unit, marking the first reported use of this missile with a range exceeding 10 kilometers.
The attack also destroyed an AN/TPQ-37, a radar crucial for detecting projectiles and identifying their origins.
Despite its initial reluctance, the Israeli military acknowledged the operation, following the overwhelming evidence presented in numerous video recordings. The operation, as with many by Hezbollah as of late, was a qualitative response, drawing significant media attention and analysis in Israel.
Prominent commentators noted that Hezbollah had effectively circumvented Israeli warning systems and struck at will, indicating that previous assassinations by Israel did not deter Hezbollah’s strategic operations.
The Arab al-Aramshe operation is being carefully analyzed by Israeli media, both concerning Hezbollah’s tactics and Israel’s responses. Israel’s Channel 12 outlet, in particular, emphasized two major points:
First, Hezbollah learns rapidly from past engagements and introduces new tactics and weapons into the battlefield. This was demonstrated by its deployment of heavy Burkan missiles against Israeli army bases, marking a shift in its approach and showcasing its ability to innovate and apply new technologies in combat scenarios.
Second, the Lebanese resistance movement’s ability to effectively combine multiple weapon systems simultaneously to target a specific location was also noted. This strategy aims to overwhelm the enemy’s defensive measures and maximize impact.
Further insight was provided by a military correspondent from the Hebrew newspaper Makor Rishon, who pointed out that Israel’s numerous assassinations of Hezbollah members have neither deterred nor significantly affected the organization’s ability to carry out sophisticated strikes against sensitive Israeli military points.
Essentially, the Hebrew media depiction paints a picture of concern over the Israeli army’s current military strategies and their effectiveness. Streams of articles now conclude that neither deep raids into Lebanese territory nor the targeting of Hezbollah’s operational capabilities has prevented the organization from accessing and utilizing advanced weaponry or executing coordinated attacks.
Hezbollah’s intelligence gathering
The intelligence capabilities of Hezbollah are clearly robust and have been cultivated over many years. This level of intelligence gathering has been highlighted by the group’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, who once pointedly messaged the Israelis:
It is not important what you know about the resistance, but what the resistance knows about you.
The Arab al-Aramshe operation is a compelling illustration of these capabilities. Hezbollah’s prior knowledge of a relatively new reconnaissance site and subsequent successful strike showcase its meticulous intelligence work.
This is by no means an isolated case; similar intelligence-driven operations have targeted other critical Israeli military assets, including operational headquarters and Iron Dome positions across different locations.
Hezbollah has also been able to identify and strike at highly sensitive and less visible targets. This includes military bases like the “Yaav” base and the “Kila” barracks in the occupied Golan Heights, known to be the headquarters of Israel’s air and missile defense command. These sites were specifically targeted following the return of forces from the Golani Brigade, who were training there after committing war crimes in the Gaza Strip.
The complexity of Hezbollah’s intelligence operations lies in its clarity and ambiguity. While the targets of its operations are clear, how it gathers such detailed and specific intelligence remains largely undisclosed and mysterious.
This capability to identify and act upon vulnerabilities deep within Israeli territory points to a sophisticated network of intelligence gathering and analysis, likely involving both technological surveillance and human intelligence.
Raising the stakes
Hezbollah aimed to achieve several objectives through the combined strike in Arab al-Aramshe. These goals include deterring Israel’s assassinations of resistance fighters and asserting the resistance’s focus on hitting significant, high-value targets to inflict substantial losses.
Additionally, Hezbollah demonstrated its capability to gather detailed intelligence, enabling it to pinpoint sensitive and strategic enemy locations.
The escalation of resistance activities aims to set boundaries for the Israeli military, which has continued its strategy of assassinations and attacks against Lebanese civilians and state agricultural areas. Moreover, these actions on the Lebanese front are designed to bolster and support the resistance in the Gaza Strip.
It is through the deployment of various weapons and military tactics that Hezbollah continues to pursue its objective of challenging and restraining Israeli aggression toward Lebanon while simultaneously supporting the Palestinian resistance in Gaza – both politically and militarily – since the launch of Al-Aqsa Flood last year.
UN report demolishes Israeli propaganda campaign against UNRWA
Israel has waged a multi-year campaign against the UN aid group for Palestinian refugees in hopes of eradicating the right of return
News Desk
APR 22, 2024
Food aid arrives at a UNRWA school-turned-shelter in Gaza (Photo credit: UNRWA)
Israel has failed to provide any evidence of its claims that employees of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) are members of “terrorist organizations,” according to an independent review led by former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna.
In January, Israel claimed without evidence that some UNRWA staff – until then the primary conduit of humanitarian aid into the besieged and bombed Gaza Strip – were members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and had participated in the Hamas-led attack on Israeli military bases and settlements on 7 October, known as Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
The Israeli allegations promptly caused the US and other western nations to cut funding to UNRWA. This came amid reports from rights groups that Israel was using starvation as a weapon against the 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza.
The Guardian reported on 22 April that the “Colonna report,” which was commissioned by the UN in the wake of Israeli allegations, found that UNRWA had regularly supplied Israel with lists of its employees for vetting, and that “the Israeli government has not informed UNRWA of any concerns relating to any UNRWA staff based on these staff lists since 2011.”
The Guardian added that most donor nations have resumed their funding in recent weeks. However, UK ministers had said they would wait for the Colonna report to decide whether to resume funding. The US Congress has since banned any future financial support of UNRWA.
The Colonna review was drafted with the help of three Nordic research institutes and will be published later on Monday.
It confirms that Israel has yet to provide any evidence of its claims.
It notes that in March, “Israel made public claims that a significant number of Unrwa employees are members of terrorist organizations.”
“However, Israel has yet to provide supporting evidence of this,” the report says.
The Colonna review makes clear that UNRWA is “indispensable” to Palestinians across the region.
“In the absence of a political solution between Israel and the Palestinians, UNRWA remains pivotal in providing life-saving humanitarian aid and essential social services, particularly in health and education, to Palestinian refugees in Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and the West Bank,” the review says.
“As such, UNRWA is irreplaceable and indispensable to Palestinians’ human and economic development. In addition, many view UNRWA as a humanitarian lifeline.”
The report added that “UNRWA has established a significant number of mechanisms and procedures to ensure compliance with the humanitarian principles, with emphasis on the principle of neutrality and that it possesses a more developed approach to neutrality than other similar UN or NGO entities.”
The three Nordic research institutes—the Swedish-based Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, the Norwegian Chr Michelsen Institute, and the Danish Institute for Human Rights—sent the UN a more detailed assessment of the Israeli allegations against UNRWA.
The assessment refuted Israeli claims that Palestinian children are taught antisemitic content in UNRWA-run schools, which use Palestinian Authority (PA) textbooks.
“Three international assessments of PA textbooks in recent years have provided a nuanced picture,” the assessment says. “Two identified presence of bias and antagonistic content, but did not provide evidence of antisemitic content. The third assessment, by the [German-based] Georg Eckert Institute, studied 156 PA textbooks and identified two examples that it found to display antisemitic motifs but noted that one of them had already been removed, the other has been altered.”
As The Cradle’s William Van Wagenen reported in February, Israel’s evidence-free allegations against UNRWA are part of a multi-year campaign to dismantle the agency that began before 7 October. Israel wishes to deprive Palestinian refugees of lifesaving assistance and to eradicate the notion that they will one day return to the lands they were expelled from by Zionist militias in 1948 when the state of Israel was created.
Syrian president confirms direct talks with Washington ‘from time to time’
The US has been illegally occupying Syrian oilfields for several years and was the leading force behind the regime change war against Damascus
News Desk
APR 22, 2024
(Photo credit: Syrian Presidency Telegram/AP)
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told the Foreign Minister of the south Caucasus republic Abkhazia during an interview published on 21 April that Damascus holds dialogue with Washington “from time to time.”
In response to a question from Abkhazian Foreign Minister Inal Ardzinba on whether there has been an opportunity for Syria to “restore dialogue with the collective west,” Assad said: “America is currently illegally occupying part of our land, financing terrorism, and supporting Israel, which also occupies our land.”
“But we meet with them from time to time, although these meetings do not lead us to anything,” the Syrian president said, adding, however, that “everything will change.”
As part of regime change efforts against Damascus in 2011, Washington, along with Turkiye, Gulf states, and several other countries, sponsored extremist groups with the aim of overthrowing the Syrian government.
With the help of Russia, Iran, and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Damascus has regained control over large swathes of Syria, which were under the control of ISIS and other US-backed groups.
Under the pretext of fighting ISIS, the US army occupied Syrian oilfields in the north of the country in 2015 in coordination with its Kurdish proxy, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – one year after the launching of an international military coalition in Iraq and Syria.
In May 2023, a senior diplomatic official in the Arab League revealed exclusively to The Cradle that Washington and Damascus were holding secret, direct negotiations in the Omani capital of Muscat.
During the talks, Syrian officials mainly pressed for the complete withdrawal of US occupation troops from the country.
The diplomat added that “secret talks took place in previous years between Damascus and Washington, but most of them were through mediators, such as the former director general of the Lebanese General Security, Abbas Ibrahim. Direct meetings also took place between the two countries, one of which was in the Syrian capital, Damascus.” However, the number of direct meetings remained limited.
The secret talks in Muscat also touched on Austin Tice, a US citizen who entered Syria illegally via the Turkish border in 2012. Not long after, Tice disappeared in the territory of armed opposition groups that were fighting the Syrian government.
During the Muscat talks, the source stressed that “the American envoy repeatedly confirmed that he has information that Austin Tice is alive and in a Syrian army detention center. However, the Syrian delegation insisted that it had no information about Tice, with Damascus expressing its readiness to make all possible efforts to reveal his fate."
Israel’s strategy from past decades will continue with its hope of achieving some Chimeric transformative “de-radicalisation” of Palestinians that will make ‘Israel safe’.
(This paper is the basis of a talk to be given at the 25th Yasin (April) International Academic Event on Economic and Social Development, HSE University, Moscow, April 2024)
In the summer following Israel’s 2006 (unsuccessful) war on Hizbullah, Dick Cheney sat in his office loudly bemoaning Hizbullah’s continuing strength; and worse still, that it seemed to him that Iran had been the primary beneficiary from the U.S. 2003 Iraq war.
Cheney’s guest – the then Saudi Intelligence Chief, Prince Bandar – vigorously concurred (as chronicled by John Hannah, who participated in the meeting) and, to general surprise, Prince Bandar proclaimed that Iran yet could be cut to size: Syria was the ‘weak’ link between Iran and Hizbullah that could be collapsed via an Islamist insurgency, Bandar proposed. Cheney’s initial scepticism turned to elation as Bandar said that U.S. involvement would be unnecessary: He, Prince Bandar, would orchestrate and manage the project. ‘Leave it to me’, he said.
Bandar separately told John Hannah: “The King knows that other than the collapse of the Islamic Republic itself, nothing would weaken Iran more than losing Syria”.
Thus began a new phase of attrition on Iran. The regional balance of power was to be decisively shifted towards Sunni Islam – and the region’s monarchies.
That old balance from the Shah’s time in which Persia enjoyed regional primacy was to be ended: conclusively, the U.S., Israel and the Saudi King hoped.
Iran – already badly bruised by the ‘imposed’ Iran-Iraq war – resolved never again to be so vulnerable. Iran aimed to find a path to strategic deterrence in the context of a region dominated by the overwhelming air dominance enjoyed by its adversaries.
What occurred this Saturday 14 April – some 18 years later – therefore was of utmost importance.
Despite the bruhaha and distraction following Iran’s attack, Israel and the U.S. know the truth: Iran’s missiles were able to penetrate directly into Israel’s two most sensitive and highly defended air bases and sites. Behind the whooping western rhetoric lies Israeli shock and fear. Their bases are no longer ‘untouchable’.
Israel also knows – but cannot admit – that the so-called ‘assault’ was no assault but an Iranian message to assert the new strategic equation: That any Israeli attack on Iran or its personnel will result in retribution from Iran into Israel.
This act of setting the new ‘balance of power equation’ unites the diverse Fronts against the U.S.’ “connivance with Israeli actions in the Middle East, that are at the core of Washington’s policy – and in many ways the root-cause of new tragedies” – in the words of Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Ryabkov.
The equation represents a key ‘Front’ – together with Russia’s war against NATO in Ukraine – for persuading the West that its exceptionalist and redemptive myth has proved to be a fatal conceit; that it must be discarded; and that deep cultural change in the West needs to happen.
The roots to this wider cultural conflict are deep – but finally have been made explicit.
Prince Bandar’s post-2006 playing of the Sunni ‘card’ was a flop (in no small part thanks to Russia’s intervention in Syria). AndIran, has come in from the cold and is firmly anchored as a primary regional power. It is the strategic partner to Russia and China. And Gulf States today have switched focus instead to money, ‘business’ and Tech, rather than Salafist jurisprudence.
Syria, then targeted by the West and ostracised, has not only survived all that the West could ‘throw at it’ but has been warmly embraced by the Arab League and rehabilitated. And Syria is now slowly finding its way to being itself again.
Yet even during the Syrian crisis, unforeseen dynamics to Prince Bandar’s playing of Islamist identity versus Arab socialist secular identity were playing out:
I wrote then in 2012:
“Over recent years we have heard the Israelis emphasise their demand for recognition of a specifically Jewish nation-state, rather than for an Israeli State, per se”;
– a state that would enshrine Jewish political, legal, and military exceptional rights.
“[At that time] … Muslim nations [were] seeking the ‘undoing’ of the last remnants of the colonial era. Will we see the struggle increasingly epitomised as a primordial struggle between Jewish and Islamic religious symbols – between al-Aqsa and the Temple Mount?”
To be plain, what was apparent even then – in 2012 – was “that both Israel and its surrounding terrain are marching in step toward language which takes them far away from the underlying, largely secular concepts by which this conflict traditionally has been conceptualised. What [would] be the consequence – as the conflict, by its own logic, becomes a clash of religious poles?”
If, twelve years ago, the protagonists were explicitly moving away from the underlying secular concepts by which the West conceptualised the conflict, we, by contrast, are still trying to understand the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the lens of secular, rationalist concepts – even as Israel quite evidently is seized by an increasingly Apocalyptic frenzy.
And by extension, we are stuck in trying to address the conflict through our habitual utilitarian, rationalist policy tool-set. And we wonder why it is not working. It is not working because all parties have moved beyond mechanical rationalism to a different plane.
The Conflict Becomes Eschatalogical
Last year’s election in Israel saw a revolutionary change: The Mizrahim walked into the Prime Minister’s office. These Jews coming from the Arab and North African sphere – now possibly the majority – and, with their political allies on the right, embraced a radical agenda: To complete the founding of Israel on the Land of Israel (i.e. no Palestinian State); to build the Third Temple (in place of Al-Aqsa); and to institute Halachic Law (in place of secular law).
None of this is what might be termed ‘secular’ or liberal. It was intended as the revolutionary overthrow of the Ashkenazi élite. It was Begin who tied the Mizrahi firstly to the Irgun and then to Likud. The Mizrahim now in power have a vision of themselves as the true representatives of Judaism, with the Old Testament as their blueprint. And condescend to the European Ashkenazi liberals.
If we think we can put Biblical myths and injunctions behind us in our secular age – where much of contemporary western thinking makes a point of ignoring such dimensions, dismissing them as either confused, or irrelevant – we would be mistaken.
As one commentator writes:
“At every turn, political figures in Israel now soak their proclamations in Biblical reference and allegory. The foremost of which [is] Netanyahu … You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible, and we do remember – and we are fighting…“Here [Netanyahu] not only invokes the prophecy of Isaiah, but frames the conflict as that of “light” versus “darkness” and good versus evil, painting the Palestinians as the Children of Darkness to be vanquished by the Chosen Ones: The Lord ordered King Saul to destroy the enemy and all his people: “Now go and defeat Amalek and destroy all that he has; and give him no mercy; but put to death both husband and wife; from youth to infant; from ox to sheep; from camel to donkey” (15:3)”.
We might term this ‘hot eschatology’ – a mode that is running wild amongst the young Israeli military cadres, to the point that the Israeli high command is losing control on the ground (lacking any mid-layer NCO (Non-Commissioned Officer) class).
On the other hand –
The uprising launched from Gaza is not called Al-Aqsa Flood for nothing. Al-Aqsa is both a symbol of a storied Islamic civlisation, and it is also the bulwark against the building of the Third Temple, for which preparations are underway. The point here is that Al-Aqsa represents Islam in aggregate — neither Shi’i, nor Sunni, nor ideological Islam.
Then, at another level, we have, as it were, ‘dispassionate eschatology’: When Yahyah Sinwar writes of ‘Victory or Martyrdom’for his people in Gaza; when Hizbullah speaks of sacrifice; and when the Iranian Supreme Leader speaks of Hussain bin Ali (the grandson of the Prophet) and some 70 companions in 680 CE, standing before inexorable slaughter against an 1,000 strong army, in the name of Justice, these sentiments simply are beyond the reach of western Utilitarian comprehension.
We cannot easily rationalise the latter ‘way of being’ in western modes of thought. However, as Hubert Védrine, France’s former Foreign Minister, observes – though titularly secular – the West nonetheless is “consumed by the spirit of proselytism”. That Saint Paul’s “go and evangelize all nations” has become “go and spread human rights to all the world”… And that this proselytism is extremely deep in [western DNA]: “Even the very least religious, totally atheists, they still have this in mind, [even though] they don’t know where it comes from”.
We might term this secular eschatology, as it were. It is certainly consequential.
A Military Revolution: We’re Ready Now
Iran, through all the West’s attrition, has pursued its astute strategy of ‘strategic patience’ – keeping conflicts away from its borders. A strategy that focused heavily on diplomacy and trade; and soft power to engage positively with near and far neighbors alike.
Behind this quietist front of stage, however, lay the evolution to ‘active deterrence’ which required long military preparation and the nurturing of allies.
Our understanding of the world became antiquated
Just occasionally, very occasionally, a military revolution can upend the prevailing strategic paradigm. This was Qasem Suleimani’s key insight. This is what ‘active deterrence’ implies. The switch to a strategy that could upend prevailing paradigms.
Both Israel and the U.S. have armies that are conventionally far more powerful than their adversaries which are mostly composed of small non-state rebels or revolutionaries. The latter are treated more as mutineers within the traditionalist colonial framing, and for whom a whiff of firepower generally is considered sufficient.
The West, however, has not fully assimilated the military revolutions now underway. There has been a radical shift in the balance of power between low-tech improvisation and expensive complex (and less robust) weapons platforms.
The Additional Ingredients
What makes Iran’s new military approach truly transformative have been two additional factors: One was the appearance of an outstanding military strategist (now assassinated); and secondly, his ability to mix and apply these new tools in a wholly novel matrix. The fusion of these two factors – together with low-tech drones and cruise missiles – completed the revolution.
The philosophy driving this military strategy is clear: the West is over-invested in air dominance and in its carpet fire power. It prioritises ‘shock and awe’ thrusts, but quickly exhausts itself early in the encounter. This rarely can be sustained for long. The Resistance aim is to exhaust the enemy.
The second key principle driving this new military approach concerns the careful calibration of the intensity of conflict, upping and lowering the flames as appropriate; and, at the same time, keeping escalatory dominance within the Resistance’s control.
In Lebanon, in 2006, Hizbullah remained deep underground whilst the Israeli air assault swept across overhead. The physical surface damage was huge, yet their forces were unaffected and emerged from deep tunnels – only afterwards. Then came the 33 days of Hizbullah’s missile barrage – until Israel called it quits.
So, is there any strategic point to an Israeli military response to Iran?
Israelis widely believe that without deterrence – without the world fearing them – they cannot survive. October 7 set this existential fear burning through Israeli society. Hezbollah’s very presence only exacerbates it – and now Iran has rained missiles down into Israel directly.
The opening of the Iranian front, in a certain way, initially may have benefited Netanyahu: the IDF defeat in the Gaza war; the hostage release impasse; the continuing displacement of Israelis from the north; and even the murder of the World Kitchen aid workers – all are temporarily forgotten. The West has grouped at Israel’s – and Netanyahu’s – side again. Arab states are again co-operating. And attention has moved from Gaza to Iran.
So far, so good (from Netanyahu’s perspective, no doubt). Netanyahu has been angling to draw the U.S. into war with Israel against Iran for two decades (albeit with successive U.S. Presidents declining the dangerous prospect).
But to cut Iran down to size would require U.S. military assistance.
Netanyahu senses Biden’s weakness and has the tools and knowhow by which he can manipulate U.S. politics: Indeed, worked in this way, Netanyahu might force Biden to continue to arm Israel, and even to embrace his widening of the war to Hizbullah in Lebanon.
Conclusion
Israel’s strategy from past decades will continue with its hope of achieving some Chimeric transformative “de-radicalisation” of Palestinians that will make ‘Israel safe’.
A former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. argues that Israel can have no peace without such ‘transformative de-radicalisation’. “If we do it right”, Ron Dermer insists, “it will make Israel stronger – and the U.S. too”. It is in this context that the War Cabinet’s insistence on retaliation against Iran should be understood.
Rational argument advocating moderation is read as inviting defeat.
All of which is to say that Israelis are psychologically very far from being able to reconsider the content to the Zionist project of Jewish special rights. For now, they are on a completely different path, trusting to a Biblical reading that many Israelis have come to view as mandatory injunctions under Halachic Law.
Hubert Védrine asks us the supplementary question: “Can we imagine a West that manages to preserve the societies it has birthed – and yet “is not proselytizing, not-interventionist? In other words, a West that can accept alterity, that can live with others – and accept them for who they are”.
Védrine says this “is not a problem of the diplomatic machines: it’s a question of profound soul-searching, a deep cultural change that needs to happen in western society”.
A ‘trial of strength’ between Israel and the Resistance Fronts ranged against it likely cannot be avoided.
The die has been deliberately cast this way.
Netanyahu is gambling big with Israel’s – and America’s – future. And he may lose.
If there is a regional war, and Israel suffers defeat, then what?
When exhaustion (and defeat) finally settles in, and the parties ‘scrabble in the drawer’ for new solutions to their strategic distress, the truly transformative solution would be for an Israeli leader to think the ‘unthinkable’ – to think of one state between the River and the Sea.
And, for Israel – tasting the bitter herbs of ‘things fallen apart’ – to talk directly with Iran.
A mass grave created by the IDF has been uncovered at a Gaza hospital, where Palestinian civilians appear to have been the victims of a gruesome massacre.
“Bah, that’s old news Caitlin,” you may be saying. “We already know about the massacre and mass graves which were discovered a few weeks ago at the al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza.”
No no, that’s a different mass grave from a different IDF massacre at a completely different Gaza hospital. The now completely destroyed al-Shifa Hospital was in Gaza City; I’m talking about the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, where some 210 bodies have reportedly been discovered in a mass grave after Israeli forces withdrew from the city earlier this month. Two different massacres, two different hospitals, two different mass graves full of Palestinian civilians.
The IDF are just attacking hospitals and mowing down civilians and trying to bury the evidence of their crimes, so naturally we’re seeing the western political-media class focus very hard on the problem of antisemitism allegations on college campuses.
MoH: Number of bodies retrieved from Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis rises to 210.
Hundreds are still missing!
First picture from Nasser and the second from Al Shifa Hospital! pic.twitter.com/bI8KsSv2XV
— Motasem A Dalloul (@AbujomaaGaza) April 22, 2024
“Biden denounces antisemitism on college campuses amid Columbia protests,” reads a new headline from The Washington Post.
“As Protests Continue at Columbia, Some Jewish Students Feel Targeted,” The New York Times urgently warns us.
“White House condemns ‘blatantly antisemitic’ protests as agitators engulf Columbia University,” blares Fox News.
“Columbia University faces full-blown crisis as rabbi calls for Jewish students to ‘return home’,” says CNN.
“Columbia University: White House condemns antisemitism at college protests,” the BBC reports.
Getting far less attention than the fact that some Zionist university students are feeling uncomfortable feelings because other students say Palestinians are human beings is the fact that Israel is establishing a pattern of massacring civilians and burying them in mass graves outside hospitals in Gaza, or the fact that the IDF has been butchering children in Rafah, or the fact that the International Criminal Court is reportedly considering charging Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials for war crimes.
Those matters are important, just not nearly as important as how some western Jews feel emotionally upset about pro-Palestine protests. For that, the world must stop spinning on its axis until this extremely egregious problem has been addressed.
All the western spin and distortion around Israel’s mass atrocities in Gaza these last six months have revolved around centering feelings over human lives. How western Jewish Zionists are feeling about pro-Palestine sentiments. How Joe Biden’s feelings secretly feel about Netanyahu. How Israelis feel about October 7.
Wherever there’s an opportunity to focus the narrative on what feelings are being felt by a politically convenient population, the western press fall all over themselves to do so with tumescent enthusiasm. Wherever there’s an opportunity to focus on Israeli atrocities, the western press are nowhere to be found.
If you belong to a group that isn’t supported by the western empire, you can see your entire family murdered right in front of you and the western political-media class still won’t consider you a victim. If you belong to a group that the empire regards as human, then even someone offending your feelings will be viewed as an unforgivable hate crime.
Israel prepares Rafah evacuation with US, Arab assistance: Report
Arab states, including the UAE and Egypt, are involved in plans to push Rafah’s civilian population into tent compounds near Khan Yunis
News Desk
APR 23, 2024
(Photo credit: AFP)
The Israeli army is closing in on completing its plans for an assault on the Gaza Strip’s southern city of Rafah, the Wall Street J
ournal (WSJ) reported on 23 April.
WSJ cites Egyptian officials as saying that Israel’s plan to evacuate civilians from the city will take two to three weeks and will be carried out in cooperation with Washington, Cairo, and other Arab states, including the UAE.
The officials say Israel is planning on gradual deployments of troops to Rafah. The troops will concentrate on specific areas where Tel Aviv believes Hamas leaders are holed up.
The entire operation – including the evacuations – is expected to take at least six weeks, according to WSJ.
The attack on Rafah will have a “very tight operational plan because it’s very complex there,” an Israeli security official told the outlet. “There’s a humanitarian response that’s happening at the same time.”
Israel’s evacuation plan involves moving Rafah’s civilian population upwards towards the southern city of Khan Yunis, as well as other areas of the strip, the report states, adding that shelters with tents, food supplies, and medical facilities will be set up.
Egypt has been briefed on the details of the plan. Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reported last week, citing Egyptian sources, that Egyptian forces and agencies are “at full readiness” in northern Sinai and along the Egyptian border with Gaza. The increased readiness came after “contacts from the Israeli side” relating to preparations for the operation in the southern city. The Al-Araby Al-Jadeed report adds that the Egyptian Red Crescent has been readying camps in Khan Yunis over the past few months in preparation for the displacement of Palestinians from Rafah.
Satellite images obtained by AP this week reportedly show a new tent compound near Khan Yunis.
In February, it was reported that Egypt built a security zone in the Sinai near the border with Rafah. Many speculated at the time that the security zone would aid Israeli plans to push Rafah’s population into the Sinai desert. Egypt's State Information Service said on 17 February that the zone is a logistics hub on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border, which will be used to deliver aid into Gaza.
Israeli army radio reported on Monday that Tel Aviv is now expanding a designated “humanitarian zone” that will “accommodate around one million people.” It said field hospitals have also been set up in the area.
Army radio added that the zone will extend from Al-Mawasi on Gaza’s southern coast towards Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
Israel believes Rafah is Hamas’ final stronghold and is dead set on attacking the city. Washington has repeatedly said it would not accept an operation there without a plan to properly and safely evacuate civilians and move them out of harm's way.
The UN and several countries have warned that attacking Rafah would have catastrophic consequences and that there is no safe way to evacuate the desperately overcrowded city.
Tel Aviv’s underwhelming military counter to Iran’s 13 April military strike has destroyed decades of Israel’s carefully cultivated deterrence posture.
Khalil Harb
APR 23, 2024
(Photo Credit: The Cradle)
Iran’s Operation True Promise strikes on 13 April have reopened the deep wounds Israel incurred during Hamas’ 7 October attack. While Operation Al-Aqsa Flood shook the occupation state’s security bubble at its core, a single night of Iranian rockets and drones left Israelis straggling to hold on to even a sliver of their famed deterrence posture.
As military spokesman for Hamas' Qassam Brigades Abu Obeida succinctly highlighted in his 23 April speech:
Iran’s response, in its size and nature, established new rules and confused the enemy’s calculations.
This is the region’s new status quo. And Israel’s mysterious ‘Isfahan attack’ has done nothing to shake Iran’s confidence. In short, the alleged Israeli counter has reaffirmed the regional view – militarily, at least – that Tehran has checkmated Tel Aviv and rewritten the rules of engagement.
After years of provocations, and for the first time in its history, Iran has launched a direct offensive against Israel, confidently claiming that it utilized only a fraction of its military capabilities – many of these “obsolete” missiles within its fast-evolving arsenal.
Iran targeted Israel’s key Nevatim and Ramon air bases precisely, despite the spectacular display of lights from intercepted decoy explosions that lit up the skies. Many, quick to judge, misinterpreted the massive salvo as a sign of a broader strategic offensive from the Unity of Fronts – the Resistance alliance that poses a multi-front dilemma for Tel Aviv – aimed at devastating Israel in one blow.
A slap in the face
In fact, Iran conducted the operation alone, which makes the seriousness of Iran’s “slap” all the more significant.
The night of the Iranian missile attack also demonstrated the limits of Iranian patience and Tehran’s strategic shift from caution to calculated aggression, necessitating the intervention of three western nuclear powers and the “Arab fig leaf,” Jordan, to counteract the assault.
The Iranians backed their military actions with public statements and shared images of their commanders orchestrating the operations. Conversely, Israel’s response to the events in Isfahan was ambiguous and poorly communicated, with only sporadic information leaking to the US and Israeli press in a feeble attempt to project resolve.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian mocked the Israeli response in an interview with NBC News, where he dismissed the Israeli drones as trivial, likening them to “toys that our children play with.”
Israel’s ‘ridiculous’ comeback
Israel’s military counter is now widely perceived as a dud, derided even within Israel itself by figures such as Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, who describes it as “ridiculous.”
Despite Tel Aviv’s formidable military arsenal, which includes undeclared nuclear weapons, and its historical posture as a reliable western ally in the region, the events of 13 April have exposed gaping vulnerabilities in its ability to respond to credible threats, especially from Iran.
This ineffectiveness was highlighted amidst the symbolism of Isfahan – home to Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility – where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has long positioned himself as a stalwart against Iran’s nuclear ambitions, appeared uncharacteristically passive.
The Israeli PM’s lack of any tangible response was a departure from his usual hyperbole, painting a picture of Israel as unprepared and hesitant – retreating rather than confronting.
Furthermore, Iran’s nuclear program has paradoxically also emerged as a potent tool in Tehran’s strategic arsenal. The explicit warning from the Islamic Republic about possibly revising its nuclear doctrine in response to an escalated Israeli threat suggests a bold new stance, despite Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s fatwa (Islamic decree) against nuclear arms.
Is Israeli deterrence dead?
The Isfahan incident did little to bolster Israel’s deterrence posture, which has been eroding since Al-Aqsa Flood and further weakened by Hezbollah’s operations in the north and Iran’s True Promise. These events have deeply impacted the Israeli psyche, challenging the foundational sense of security that underpins the Zionist vision of a “secure Jewish state” established on the lands of Palestine.
Against this backdrop, the conventional rules of engagement that have long governed regional interactions are being re-evaluated. Iran’s bold moves – despite US and Israeli warnings – signal a recalibration of power dynamics, indicating a potentially transformative period in West Asian geopolitics.
The Israeli response, both present and future, must now consider the possibility of a united front from the Axis of Resistance if it chooses to escalate further. This adds a layer of complexity to any military planning against Iran, likely prompting Israel to revert to its characteristic approach of covert operations. These may involve sabotage or targeted assassinations attributed to local agents rather than direct military strikes.
Meanwhile, the US, amid its own internal political issues and upcoming elections in November, is likely to play a dual role. It will monitor its ally’s actions closely while trying to moderate the regional tensions to prevent any significant escalation that could destabilize its broader strategic interests.
A point of no return
Today, it is Iran – not the US, not Israel, and certainly not the Isfahan attack – which has restabilized the regional balance, even temporarily, pending the crystallization of the new rules of engagement.
Tel Aviv’s counterstrike tried hard to mitigate the possibility of any further Iranian retaliation – especially as Tehran’s next move would likely come without warning, involve Iran’s superior missiles, and potentially the mobilization of Iranian allies toward Israel's borders.
The Axis of Resistance was happy to allow their Iranian ally to take center stage on 13 April and exact revenge for Israel’s miscalculated 1 April bombing of Iran’s diplomatic mission in Damascus. Any further bold moves from Tel Aviv would ensure that the Axis would activate on every front to swarm Israel.
So, for the moment, Tel Aviv does not dare to compromise Iran’s security directly, instead turning their impotent rage toward vulnerable Rafah, where over a million Palestinian civilians are stranded without food, shelter, and water.
The Hebrew media is already spinning for all its worth, promoting Tel Aviv’s “gains” from demonstrating restraint against Iran – whether from last week’s UN Security Council veto of a Palestinian state or the new $26 billion aid package the US Congress just approved for Israel, or obtaining White House support for the occupation army’s Rafah invasion.
Dr Hussein al-Musawi, the spokesman for the Iraqi Harakat al-Nujaba, tells The Cradle that Israel has, in effect, received a blank check for bad behavior from Washington:
is not surprising that the US supports and defends Israel, regardless of its violation of international norms, and this undoubtedly embarrasses the Iraqi government, which seeks to take a clear position on the US military presence in Iraq.
For these and many other reasons, Israeli leaders are now acutely aware that any overtly aggressive action will not go unnoticed in the current geopolitical climate. The region is embroiled in what could be described as a 'mini-international-regional war,' characterized by intermittent flare-ups and periods of relative calm.
True Promise, much like Al-Aqsa Flood before it, is poised to be recorded in history as a pivotal, perhaps even terminal, moment for the brief history of the Israeli occupation state, which now finds itself more isolated than ever and facing an increasingly uncertain future.
Hezbollah hits army HQ deep inside Israel
The Islamic resistance used decoy and explosive drones to target the base near the coastal city of Acre
News Desk
APR 23, 2024
Hezbollah fighters training in Syria (Photo credit: Syrian Observatory for Human Rights)
Hezbollah attacked the headquarters of the Israeli army's Golani Brigade with drones on 23 April, in the deepest strike within Israel since the start of the war on 8 October, Al-Mayadeen reported.
The Lebanese resistance group confirmed that the air attack “targeted the headquarters of the Golani Brigade and the headquarters of Egoz Unit 621 in the Sharaga barracks, north of the occupied city of Akka, and the drones hit their targets accurately.”
Al-Mayadeen's correspondent confirmed that the attack deep on the Israeli coast involved launching a swarm of decoy and explosive drones that successfully hit their target.
Hezbollah stated the attack was in response to an Israeli attack on the town of Adloun and the assassination of one of its fighters, Hussein Azkoul.
Israeli media had reported the sounding of sirens in the Upper Galilee region in fear of a drone infiltration, pointing to the launch of an interceptor missile towards a suspicious air target in the sky over Nahariya.
The Israeli media also indicated that sirens sounded in a large number of settlements in the north, all the way to Acre, in fear of a drone infiltration.
Israeli Army Radio confirmed that 200,000 Israelis evacuated to bomb shelters in the north after three drones were launched from Lebanon over Nahariya.
This came after Hezbollah launched a combined attack last Wednesday with guided missiles and assault drones on the headquarters of the new military reconnaissance company in Arab al-Aramshe. The resistance group stated one Israeli general was killed and scores of others injured in the strike. The Israeli rescue service Magen David Adom said 18 people were wounded, four of them seriously. It didn't identify them or indicate whether they were soldiers or civilians.
Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom recently reported that the Israeli army is increasingly struggling to deal with Hezbollah's drone attacks.
The newspaper explained that the Israeli army faces difficulty detecting and intercepting small drones with a low radar cross-section.
Gaza mass graves spur Yemen to expand naval attacks
Sanaa expressed outrage after hundreds of bodies were found under Gaza’s Nasser Hospital, calling it an ‘unparalleled level of Zionist hate’
News Desk
APR 23, 2024
(Photo Credit: AFP)
Yemen’s armed forces threatened on 22 April to expand military operations against Israeli-linked ships in the Red Sea, Arab Sea, and Indian Ocean following the discovery of mass graves in Gaza’s Nasser Medical Complex.
“For the seventh month in a row, the genocidal crimes of the Israeli enemy continue, the latest of which is the brutal massacre in the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis,” the armed forces said via a statement on Yemen’s Al-Masirah channel.
The statement continued, “the genocidal crimes that the Palestinian people are facing in Gaza and the occupied West Bank reflect an unparalleled level of Zionist hatred and crime.”
The statement by Yemen called to “escalate their operations in the Red Sea,” adding that Sanaa continues its full support for the people of Gaza.
On Sunday, over 200 bodies were found across two mass graves located in Khan Yunis’ Nasser Medical Complex. Gaza’s Government Media Office announced that about 700 victims are expected to be found.
“We found in the Nasser Complex corpses without heads and bodies without skins, and some of them had their organs stolen,” the media office said. “The occupation executed dozens of displaced, wounded, sick, and medical staff.”
Yemen’s statement said that the West was to blame for the continued crimes on Gaza, saying, “If it hadn’t been for US and Western support, the shameful Arab silence, and powerlessness of the UN, the Zionist crimes against the Palestinian people would not have occurred.”
The Yemeni armed forces have overwhelmed the forces they deem to be enemies of Palestine. Earlier in April, Yemen’s attacks led to the French Aquitaine-class FREMM frigate Alsace’s retreat from the Red Sea following the ship’s complete exhaustion of munitions.
“We didn’t necessarily expect this level of threat. There was an uninhibited violence that was quite surprising and very significant. [The Yemenis] do not hesitate to use drones that fly at water level, to explode them on commercial ships, and to fire ballistic missiles,” the ship’s commander, Jerome Henry, said.
Earlier in April, the Yemeni armed forces drones announced its targeting of two Israeli ships, MSC Darwin and MSC Gina, and two US ships, Maersk Yorktown and a warship, in the Gulf of Aden.
“The Yemeni armed forces continue to perform their religious, moral, and humanitarian duty towards the oppressed Palestinian people and in defense of dear Yemen,” the statement read.
After Fooling ‘Israel’, ‘Martyred’ Resistance Chief Emerges in Tulkarm
APRIL 22, 2024
The commander of al-Quds Brigades - Tulkarm Brigade, Mohammad Jaber (Abu Shujaa) during a funeral procession in Nur Shams refugee camp in the occupied West Bank in 2024. Photo: Social Media.
By Hussein Assaf – Apr 21, 2024
The emergence of Abu Shujaa surprised both the Israeli occupation and his Palestinian people alike.
Earlier this week, Israeli occupation forces carried out a brutal three-day raid of Tulkarm’s Nur Shams refugee camp seeking to assassinate Resistance leaders and conduct mass arrests as part of the Israeli plan to end rebellious movements in the occupied West Bank.
At least 14 Palestinians were killed and dozens detained by Israeli forces throughout the incursion.
Martyrs included the commander of al-Quds Brigades – Tulkarm Brigade, Mohammad Jaber (Abu Shujaa), who was besieged for long hours by occupation soldiers amid heavy confrontations. Abu Shujaa was mourned in a statement by the group on Friday. Shortly after, Palestinian social media groups and users engaged the news and started lamenting the loss of the prominent Resistance leader.
However, a voice note went viral among Resistance supporters, with the speaker claiming to Abu Shujaa, stating that he was still alive and that he managed to escape the Israeli siege while alluding to them he was killed.
Nevertheless, there was no way to confirm that the message was indeed recorded by him. Up until Sunday.
During the funeral processions of the martyrs in the camp today, Abu Shujaa appeared among the crowds, surprising both the occupation and his citizens.
The masses were both angered while carrying the bodies of their martyrs and rejoicing that the Resistance leader was still alive.
Social media users started sharing footage of his appearance, pointing out what a blow it was to the Israeli security and intelligence establishment.
“This marks a major win especially that Israeli media is taking another swing at Israeli deterrence and this time in the West Bank!,” one X user said.
In a later video, Abu Shujaa appeared between his brothers in arms from the Tulkarm Brigade.
After he was congratulated for his safe return, Abu Shuja was asked about his message to the occupation.
The Resistance leader responded: “[My] message is that we defied the occupation, and I am still alive, and God willing will continue in the path of the martyrs. And no matter how many of us [Resistance fighters] they assassinate, we will move forward until victory.”
He further revealed that the Israeli occupation forces are concealing casualties, including both fatalities and injuries, resulting from the confrontations with the Resistance in the Nur Shams camp, daring the Israeli establishments to “admit to what happened” in several neighborhoods in the camp.
Finally, Abu Shujaa addressed Resistance forces and Palestinians both in the West Bank and Gaza, in addition to his citizens living abroad, that “God willing we will not fail you,” urging them to continue marching down the same path as the martyrs who have ascended before them.
Israel Economy Deterioration Worsens as Gaza Conflict and Other Hostilities Grind On
Posted on April 24, 2024 by Yves Smith
There’s been remarkably little coverage in the Western press about how well, or not, Israel’s economy is holding up under the impact of what is turning out to be a protracted conflict in Gaza and heightened hostilities on other fronts. John Helmer has provided some good accounts, and there was also a flurry of reporting after Israel reported what was widely seen as an unexpectedly bad GDP decline at the annualized rate of nearly 20% for its final quarter of 2023.
Israel should be reporting a first quarter GDP soon. Bear in mind that anything other than something of a bounceback, which seems vanishingly unlikely, will be very bad news. Even though the contraction is not likely to continue at the precipitous level of the fourth quarter. Or even if it has, the figures will be manipulated so it will not be reported so as to keep the Confidence Fairy out of the ICU. I have not idea how the official data mavens work in Israel, but the easiest way to fool with GDP reports in the US is by understating inflation, which for the purpose of estimating GDP is done through the GDP deflator.
Regardless, continued contraction from the already lower level at year end means that the loss of activity is at greater risk of becoming permanent. Note that this outcome is not an accident. Alastair Crooke has repeatedly pointed out that Israel and the US are both set up to wage short, air-firepower dominated wars. Iran, Lebanon, and Iran set out to thwart that by moving critical military infrastructure and decision-making well underground, too deep to be hit by air strikes. They have also set out to engage in longer war, which Israel would find hard to sustain, and in particular to control the escalation. Iran’s very carefully calibrated response to Israel’s attack on Iran’s embassy grounds in Damascus suggests they are actually good at that sort of thing. Iran made the point that it pulled its punches while not backing down and penetrating Israel’s layered defenses to strike the three targets. This is not what Israel and the US expected.
And that is before getting to the widely-reported asymmetry in costs, with Israel spending an estimated $1.2-$1.3 billion its defense, and the total expenditure across Israel and its allies as high as $3 billion. This compares to an estimated attack cost for Iran of $60 million.
Crooke has focused on the military calculus, of Israel not being set up to wage a long war. He’s mentioned, albeit not as often, Israel’s economic vulnerability. Here Iran and Hezbollah arguably have glass jaws too, since one of the big reasons for both of them to want to avoid a hotter war is Lebanon is in terrible economic shape, and Iran is only just now getting on a good footing after sanctions strangulation. But it seems, particularly due to the impact of the Houthis attacks on Israel’s trade, that Israel is suffering proportionately more from the conflict dragging on.
For instance, due to the intense focus on how Israel would respond to Iran’s drone and missile strikes, the fact that S&P downgraded Israel’s short and long term debt last Thursday, with a negative outlook, went largely under the radar. The ratings agency specifically cited the war being more protracted than initially expected as a big factor in its action. Via Fox Business:
“Under our baseline scenario, we still expect a wider regional conflict to be avoided, but the Israel-Hamas war and the confrontation with Hezbollah appear set to continue throughout 2024,” S&P Global Ratings wrote. “This is in contrast to our October 2023 expectation of military activity not lasting more than six months.”
Interestingly, the Independent woke up to the issue of the economic side of the Israel conflict in the last few days, with a story titled, Can Iran win an economic war of attrition against Israel? It reports:
The focus on so-called “kinetic” warfare is distracting us from the economic war that preceded the missile strikes between Iran and Israel this month, and is likely to intensify now….
Until last October, Israel seemed as invulnerable to economic warfare as it was to a military onslaught.
Only student groups in elite Western universities seemed enthusiastic for boycotts and disinvestment – and wouldn’t Columbia’s graduates grow up to be investment analysts recommending Israeli tech stocks?
But Israel has an achilles heel.
It is intellectual property rich, but natural resources poor, while Iran squanders its intellectual capital because it has oil and gas to waste on a covert war with Israel.
Israel’s problem today is less disinvestment – though there are straws in the wind in Belgium and Holland – than a good old-fashioned physical blockade. From attacks on Red Sea shipping by Iran’s Houthi allies in Yemen, to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards’ seizure of Israeli-owned shipping in the Persian Gulf, insurance and cargo delivery costs are hiking. Alternative road routes across Jordan to UAE ports are more expensive than sea routes for heavy goods – such as foodstuffs, machinery and vehicles…
Because of the Gaza campaign, as well as security demands in the West Bank and on the Lebanese and Syrian borders, huge numbers of workers have been called up into uniform in the IDF.
In the past, Israel won decisive victories quickly. Its first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, warned that it could not survive prolonged wars of attrition…
Maybe Iran’s ability to survive decades of would-be economic strangulation is a sign that being more economically primitive (as well as repressive) makes a state less vulnerable to economic warfare.
Israeli society has been most cohesive in the face of external threats – until now. Benjamin Netanyahu’s Marmite effect on public opinion is re-emerging as the war drags on. Add economic and social costs to the human toll, and a new uncertainty haunts Israel.
I’ve included the digs on Iran as supposedly backwards (a look at its number of engineering graduates and its progress in building a domestic pharma industry disproves that) to show that an article with an obvious bias still has trouble finding happy outcomes for Israel.
As we’ll soon discuss, an anecdotal account at the BBC indicates conditions in Israel are continuing to deteriorate.
There is remarkably little on Twitter on the state of Israel’s economy, and what there is comes from parties with a vested interest. That does not mean it is not directionally correct, particularly since it echoes the Independent on the impact of the de facto blockade:
Ismail Haniyeh: Israel's economy collapsed because of Yemen
Head of the Hamas political movement Ismail Haniyeh:
No one could have thought that a country like Yemen would have such a powerful impact and stop the transit flow in the Red Sea. This Yemeni action destroyed the… Show more
And the neighbors have taken a bruising too:
Even with this warmup, the BBC story comes off as grim. From We need a miracle’ – Israeli and Palestinian economies battered by war:
More than six months into the devastating Gaza war, its impact on the Israeli and Palestinian economies has been huge.
Nearly all economic activity in Gaza has been wiped out and the World Bank says the war has also hit Palestinian businesses in the occupied West Bank hard.
As Israelis mark the Jewish festival of Passover, the much-vaunted “start-up nation” is also trying to remain an attractive proposition for investors.
The cobbled streets of Jerusalem’s Old City are eerily quiet. There are none of the long queues to visit the holy sites – at least those that remain open….
Just 68,000 tourists arrived in Israel in February, according to the country’s Central Bureau of Statistics. That’s down massively from 319,100 visitors in the same month last year.
While it may be surprising that any visitors pass through Jerusalem at a time of such tension, many of those who do are religious pilgrims from across the globe who will have paid for their journeys well in advance.
Admittedly, the BBC reporting from Jerusalem will put the impact on tourism in focus. We cited reports earlier that put tourism narrowly defined at 2% to 3% of GDP and its broader impact at 5% to 6%. One has to wonder if those figures include travelers visiting and staying with relatives. The flights are presumably included, but their additional in-country spending is probably missed.
Back to the BBC:
It’s not just in Jerusalem’s Old City that they need a miracle.
Some 250km (150 miles) further north, on Israel’s volatile border with Lebanon, almost daily exchanges of fire with Hezbollah since the war in Gaza began have forced the Israeli army to close much of the area and 80,000 residents have been evacuated further south…
Agriculture in this part of Israel is another economic sector that has been hit hard…
Although they provide a living for thousands of people, agriculture and tourism account for relatively small parts of both the Israeli or Palestinian economies.
So what does the wider picture show?
The BBC describes how life in Tel Aviv seems unaffected, how nearly $2 billion was invested in startups in the first quarter, and no multinational has exited. Note that the latter does not mean there have been no cutbacks. Even with the shock and awe sanctions in Russia, most multinationals in Russia mothballed their operations, continuing to pay rent, in some cases continuing to pay what amounted to a skeleton staff, and other obligatory expenses. The Russian government forced them to fish or cut bait (forgive me for not rechecking the precise mechanism, but the government wanted the foreign businesses either to resume paying suppliers and staff at normal levels or sell out).
Back again to the text of the BBC account:
The economics professor [Elise Brezis] at Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv acknowledges that despite the last quarter’s GDP figures, Israel’s economy remains “remarkably resilient”.
“When it comes to tourism, yes, we have a reduction in exports. But we had also reduction in imports,” says Brezis. “So in fact, the balance of payments is still okay. That’s what is so problematic is that from the data, you don’t really feel that there is such a terrible situation in Israel.”
But Prof Brezis detects a wider malaise in Israeli society that isn’t reflected in economic data.
“Israel’s economy might be robust, but Israeli society is not robust right now. It’s like looking at a person and saying, ‘Wow, his salary is high,’ […] but in fact he’s depressed. And he’s thinking, ‘What will I do with my life?’ – That’s exactly Israel today.”
We’ll have a better idea of conditions in Israel when first quarter figures come out. But anything less than a strong bounce would not be good
Israel’s Architect of Ethnic Cleansing
April 23, 2024
As Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza unfolds, the spectre of Yosef Weitz lives on, writes Stefan Moore.
Damaged buildings in Gaza, Dec. 6, 2023. (Tasnim News Agency, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)
By Stefan Moore
Pearls and Irritations
Since 1948, Israel has invoked the Holocaust to justify the forced expulsion of Arabs from Palestine to create a Jewish state, but the systematic blueprint for ethnic cleansing was being drawn up years earlier by a Zionist zealot named Yosef Weitz.
In November 1940 – eight years before the founding of the state of Israel – Weitz wrote:
“It must be clear that there is no room in the country for both peoples … If the Arabs leave it, the country will become wide and spacious for us …. The only solution is a Land…without Arabs. There is no room here for compromises… There is no way but to transfer the Arabs from here to the neighbouring countries … Not one village must be left, not one tribe… There is no other solution.”
Weitz was “a quintessential Zionist colonialist,” writes Israeli historian Ilan Pappé. Born in Russia in 1890 and immigrating to Palestine as a child, Weitz would become the influential head of the Land Settlement Department of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) created to colonise Palestine by purchasing Arab land for the Yishuv (the immigrant Jews in Palestine before 1948).
As head of the Land Settlement Department, Weitz oversaw the program to purchase properties from absentee landlords and run the Palestinian tenant farmers off their land. But it soon became clear that purchasing small lots of land would not come close to fulfilling the Zionists’ dream of creating a Jewish majority state in Palestine.
In 1932, when Weitz joined the Jewish National Fund, there were only 91,000 Jews in Palestine (roughly 10 percent of the population) who owned a mere 2 percent of the land.
Yosef Weitz in 1945. (Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)
Changing that demographic reality called for a radical two-pronged solution first, to convince the British Mandate in Palestine to allow more Jewish migration and, simultaneously, develop an efficient program to expel indigenous Palestinians.
To tackle the problem, the Jewish Agency set up a “Transfer Committee” in 1948 (the idea was Weitz’s) to come up with more robust plans to evict Palestinians and enforce their relocation in neighbouring Arab countries.
With his background in land settlement, Weitz was a natural choice to spearhead the prominent three-member group which included Israel’s future first president, Chaim Weizmann, and future Prime Minister Moshe Shertok.
Thanks to Weitz’s obsessive commitment to the mass expulsion of Palestinians he became known as the “architect of transfer” — a euphemism for ethnic cleansing (a recognised form of genocide) that would reach its apotheosis in the Nakba of 1948.
Yitzhak Rabin with Yosef Weitz (pointing at map on right) in the Yakir forest in the Negev in undated photo. (IDF/Wikimedia Commons)
Invoking the Old Testament, Weitz recounts a tour of Palestinian villages in June 1941 with messianic zeal:
“There is no room for us with our neighbours. . . . development is a very slow process . . . . They [the Palestinian Arabs] are too many and too much rooted [in the country] . . . . the only way is to cut and eradicate them [the Palestinian Arabs] from the roots. I feel that this is the truth . . . I am beginning to understand the essence of the MIRACLE which should happen with the arrival of the Messiah; MIRACLE does not happen in evolution, but all of a sudden, in one moment. . .” (Weitz’s emphasis)
Although Weitz’s Transfer Committee devised the first systematic plans to expel Palestinians, its roots reach back to the birth of the Zionist movement.
As early as 1895, Zionism’s founder Theodor Herzl declared:
“We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border…denying [Palestinians] any employment in our own country.”
Other early Zionists, such as Israel Zangwill, were less restrained:
“We must be prepared either to drive out by the sword the Arab tribes…or to grapple with the problem of a larger alien population.”
By the early 20th century, the alarm bells were already going off across historic Palestine; clashes between Jewish settlers and Palestinians were on the rise.
Crowd of Arab demonstrators in Jaffa advancing toward the police force in the square, October 1933. (Library of Congress, Public domain)
But the spark that would ignite the entire region was the 1917 Balfour Declaration announcing Britain’s support for a Jewish homeland in the British Mandate of Palestine.
It was a fateful promise that was, in the words of the late Palestinian-American academic Edward Said, “made by a European power … about a non-European territory … in a flat disregard of the native majority residents in that territory.”
It would engulf Palestine in ceaseless conflict and pave the way to the Nakba in 1948.
Over the following two decades Jewish immigration increased from a trickle to a flood – 60,000 in 1936 alone. As more Palestinians farmers were driven off their land and into poverty, resistance grew, exploding in the Great Arab Revolt of 1936-39 — three years of demonstrations, riots, strikes, bombings, sabotage and bloody clashes between Palestinians and Jews, finally brutally crushed by the British army and the Haganah (Zionist militia).
By the time it was over more than 5,000 Palestinians and 300 Jews had been killed.
In the wake of the uprising Britain set up the Palestine Royal Commission, or Peel Commission, that recommended the partition of Palestine into two sovereign states, with the Arab state annexed to Transjordan. If Arabs refused to move from the Jewish state their transfer to Transjordan would be “compulsory in the last resort.” The same would be true for Jews who refused to leave the Arab state.
Unsurprisingly, the Palestinians strenuously rejected partition while the Zionists formally accepted the plan, secretly waiting to take over all of historic Palestine. Realizing the plan was unworkable, the British government ultimately rejected the report in 1938.
Speaking in 1938, David Ben-Gurion (who would become Israel’s first prime minister) announced in a 1938 speech:
“After we become a strong force…we shall abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine…The state will have to preserve order – not by preaching but with machine guns.”
By the time Weitz joined the Transfer Committee, the stage had already been set for systematic ethnic cleansing of Arabs from Palestine.
The project that excited Weitz most was a list called the village files, a detailed registry of every Arab village in Palestine — their topographic location, access roads, quality of farmland, water springs, main sources of income, religious affiliations, the ages of the men and their level of participation in the Arab Revolt.
For military planners, the village files were a goldmine — a comprehensive roadmap for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine that would be implemented over the coming decade.
The catalyst came in 1947 when the British abandoned their Mandate and turned the Palestine problem over to the United Nations. From there, the rest is history: on Nov. 29, 1947 the U.N. General Assembly passed Resolution 181 that proposed to divide Palestine into two glaringly unequal states — one Jewish state with 56 percent of the land and an Arab state with 42 percent — even though there were twice as many Arabs (1.2 million) than Jews (600,000) living in Palestine.
Members of the Jewish Agency delegation study a map of proposed partition of Palestine at the United Nations interim headquarters, Nov. 12, 1947. (UN Photo/MC)
Once again, the Palestinians and all the Arab states totally rejected the Partition Plan. The Zionists were ecstatic — their vision of a Jewish state was coming to fruition and war with Palestinians and neighbouring Arab states was on the horizon.
“[Yosef Weitz] saw in the partition resolution and the coming hostilities the felicitous opportunity to set in motion long-nurtured plans” writes Palestinian historian Nur-eldeen Masalha. “His diary is replete with injunctions not to ‘miss the opportunities offered by the war.’ ”
On April 18, 1948, Weitz, drawing on his village files, wrote about the list of villages he wanted to be ethnically cleansed first:
“I made a summary of a list of the Arab villages which in my opinion must be cleared out in order to complete Jewish regions. I also made a summary of the places that have land disputes and must be settled by military means.”
Pappé describes what happened next. Called Plan D, it was the final Masterplan for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine:
“The orders came with a detailed description of the methods to be used to forcibly evict the people: large-scale intimidation; laying siege to and bombarding villages and population centers; setting fire to homes, properties, and goods; expelling residents; demolishing homes; and, finally, planting mines in the rubble to prevent the expelled inhabitants from returning…”[/bi
When it was over, more than half of Palestine’s indigenous population, over 750,000 people, had been uprooted; 531 villages had been destroyed; 70 civilian massacres had taken place and an estimated 10-15,000 Palestinians were dead.
Jaramana Refugee Camp in Damascus, Syria, established after the Palestinian Catastrophe, or Nakba, 1948. (Public domain, Wikimedia Commons)
Watching the destruction of one village, Weitz wrote:
“I was surprised nothing moved in me at the sight … no regret and no hatred, as this is the way of the world.”
Today, as the genocidal war in Gaza unfolds, the spectre of Yosef Weitz lives on. At the start of Israel’s invasion, the Israeli Intelligence Ministry drafted a wartime proposal to forcibly drive the Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million people, now under daily bombardment and imposed starvation, into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula where they would be placed in tent cities and denied the right to return.
Meanwhile, the racist language used by Israel’s leaders to justify the mass eradication of Palestinians remains unchanged: “We are fighting human animals and we will act accordingly,” spits Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant; “This is a battle, not only of Israel against these barbarians,” intones Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “it is a battle of civilisation against barbarism.” And “There are no Palestinians, because there isn’t a Palestinian people,” declares Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
“It is tempting to dismiss the revival of transfer … as the wild ravings of right-wing extremists,” writes Nur-eldeen Masalha. “Such a dismissal is dangerous, however, and it is well to be reminded that the concept of transfer lies at the very heart of mainstream Zionism.”
The plan to ethnically cleanse Palestine is Israel’s original sin — one that the Jewish colonists either cannot acknowledge, think was justified or prefer to forget.
Since the Nakba of 1948, Israel has used the memory of the Holocaust to silence its critics and to thwart international pressure for a ceasefire in Gaza or for the rights of Palestinians to return to their land. But despite attempts to vindicate, minimise or deny their past, Zionists can never erase the legacy of Yosef Weitz or their blood-soaked history. It is well past time for Israel to acknowledge the inhumanity and futility of their Zionist project.
Will the Freedom Flotilla Sail to Gaza?
April 24, 2024
Türkiye is under pressure from the U.S. and Israel to block a flotilla from delivering aid and breaking the Gaza blockade, writes Medea Benjamin.
One of three vessels attached to the Freedom Flotilla Coalition docked in Istanbul. (Medea Benjamin)
By Medea Benjamin
Peoples Dispatch
The non-violence training to join the Freedom Flotilla Coalition’s ships to Gaza has been intense. As hundreds of us from 32 countries gathered in Istanbul, we were briefed about what we might encounter on this voyage. “We have to be ready for every possibility,” our trainers insisted.
The best scenario, they said, is that our three ships — one carrying 5500 tons of humanitarian aid and two carrying the passengers — will reach Gaza and accomplish our mission.
Another scenario would be that the Turkish government might cave to pressure from Israel, the U.S. and Germany and prevent the boats from even leaving Istanbul. This happened in 2011, when the Greek government buckled under pressure and 10 boats were stalled in Greece.
With our boats docked in Istanbul today, we fear that Turkish President Erdogan, who recently suffered a crushing blow in local elections, is vulnerable to any economic blackmail the Western powers might be threatening.
Another possibility is that the ships take off but the Israelis illegally hijack these in international waters, confiscate our boats and supplies, and arrest, imprison us and eventually deport us.
This happened on several other voyages to Gaza, one of them with deadly consequences.
In 2010, a flotilla of six boats was stopped by the Israeli military in international waters. They boarded the biggest boat, the Mavi Marmara. According to a U.N. report, the Israelis opened fire with live rounds from a helicopter hovering above the ship and from commando boats along the side of the ship. In a horrific display of force, nine passengers were killed, and one more later succumbed to his wounds.
To try to prevent another nightmare like that, potential passengers on this flotilla have to undergo rigorous training.
We watched a video of what we might face — from extremely potent tear gas to ear-splitting concussion grenades — and we were told that the Israeli commandos will be armed with weapons with live rounds. Then we divided up into small groups to discuss how best to react, non-violently, to such an attack. Do we sit, stand, or lie down? Do we link arms? Do we put our hands up in the air to show we are unarmed?
Glimpses of What May Come
Protesters in Istanbul pray before a demonstration against a Gaza flotilla raid back in May, 2010. (Bektour, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons)
The most frightening part of the training was a simulation replete with deafening booms of gunfire and exploding percussion grenades and masked soldiers screaming at us, hitting us with simulated rifles, dragging us across the floor, and arresting us.
It was indeed sobering to get a glimpse of what might await us. Equally sobering are Israeli media reports indicating that the Israeli military has begun “security preparations,” including preparations for taking over the flotilla.
That’s why everyone who has signed up for this mission deserves tremendous credit.
The largest group of passengers are from Türkiye, and many are affiliated with the humanitarian group, I.H.H., an enormous Turkish NGO with 82 offices throughout the country. It has consultative status at the UN and does charity work in 115 countries. Through I.H.H., millions of supporters donated money to buy and stock the ships. Israel, however, has designated this very respected charity as a terrorist group.
The next largest group comes from Malaysia, some of them affiliated with another very large humanitarian group called MyCARE. MyCARE, known for helping out in emergency situations such as floods and other natural disasters, has contributed millions of dollars in emergency aid to Gaza over the years.
From the US, there are about 35 participants. Leading the group, and key to the international coalition, is 77-year-old retired US Army colonel and State Department diplomat Ann Wright.
After quitting the State Department in protest over the US invasion of Iraq, Wright has put her diplomatic skills to good use, helping to pull together a motley group of internationals.
Her co-organizer from the US, Huwaida Arraf, a Palestinian American attorney, is a co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement and ran for congress in 2022. Arraf was key to organizing the very first flotillas that started in 2008.
So far, there have been about 15 attempts to get to Gaza by boat, only five of them successful.
Outrage and Internationalism
Palestinian-American attorney Huwaida Arraf was key to organizing the first flotillas that started in 2008. (Pieter Kuiper/Free Gaza Movement via Creative Commons)
The incredible breadth of participants is evident in our nightly meetings, where you can hear clusters of groups chatting away in Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese, Malay, French, Italian, and English in diverse accents from Australian to Welsh. The ages range from students in their 20s to an 86-year-old Argentine medical doctor.
What brings us together is our outrage that the world community is allowing this genocide in Gaza to happen, and a burning desire to do more than we have been doing to stop people from being murdered, maimed and starved.
The aid we are bringing is enormous. It is the equivalent of over 100 trucks. But that is not the only purpose of this trip. Arraf said:
“This is an aid mission to bring food to hungry people, but Palestinians do not want to live on charity. So, we are also challenging Israeli policies that make them dependent on aid. We are trying to break the siege.”
Israel’s vicious attacks on the people of Gaza, its blocking of aid deliveries and its targeting of relief organizations have fueled a massive humanitarian crisis. The killing of seven World Central Kitchen workers by Israeli forces on April 1 highlighted the dangerous environment in which relief agencies operate, which has forced many of them to shut down their operations.
The U.S. government is building a temporary port for aid that is supposed to be finished in early May, but this is the same government that provides weapons and diplomatic cover for the Israelis. And while President Biden expresses concern for the suffering Palestinians, he has suspended aid to UNRWA, the main U.N. agency responsible for helping them, after Israel made unsubstantiated claims that 12 of its 13,000 employees in Gaza participated in the October 7 attacks.
Given the urgency and danger this moment presents, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition is entering rough and uncharted waters. We are calling on countries around the world to pressure Israel to allow us “free and safe passage” to Gaza.
In the U.S., we are asking for help from our Congress, but having just approved another $US26 billion to Israel, it is doubtful that we can count on their support.
And even if our governments did pressure Israel, would Israel pay attention? Their defiance of international law and world opinion during the past seven months indicates otherwise. But still, we will push forward.
The people of Gaza are the wind in our sails. Freedom for Palestine is our North Star. We are determined to reach Gaza with food, medicines and, most of all, our solidarity and love.
Hamas holds dozens of high-ranking Israeli officers in Gaza: Report
Israel has tried to hide the identities of many of these prisoners, framing them as civilians
News Desk
APR 24, 2024
An Israeli soldier being taken prisoner by Hamas' Qassam Brigades. 7 October, 2023. (Photo credit: Screenshot/Qassam Brigades Military Media)
A source within Palestinian resistance movement Hamas told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed on 24 April that the group holds around 30 Israeli army generals and officers from the Shin Bet security service as prisoners in the Gaza Strip.
“The movement alone has about 30 generals and Shin Bet officers, who were captured on October 7, from military units and some highly sensitive military sites,” the source said.
The source added that “these people in particular are in highly secured places, far from the hands of the occupation, and it is impossible to reach them under any circumstances,” and that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government have been hiding information from their people regarding “the identities of some of the prisoners.”
This concealment comes as part of efforts “to avoid provoking anger among the ranks of the combat forces.” He added that the military representative on Israel’s prisoner negotiation team, Nitzan Alon, is frustrated with Netanyahu’s “laxity” toward the issue.
The Israeli government has said that 129 Israeli prisoners remain captive in Gaza.
According to the source, Israel does not really know the exact number of prisoners left in Gaza after the prisoner exchanges in late November. He adds that Tel Aviv has not specified the number of imprisoned military officials, as part of a strategy “to classify some of the soldiers or officers … as civilians, in order to reduce the price of negotiating for them during the talks.”
The source also denied Hebrew media reports that only 20 prisoners are alive and that Hamas only proposed releasing 20, as opposed to 40, during the latest rounds of truce talks in Cairo.
Truce negotiations remain stalemated by Israel’s repeated rejection of Hamas’ main terms, which the resistance group continues to hold fast. These terms include an end to the war and a permanent ceasefire, a withdrawal of all troops from Gaza, a return of the displaced to their homes, and reconstruction of the strip.
“The only way [for Israel] to liberate the occupation prisoners is through serious negotiations followed by a full commitment to a ceasefire and reconstruction,” he said.
He also confirmed that the resistance remains in fighting form, and has not been defeated.
“The resistance is still fine, and is still in control in a disciplined manner within integrated structures in the field of operations.” Israel has repeatedly claimed that the southernmost city of Rafah is Hamas’ final stronghold, and is planning an operation against the desperately overcrowded city, posing the threat of a severe humanitarian catastrophe.
The source also confirmed that top Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is “not isolated from reality” or hiding within the tunnels of Gaza, as some have claimed. According to the source, Sinwar has met with some of the fighters of Hamas’ military wing, the Qassam Brigades, has “inspected” some of the areas where clashes took place, and “is carrying out his work as a leader of the movement in the field."
The geopolitics of labor: Israel’s quest to replace Palestinian workers with Indians
Israel is mitigating its labor shortage by importing Hindu-only Indians after revoking work permits for Palestinians – an old colonial practice that could impact its deepening geopolitical ties with New Delhi.
F.M. Shakil
APR 24, 2024
(Photo Credit: The Cradle)
On 10 April, in the thick of the war on Gaza, the Israeli government, facing a labor crisis, announced that it would fly in 6,000 Indian laborers during April and May on state-subsidized shuttle flights.
This decision follows Israel's suspension of work permits for Palestinian construction workers, a move that has significantly impacted its building sector. Israel’s Finance Ministry estimates that the absence of Palestinian laborers is costing the economy about three billion shekels ($828 million) monthly, which could lead to a loss of three percent of GDP as the building and housing markets struggle with debt amounting to 400 billion shekels ($106 billion).
Simultaneously, New Delhi, overlooking the genocide and humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza, has agreed to send Indian construction workers to replace the displaced Palestinian workforce. This decision aligns with a bilateral agreement to integrate 100,000 Indian laborers into Israel’s construction industry, matching the number of ousted Palestinian workers.
A colonial strategy
Canadian immigration attorney Aidan Simardone, speaking to The Cradle, compares the situation to historical colonial practices in North America where marginalized European religious groups, like the Puritans, were brought in to service colonial interests.
Israel, he points out, is adopting a similar strategy by recruiting economically disadvantaged Hindu Indians from regions like Uttar Pradesh, aiming to manage demographic and political challenges seamlessly.
move is also an attempt by Israel to pull the rug out from under one of the thorns on the side of colonialism. Colonialism requires squeezing blood out of a stone, yet this squeezing depends on the sweat and tears of those who are at the bottom of the barrel.
Simardone notes the inherent risks for the colonizer in relying entirely on an indigenous labor force, as workers will rebel when colonialism reveals its true nature.
[To steer clear of this predicament, colonizers bring in labor from other parts. These laborers are often pushed to the sidelines as well, but unlike the Indigenous population, they go with the flow rather than swimming against the tide when it comes to the colonial project.
The plight of Palestinian laborers
Since Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza began over six months ago, the closure of the occupied territories has severed the economic lifeline of approximately 100,000 Palestinian workers, cutting off their main source of income and depriving them of a financial safety net.
Worse yet, many Palestinian workers did not receive their September salaries as the war commenced before their scheduled pay date.
The fact that so many Palestinians are unable to support themselves in Israel may have disastrous effects on the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) economic agenda and, inadvertently, worsen the occupied West Bank’s security situation.
Kav LaOved, a nonprofit dedicated to labor rights in Israel, reported that Israel’s restrictions have impacted 150,000 West Bank families, now unable to make ends meet or support the extended family, also reliant on a single paycheck:
The PA views the majority of Palestinians employed in Israel as ‘middle class,’ and the fact that they don’t contribute financially is a serious blow to the local economy.
Kav LaOved notes that the minimum wage in areas under PA control is still significantly lower than in Israel, which stands at 5,572 New Israeli Shekels (NIS) per month. In the construction sector, which used to employ many Palestinians, a professional worker can earn up to NIS 10,000 a month. The Hebron region alone makes up one-third of this workforce, with other significant contributions from cities like Ramallah, Jenin, Qalqilya, and Tulkarm.
Muslim minority excluded
A Haaretz report claims that Indian candidates seeking work in Israel were, in many cases, made aware that the jobs were not available to Muslim Indians, a move that undermined the rights of the Muslim minority in India.
Simardone explains that Islam is seen as a mutual threat by the right-wing ethnocentric regime currently leading Israel and Hindutva-dominated India:
For both countries, the very existence of Muslims undermines their fascist ethnonationalism, which seeks to build a country solely for Jews in Israel and Hindus in India. That is primarily the reason that job recruiters in India who are posting positions in Israel have specifically required Hindus and excluded Muslims, who are more likely to sympathize with the plight of Palestinians.
What changed India’s policy?
India’s geopolitical shift from a once notably pro-Palestine stance to a more pro-Israel alignment has been gradually unfolding since 1991 when the first Indian embassy was established in Jerusalem. This shift was significantly reinforced in 2017 with Narendra Modi’s historic visit to Israel, making him the first Indian premier to do so.
Before this, in 2003, the National Democratic Alliance government, which included the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), had extended a warm welcome to Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon during his visit to India.
Following the Palestinian resistance’s Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on 7 October 2023, Modi conveyed profound sorrow over the news of ‘terrorist attacks’ in Israel. He wrote on X:
I am profoundly horrified by the news of ‘terrorist attacks’ in Israel. Our condolences and thoughts are with the families of the innocent victims, and we extend our deepest condolences to Israel during this trying time.
Modi’s remarks exhibited a visible divergence in tone and tenor from the policies India has diligently pursued for the last 40 years.
Pakistan’s former caretaker minister of information Jan Achakzai tells The Cradle that Israel and India share striking similarities in their political approaches by systematically failing to resolve differences and disputes with neighboring states:
They wear a mask of innocence, hiding their aggressive and disruptive regional strategies while portraying themselves as victims of violence orchestrated by their neighbors.
According to Achakzai, the bilateral ties between Tel Aviv and New Delhi have been steadily improving due to the primary focus on demographic shifts, ghettoization, the genocide in Palestine and Kashmir, and demographic fluctuations.
Ideological parallels
Trade between the two countries has surged from a modest $900 million in 2000 to a whopping $7.86 billion today. This growth is accompanied by a significant increase in Israeli investments in India’s startups and technology sectors, totaling $270 million by 2021.
The defense sector particularly highlights the depth of this partnership. India is a major consumer of Israeli weapons, accounting for 40 percent of Israel’s annual arms exports. Since 1992, India has imported about $40 billion worth of fully formed Israeli armaments and prime subsystems.
Their defense cooperation extends to sharing advanced technologies in missiles, electronic warfare, radar, navigation, and weapon control systems, largely facilitated by India’s Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO).
Analyst Simardone explains that Israel’s political investment in India reflects a strategic decision to diversify its foreign policy with Asian powerhouses and increase its strategic depth on the continent:
The rising power of Ia Modi-governed India presents Israel with a unique opportunity to befriend a country that has ideological similarities with Jewish methodology. A rich irony also exists in the reality that India and Israel have fallen into the position of oppressors, primarily because European nations had previously subjected both Indians and Ashkenazi Jews to oppression. They have now become the fascists and the colonizers themselves.
However, the partnership faces criticism domestically, especially concerning the program to shift thousands of workers into an insecure environment. The Construction Workers Federation of India (CWFI) has voiced strong opposition to sending Indian laborers to Israel, arguing that such actions tacitly support Israel’s controversial policies in Palestine.
The association reflects the views of a much broader Indian worker demographic who naturally reject collaboration with an oppressive occupation state that so clearly exploits the Palestinian working class. Instead, CWFI has urged New Delhi to leverage its diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv to advocate for the observance of UN resolutions and to reconsider Israel’s labor-import demands.
Germany to restart UNRWA funding as Israeli smear campaign collapses
An independent report has revealed Israel failed to provide any evidence to back allegations of UNRWA staff ties with Hamas
News Desk
APR 24, 2024
(Photo Credit: dpa)
Berlin announced on 23 April that it will resume cooperation with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in Gaza.
Germany’s move came after an independent investigation headed by former French diplomat Catherine Colonna that found “neutrality-related issues” in implementing UNRWA’s procedures to “ensure compliance with the humanitarian principles of neutrality.”
Colonna’s report made note that Israel provided no proof of whether UNRWA staff were involved with the Palestinian resistance’s Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on 7 October.
“The German government has dealt intensively with the allegations made by Israel against UNRWA and has been in close contact with the Israeli government, the United Nations, and other international donors,” a joint statement by the German Foreign Office and the Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development read.
The former French diplomat’s investigation proposed reforms to UNRWA to increase the neutrality of staff and behavior, education, and governance, including methods to achieve these goals through engagement with donors.
Germany pushed UNRWA to implement these recommendations, strengthen its internal audit functions, and improve the external surveillance of project management.
“In support of these reforms, the German government will soon continue its cooperation with UNRWA in Gaza, as Australia, Canada, Sweden, and Japan, among others, have already done so,” the joint statement continued.
Germany gave the UN agency over $200 million in 2023 and is the organization’s second-largest donor after the US.
In an interview with Al-Jazeera, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said the attacks on the agency “have nothing to do with neutrality issues but in reality, they are motivated by the objective to strip the Palestinians from the refugee status.”
Lazzarini also added that UNRWA was in an “unprecedented crisis,” saying that UNRWA could only keep operations going until the end of June.
An unpublished report by the UN agency showed that some of the employees who were released from Israeli custody were tortured into saying they had Hamas links.
“Agency staff members have been subject to threats and coercion by the Israeli authorities while in detention and pressured to make false statements against the Agency, including that the Agency has affiliations with Hamas and that UNRWA staff members took part in the 7 October 2023 atrocities,” the report read.
Of the nations that have suspended funding to UNRWA, 10 have decided to resume ties, while others, including the US and UK, have yet to do so.
Vijay Prashad: Elites Afraid to Talk About Palestine
April 24, 2024
The Western political class has used all tools at its disposal to support Israel’s genocide while criminalizing solidarity.
Protests in and around Columbia University in support of Palestine and against Israeli occupation, April 22, 2024. (SWinxy/Wikimedia Commons)
By Vijay Prashad
Peoples Dispatch
Israeli bombs continue to fall on Gaza, killing Palestinian civilians with abandon.
Al Jazeera published a story about the destruction of 24 hospitals in Gaza, each of them bombed mercilessly by the Israeli military. Half of the 35,000 Palestinians killed by Israel were children, their bodies littering the overwhelmed morgues and mosques of Gaza.
Andrew Gilmour, the former United Nations assistant secretary-general for human rights, told BBC Newsnight that the Palestinians are experiencing “collective punishment” and that what we are seeing in Gaza is “probably the highest kill rate of any military, killing anybody, since the Rwandan genocide of 1994.”
Meanwhile, in the West Bank section of Palestine, Human Rights Watch shows that the Israeli military has participated in the displacement of Palestinians from 20 communities and has uprooted at least seven communities since October 2023. These are established facts.
Yet, these facts — according to a leaked memorandum — cannot be spoken about in the “newspaper of record” in the United States, The New York Times. Journalists at the paper were asked to avoid the terms “genocide,” “ethnic cleansing,” and “occupied territory.”
Indeed, over the past six months, newspapers and television shows in the United States have generally written about the genocidal violence using passive voice: bombs fell, people died.
Even on social media, where the terrain is often less controlled, the ax fell on key phrases; for instance, despite his professions of commitment to free speech, Elon Musk said that terms such as “decolonization” and phrases such as “from the river to the sea” would be banned on X.
Silence on College Campuses
At the University of Southern California (USC), Asna Tabassum, a South Asian American, was to deliver an address on campus to 65,000 people as the valedictorian of the class of 2024. Involved in the conversation around the Israeli war against the Palestinians, Tabassum was targeted by pro-Israeli activists who claimed to feel threatened.
On the basis of this feeling of endangerment, whose source the university refused to disclose, USC decided to cancel her speech.
In a thoughtful response, Tabassum — who majored in biomedical engineering and history (with a minor in resistance to genocide) — implored her classmates “to think outside the box, to work towards a world where cries of equality and human dignity are not manipulated to be expressions of hatred. I challenge us to respond to ideological discomfort with dialogue and learning, not bigotry and censorship.”
Tabassum is 21 years old. The USC provost who canceled her speech, Andrew Guzman, is 56 years old. His reasons for shutting her down are less mature than her plea for dialogue.
College students across the United States have been trying desperately to raise awareness about what is happening in Gaza and have sought to get their campuses to divest from companies with investments in Israel and in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Early protests were tolerated, but then U.S. politicians got involved with congressional hearings and rash comments about these students being funded by the Chinese and Russians. College administrators, afraid of their donors and of political pressure, buckled and began to censor the students from one end of the country (Columbia University) to the other (Pomona College).
College presidents invited local police departments onto their campuses, allowed them to arrest the students, and suspended them from their colleges. But the mood is undeniable. Student unions across the country — from Rutgers to Davis — voted to force their administrations to divest from Israel.
Comments ‘Repugnant’
Yanis Varoufakis in 2020. (Michael Coghlan, Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0)
On April 12, the Berlin police closed a Palestine conference that brought together people from across Germany to listen to a range of speakers, including from other parts of Europe and from Palestine.
At the airport, the police detained and then deported the British-Palestinian doctor, Ghassan Abu Sitta, who had volunteered in Gaza and had witnessed the genocidal war firsthand. The former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis was to give an online speech at the conference.
He was not only prevented from giving that speech, but also was issued a betätigungsverbot — or a ban from any political activity in Germany (ban from entry into Germany and a ban from doing an online event). This, Varoufakis said, is essentially the “death knell of the prospects of democracy in the Federal Republic of Germany.”
A few days before the conference in Berlin, Professor Jodi Dean published an essay on the Verso Blog called “Palestine Speaks for Everyone.” The essay is rooted in the simple, and unobjectionable, idea that oppressed people have the right to fight for their emancipation.
Curtailing Conversation
This is the basis of the International Declaration of Human Rights, also cited frequently by Varoufakis. The day after the Palestine conference was shut down in Berlin, Jodi Dean’s employer, President Mark Gearan of Hobart and William Smith Colleges in the U.S., published a statement announcing that Professor Dean cannot teach the rest of her classes this term.
Gearan wrote that not only was he in “complete disagreement” with Dean, but he also found her comments to be “repugnant.”
It is interesting that since October, Gearan has only released a public statement condemning Hamas, but nothing about the horrendous genocidal violence against the Palestinians.
What did Dean write that was so “repugnant”? Gearan focused on the word “exhilarating,” which Dean used to describe her reaction to paragliders that went beyond the Israeli occupation fence around Gaza.
She did not actually celebrate the attacks of Oct. 7, but merely used the paragliders as a metaphor to consider the politics of hope and liberation from a Palestinian standpoint (citing the last poem of Refaat Alareer, killed by Israel on Dec. 6, 2023, with its meditation on kites to highlight the idea of soaring above oppression).
Gearan did not want a dialogue about the occupation or about the genocide. Like the editors and publishers of The New York Times, like the German government, and like other U.S. college presidents, Gearan wanted to curtail conversation.
Tabassum’s plea for “dialogue and learning” was muzzled; too scared to actually talk about Palestine, people like Gearan prefer “bigotry and censorship.”
Dunno how this Yanis dude got to be anyone we should listen to. Not to long ago as the economy guy guy for a wretched social democrat party in Greece and tanked the economy along with left politics there. His outfit flanked KKE to the right, siphoning off many voters nervous about the reaction to a communist win. Trust him as far as I can throw him.
******
How Israel Weaponizes the Holocaust to Justify Killing Palestinians
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on APRIL 24, 2024
Rania Khalek was joined by Tony Greenstein, a longstanding Jewish anti-Zionist, Marxist and anti-fascist activist from the UK and author of the book “Zionism During the Holocaust.”
Hundreds of Israeli settlers on the loose at Al-Aqsa Mosque
Settler violence has surged dramatically since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip
News Desk
APR 25, 2024
(Photo credit: AA)
Hundreds of extremist settlers stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound on 25 April under heavy protection from Israeli forces.
The latest incursion into the holy site comes on the third day of the Jewish holiday of Passover. Israeli settlers regularly step up their raids of the Al-Aqsa compound during Jewish holidays.
Over 1,128 settlers “stormed the courtyards of the Blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, under heavy protection from the Israeli occupation police, coinciding with the Jewish Passover holiday,” WAFA news agency reported.
The settlers “carried out provocative tours in its courtyards” as Israeli police enforced strict measures across occupied East Jerusalem, it added.
Settler incursions into the holy site also took place on Wednesday.
Throughout April, Israeli settlers have attempted several times to smuggle goats into the compound with the aim of performing slaughter rituals near the holy site. Extremist settler organizations, including the Returning to Temple Mount group, have promised financial rewards for those who manage to smuggle goats into the compound.
More than a dozen settlers attempting to smuggle in goats have been detained by police over the past week.
Since the start of Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip, settlers have scaled up violent attacks on Palestinians and their property in the occupied West Bank.
“Israeli colonists uprooted about 70 olive, grape, and almond trees in the town of Qarawat Bani Hassan, in the northern West Bank province of Salfit … Acts of vandalism by Israeli colonist militias have become a common feature of the daily life in the occupied West Bank,” WAFA said on 24 April.
Earlier this month, hundreds of settlers descended on the West Bank village of Al-Mughayyir, attacking Palestinians and torching homes and vehicles. One Palestinian was killed and dozens injured in the attack.
The settler rampage was triggered by the death of a settler boy, who was later revealed to have died as a result of a snake bite.
Israeli military raids in the West Bank have also surged, particularly in the city of Tulkarem, where fierce clashes between the Palestinian resistance and the army took place last week.
Palestinians 'buried alive' by Israeli army in Nasser Hospital mass graves
Hundreds of bodies have been discovered in mass graves at Gaza hospitals that were besieged for weeks by Israeli troops
News Desk
APR 25, 2024
(Photo Credit: Getty Images)
Officials from Gaza's Civil Defense Department announced on 25 April that 392 bodies have been unearthed from three mass graves discovered at the Nasser Medical Complex in the city of Khan Yunis, with some showing signs of having been buried alive.
“We need forensic examination for approximately 20 bodies for people who we think were buried alive in the Nasser Medical Complex,” Palestinian Civil Defence member Mohammed Mughier told reporters on Thursday, adding that some were the bodies of children.
“Why do we have children in mass graves?” he added, stressing that the evidence shows the Israeli army committed “crimes against humanity.”
Ten of the bodies unearthed had their hands bound, while others still had medical tubes attached to them.
“There are indications of carrying out field executions against some of the victims, while the bodies of other victims carried signs of torture and others were buried alive,” officials from Gaza's Civil Defense Department said during a press conference.
“Several victims were buried in plastic bags and placed at a depth of three meters, which accelerated their decomposition,” the officials added.
The mass graves were discovered after the Israeli army withdrew from Khan Yunis on 7 April following a four-month raid of the city that decimated most infrastructure and left thousands dead.
Gaza officials have previously stressed that the Israeli army uses forced disappearance as a systematic policy against the people of the strip, highlighting that thousands of Palestinians are still missing.
“Some of the bodies found have evaporated and turned to ash. International institutions must identify the type of weapons used [by Israel],” the Civil Defense Department said earlier this week. “We found in the Nasser Complex corpses without heads and bodies without skins, and some of them had their organs stolen,” Gaza’s Government Media Office office also revealed.
Hundreds of bodies were recently recovered in the northern Gaza Strip, particularly in and around Al-Shifa Hospital, where Israeli troops launched a bloody and destructive military operation lasting from 18 March until 1 April.
On Wednesday, UN Secretary-General Spokesman Stéphane Dujarric called on a “clear, transparent and credible investigation” into the mass graves found in the Gaza Strip.
Saudi’s NEOM ’city in the desert’ project falters amid Gaza war
Faced with financial, logistical, and geopolitical challenges, Riyadh has been forced to review its ambitious project, The Line, and critically reassess “economic normalization” with Israel.
Giorgio Cafiero
APR 25, 2024
(Photo Credit: The Cradle)
Launched in 2017, Saudi Arabia’s NEOM, a sprawling high-tech development on the northwestern Red Sea coast, was introduced as the crown jewel of Vision 2030.
This futuristic desert megaproject, extending over some Jordanian and Egyptian territory, was cast as a bold leap toward economic diversification under the leadership of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS). But, recent geopolitical setbacks have raised significant concerns about the viability of some of NEOM's components.
Initially celebrated for its revolutionary design, The Line, a linear city within NEOM, was to redefine urban living. Yet, recent reports suggest a dramatic scaling back. Earlier this month, Bloomberg revealed a massive reduction in the metropolis’ scope – from 105 to 1.5 miles – and a decrease in likely inhabitants from 1.5 million to fewer than 300,000 by 2030. Furthermore, funding uncertainties and workforce reductions indicate a project in jeopardy.
While this adjustment does not signify a wholesale failure of Vision 2030, it does prompt a re-evaluation of the project’s most ambitious elements.
Experts suggest that The Line’s original scale was overly optimistic, lacking the necessary urban infrastructure for such an innovative endeavor. Financial and geopolitical challenges, including regional instability and insufficient foreign direct investment, further complicate NEOM’s future.
Not so straight-forward
The drastic downsizing of The Line “appears to be a reassessment of timeline feasibility,” Dr Robert Mogielnicki, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, tells The Cradle. “There are many experimental, world-first dimensions within the NEOM gigaproject, and some are eventually going to need rightsizing or rethinking.”
Also speaking to The Cradle, Dr Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a Baker Institute Fellow at Rice University, believes the project’s contraction to be a good thing:
Reports that The Line may be scaled back significantly is actually a positive move if it injects greater realism into a project whose initial scale appeared fanciful and difficult to translate into reality. Greater pragmatism in designing and delivering the gigaprojects associated with Vision 2030 is a good thing and means there is a greater likelihood of the projects making it off the drawing board.
Given financial and economic factors, The Line was never feasible as initially presented. Ultimately, the amount of wealth the Saudis generate from oil is not enough to finance the most ambitious of MbS’ Vision 2030 projects. And Riyadh has not been able to lure the levels of foreign direct investment needed to make these extremely expensive vanity projects realizable.
“The vast scope of [The Line] always struck me and many other observers as aspirational rather than realistic,” explains Gordon Gray, the former US ambassador to Tunisia.
Speaking to The Cradle, Ryan Bohl, a Middle East and North African analyst at risk intelligence company RANE, says:
I’d argue that the goals for The Line were unrealistic from the start, given that there’s virtually no urban infrastructure in the area, and it’s very difficult for cities to be started from scratch like that, regardless of the amount of investment poured in. Even if Saudi Arabia had, for example, done something extreme like declare NEOM to be their new capital city, it would still probably struggle to attract residents as we’ve seen from other historical examples like Brazil’s shift of its capital to Brasília.
Nonetheless, The Line and other singular projects had a purpose that was not necessarily about actually implementing the projects themselves. “The point of The Line, in particular, was to create a raison de parler – for people to actually talk about Saudi Arabia, to create a massive public debate globally where people are saying there’s something amazing happening in the desert,” Dr Andreas Krieg, an associate professor at King’s College London, tells The Cradle.
It attracts attention. That sort of discourse – positive or negative – creates a buzz. That buzz was supposed to attract investors who wanted to be a part of this, help Saudi Arabia build a city of the future, and try to do something completely outlandish and absolutely unconventional.
Gaza: a wrench in the works
The leadership in Riyadh has understood that the success of Vision 2030 heavily depends on attracting substantial foreign direct investment into the Kingdom. Ultimately, stability in Saudi Arabia and the wider West Asian region is crucial.
Consequently, Riyadh’s recent foreign policy has been less ideological, focusing instead on maintaining amicable terms with all major players in West Asia to advance Saudi business, commercial, and economic interests.
Within this context, Riyadh has worked to reach a peace deal with Yemen’s Ansarallah resistance movement, made an effort to preserve the Beijing-brokered 2023 Saudi–Iranian détente, restored relations with Qatar and Syria, and mended fences with Turkiye.
Therefore, beyond financial and economic constraints that require a reassessment of the most ambitious Vision 2030 projects, such as The Line, Israel’s brutal six-month war on Gaza and the expansion of that conflict into the Red Sea have created headwinds for Saudi Arabia’s geoeconomic plans.
As Arhama Siddiqa, a Research Fellow at the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad, explains to The Cradle:
Given the current instability in the Red Sea region, investors may hesitate to support a large-scale project like NEOM due to perceived risks. Even if the direct security threat to NEOM is minimal, the overall instability in the area can deter investors from committing substantial resources to a long-term venture. Additionally, the broader [West Asia] conflict further complicates the situation, adding another layer of uncertainty. Addressing these security concerns could require Saudi Arabia to allocate more resources to regional security measures, potentially diverting funds from the NEOM project.
There is no denying that Saudi Arabia’s economic diversification agenda is vulnerable to naval operations in the Red Sea. NEOM and other Red Sea projects require vessels to be able to freely travel from the Gulf of Aden through the Bab al-Mandab and up to Saudi Arabia’s west coast.
The Gaza war’s potential spillover into this vital waterway continues to raise concerns for Saudi officials about the impact on the Kingdom’s Vision 2030.
These dynamics help explain Riyadh’s frustration with the White House for not leveraging its influence over Israel to negotiate a ceasefire in Gaza. It has led to Saudi Arabia’s decision to abstain from joining any US-led security initiatives and military operations in the Red Sea and Yemen.
The Israel–NEOM connection
Israel’s geographic proximity to northwestern Saudi Arabia, its technological advancement, and its vibrant startup culture position the occupation state as a promising partner for Vision 2030 and the NEOM project, particularly in biotechnology, cybersecurity, and manufacturing.
Writing in March 2021, Dr Ali Dogan, previously a Research Fellow at the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, went as far as arguing that “relations with Israel are necessary for Saudi Arabia to complete NEOM.”
Dr Mohammad Yaghi, a research fellow at Germany’s Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, similarly stated that NEOM “requires peace and coordination with Israel, especially if the city is to have a chance of becoming a tourist attraction.”
However, Saudi Arabia’s leadership role in the Islamic world, exemplified by the monarch’s title as the “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques,” makes any formal normalization of relations with Tel Aviv highly sensitive.
Initially, it was thought that while the UAE and Bahrain could establish overt relations with Israel, Saudi Arabia would continue to engage covertly, ensuring essential collaborations like those rumored in the tech sector could progress discreetly.
An example being in June 2020, when controversy arose over Saudi Arabia’s alleged engagement with an Israeli cybersecurity firm, which the Saudi embassy later denied.
Yet, almost seven months into Israel’s campaign to annihilate Gaza, can Saudi Arabia still look to Tel Aviv as a partner in NEOM?
It appears that amid ongoing crises in the region, chiefly the Gaza genocide, Riyadh must be careful to avoid being seen as cooperating with the Israelis in covert ways, and full-fledged normalization seems off the table for the foreseeable future.
Nonetheless, after the dust settles in Gaza and the Red Sea security crisis calms down, Saudi Arabia will likely maintain its interest in fostering ties with Israel as part of an “economic normalization” between the two countries. This could be important to Vision 2030’s future, particularly in NEOM.
But Israel’s unprecedented military campaign in Gaza will likely alter West Asia in many ways for decades to come. Even after the current war in Gaza is over, anger toward Israel and the US will continue.
Without a doubt, the Israeli–NEOM connection will be increasingly sensitive and controversial, both in the Kingdom and the wider region – a factor that the leadership in Riyadh cannot dismiss.
APPEAL: BLACK AMERICANS AGAINST UNITED STATES SUPPORT OF THE ZIONIST GOVERNMENT OF ISRAEL, Committee of Black Americans for Truth about the Middle-East, 1970
The Editors, Black Agenda Review 24 Apr 2024
After 200 days of genocide, Black solidarity with Palestine is needed more than ever. A 1970 appeal provides a blueprint.
We have passed 200 days of the zionist entity’s unrelentingly brutal and unashamedly public genocide of Palestinian people and the annihilation of the physical infrastructure of their nation. But these two hundred days of carnage and white supremacist depravity could not have happened without the enduring support – military and diplomatic – of the white west. Nothing is clearer than the overwhelming vote by the US Congress, just days ago, to continue to fund this genocide to the tune of $26.3 billion more.
The white west needs the zionist entity because it is the “outpost of American imperialism in the Middle East.” Understanding this reality – that zionism cannot exist without US and western imperialism – is key to fighting the global struggle against the current carnage. It is also important for recognizing that the destruction of the zionist project is an important step in the fight against imperialism and white supremacy.
In 1970, a group of US Black activists, students, workers, and scholars saw this clearly. In a November 1, 1970 ad purchased in the New York Times titled, “An Appeal By Black Americans Against United States Support of the Zionist Government of Israel,” the group slammed US support for the zionist government. Calling itself the Committee of Black Americans for Truth about the Middle-East (C.O.B.A.T.M.E.), the group demonstrated how concretely zionism was an extension of white supremacist imperialism. The zionist entity worked in concert with the white west in all their imperial aggressions across the world, supporting the U.S. during the Korean War, France, during the Algerian Revolution, Portugal in their wars against Angola and Mozambique. In effect, according to C.O.B.A.T.M.E, “Israel, Rhodesia, and South Africa are three privileged white settler-states that came into existence by displacing indigenous peoples from their lands.” There was no clearer proof of zionism’s link to imperialism and white supremacy.
This appeal by C.O.B.A.T.M.E was remarkable because, in 1970, the African American support for Palestine was still nascent. The first decades of the west’s forced establishment of Israel saw the African American intellectual and political classes support the zionist project. Indeed, even W. E. B. Du Bois supported the zionists. And, Civil Rights leader, Bayard Rustin, would remain a staunch advocate until his death. But the shift in Black politics in the late 1960s when young people, influenced by the likes of Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael (later, Kwame Ture), saw a move away from accepting zionism (however latent) to support for Palestinian resistance and self-determination. Arguably, the opening salvo of that shift was the fact sheet published in 1967 by the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) detailing the truth about the history of Zionist, British, and U.S. aggression against the Palestinian people. While this fact sheet set off a storm of controversy among the older Civil Rights generation, it laid the basis for a future of radical Black-Palestine solidarity.
Today we are at a precipice where the global response to the zionist entity’s genocide and the white west’s steadfast complicity has the potential to topple both zionism and destabilize US imperialism. It is also an odd time as the US Black political elite (the “Black misleaders”) are walking in lockstep with US imperialism (and, by definition, zionism). But, as US campuses are convulsing against zionism and in support of Palestinian liberation, we see the potential for another generation of Black American activists, workers, students, to come together, once again, to link their lot with the global majority it the crosshairs of US imperialism and western white supremacy.
We reprint the appeal by C.O.B.A.T.M.E. below as a model as we “call for Afro-American solidarity with the Palestinian people’s struggle for national liberation.”
AN APPEAL BY BLACK AMERICANS AGAINST UNITED STATES SUPPORT OF THE ZIONIST GOVERNMENT OF ISRAEL
Committee of Black Americans for Truth about the Middle-East
November 1, 1970
We, the Black American signatories of this advertisement are in complete solidarity with our Palestinian brothers and sisters, who like us, are struggling for self-determination and an end to racist oppression.
The recent bloodbath in Jordan, resulting in tens of thousands of dead and wounded Palestinians, would not have been possible without the encouragement, armaments and financial aid of the United States Government.
America’s support for King Hussein’s slaughter of Palestinian refugees and freedom-fighters is consistent with its support of reactionary dictatorship throughout the world – from Cambodia and Vietnam to South Africa, Greece and Iran.
We stand with the Palestinian people in their efforts to preserve their revolution, and oppose its attempted destruction by American Imperialism aided by Zionists and Arab reactionaries.
WE STATE that we are not anti-Jewish. We are anti-Zionist and against the Zionist State of Israel, the outpost of American imperialism in the Middle East. Zionism is a reactionary racist ideology that justifies the expulsion of the Palestinian people from their homes and lands, and attempts to enlist the Jewish masses of Israel and elsewhere in the service of imperialism to hold back the Middle East revolution.
The Zionist Organization of American in an ad in the New York Times of Sept. 17, 1970 stated: “It is appropriate for the United States to begin to treat Isratel, the only democracy in the Middle East, as a de facto ally for the safeguarding of American interests.”
According to the National Observer of May 18, 1970, the world Zionist movement is big business. “When the blood flows, the money flows,” observes Gottlieb Hammer, chief Zionist fund collector in this country.
WE STATE that the Palestinian Revolution is the vanguard of the Arab Revolution and is part of the anti-colonial revolution which is going on in places such as Vietnam, Mozambique, Angola, Brazil, Laos, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Because of its alliance with imperialism, Zionism opposes that anti-colonial revolution and especially revolutionary change in the Middle East.
WE STATE that Israel, Rhodesia, and South Africa are three privileged white settler-states that came into existence by displacing indigenous peoples from their lands. Israel and South Africa each have about 4,500 political prisoners – most of whom have not been brought to trial.
J. Weitz, director of the Department of Colonization of the Jewish Agency for Israel, stated…”The only possible solution lies in creating a Palestine…without Arabs…and there is no other way to do this than to transfer all the Arabs to neighboring countries, to move all of them out of here.” –Davar (Pub. in Israel), Sept. 29, 1967.
The South African Government supported Israel during the June, 1967, war. Dr. Voster’s government not only permitted South African volunteers to work in civilian and paramilitary capacities in Israel, but more than $28 million was raised by pro-apartheid South African Zionists and sent to Israel. “After the June 1967 Middle-East war, there was considerable speculation about an Israel-type action against Zambia and Tanzania, countries which share a firm anti-apartheid policy and support the African Liberation Movement… In September 1967, South Africa’s top Army and Air Force officers learned at first hand about Israel’s tactics in the Middle East war from General Mordechai Hod, Commander of the Israeli Air Force. He addressed between 50 and 100 officers at the Air Force College, Voortrekkerhoogte.” – Johannesburg Sunday Express, Sept. 10, 1967.
WE STATE that Israel continues to support United States politics of aggression in Southeast Asia, politics that are responsible for the death and wounding of thousands of black youths.
The N. Y. Times of Nov. 9, 1969 stated that Jacques Torczyner heard of The Zionist Organization of America. “Appealed to American Jews to support Nixon’s Vietnam policies. Mr. Torczyner, who recently returned last week from Israel said that, ‘People there are in general accord with President Nixon’s Vietnam policies.’”
The Nov. 17, 1969 N. Y. Times stated that “Administration sources Nov. 16 released a message from Israeli Premier Golda Meir calling President Nixon’s Nov. 3 Vietnam speech “meaningful.” It contained, she said in a personal message to Mr. Nixon congratulating him on the speech, “must that encourages and strengthens freedom-loving small nations.”
WE STATE that the exploitation experienced by Afro-Americans, Native Americans (Indians), Puerto Ricans, and Chicanos (Mexican-Americans) is similar to the exploitation of Palestinian Arabs and Oriental Jews by the Zionist State of Israel. Mier Ya’ari, General-Secretary of the Left-Zionist Mapan (United Workers Party) at the Party’s 4th Congress in 1963 said, “This social exploitation helps hold the Oriental communities, one-half of the population, in their state of economic, social and cultural discrimination. The common denominator of the two problems is that the Arab workers must live in a hut or hovel on the outskirts of the Jewish towns, and the worker of the Sephardic community is packed into a crowded slum.”
WE STATE that despite the ultra-nationalist, racist policies of the State of Israel progressive programs of the Palestinian liberation movements are popularly supported by most of the Arab masses.
In January 1969, Fateh spokesman, Yassir Arafat stated, “Our political vision for a free Palestine is a democratic, secular, non-racial state where all Palestinians – Christians, Jews, and Muslims – will have equal rights.”
The Democratic Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine presented the following in a resolution introduced to the Palestine National Congress in 1969: “The Palestine National Congress will struggle for a popular democratic Palestinian state where Arabs and Jews enjoy equal rights without discrimination, where all forms of national and class oppression shall be abolished.”
WE STATE that opposition to the policies of Zionism also exists within Israel and among world Jewry. The following are excerpts from a thesis submitted for discussion to the Israeli Socialist Organization in 1966. “Israel will be de-Zionized, i.e. all present laws and practices discriminating between Jews and non-Jews implementing Jewish supremacy will be abolished…Israel will adopt on [sic] anti-imperialist foreign policy, actively supporting the forces struggling for socialism and unification in the Arab world…”
WE STATE that Israel supported the United States in the Korean War; aided France and the Terrorist Secret Army Organization in Algeria against the Algerian Revolution; opposed the anti-colonial independence movements in Morocco, Tunisia, Indonesia and elsewhere; trained the counter-revolutionary para-commandos of General Mobutu who was one of the persons responsible for the murder of Patrice Lumumba in the Congo, and presently provides arms and other equipment to the Portuguese troops fighting against Angolan and Mozambican freedom fighters.
WE DEMAND THAT ALL MILITARY AID OR ASSISTANCE OF ANY KIND TO ISRAEL MUST STOP. IMPERIALISM AND ZIONISM MUST AND WILL GET OUT OF THE MIDDLE EAST. WE CALL FOR AFRO-AMERICAN SOLIDARITY WITH THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE’S STRUGGLE FOR NATIONAL LIBERATION AND TO REGAIN ALL OF THEIR STOLEN LAND.
Sponsored by the
*Committee of Black Americans for Truth about the Middle-East
Hannibal Ahmed
Chairman, Harlem Youth Federation
Harlem, New York
Mahda Mohanned Ahmad
Third World Poets
Jamaica, N. Y.
Dan Aldridge
All-African Peoples Union
Detroit, Mich.
S. E. Anderson
Black Co-ordinator
Sarah Lawrence College
Bronxville, N. Y.
George Banks
Pres. of the Berkeley Branch of The National Alliance of Postal and Federal Employees
Berkeley, Calif.
Francis Beal
Third World Womens Alliance
New York City
Vince Benson
Co-National Co-ordinator National Association of Black Students
Washington, D. C.
Grace Boggs
Lecturer, Writer
Detroit, Mich.
James Boggs
Writer
Detroit, Mich.
Paul B. Boutelle*
Supervisor, Dept. of Social Services
Harlem, New York
Ronald C. Boutelle
Supervisor, Dept. of Social Services
Harlem, New York
Les Campbell
The East
Brooklyn, N. Y.
Delores Cavou
Secretary, Black Faculty Union, San Francisco State College
San Francisco, Calif.
Cynthia Chambers
Member of American Federation of Teachers and Vice-President of Black Resistance Party
Neward, N. J.
Rev. Albert B. Cleage
Shrine of the Black Madonna
Detroit, Mich.
Ella Collins
Organization of Afro-American Unity
Harlem, New York
Clifton DeBerry
Socialist Workers Party candidate for Governor of New York State
Asher G. Dottin
Afro-Caribbean Mobilization Committee
Brooklyn, N. Y.
Richard Dunn
Black Student Union, California State College
Los Angeles, Calif.
Herman Fagg
Socialist Workers Party Candidate for Governor of California
Frank G. Greenwood
Station KPFK Communicator
Los Angeles, Calif.
John Hawkins
Student Mobilization Committee
Detroit, Mich.
Charles Hightower
Washington Director American Committee on Africa
Washington, D. C.
Ben Howard
Executive Director, Black Workers Alliance
Los Angeles, Calif.
Phil Hutchings
Former Chairman of SNCC
Keito (L. McKelthan)
Third World Poets
Brooklyn, N. Y.
Florynce R. Kennedy
Attorney, Media Workshop
New York City
James G. Lewis
Student Mobilization Committee
Harlem, New York
Conrad Lynn
Attorney
New York City
Phillip Mason
Black Student Union, California State College
Los Angeles, Calif.
Maurice McKinney
Black Student Union
California State College
Los Angeles, Calif.
Lewis H. Michaux
National Memorial Bookstore
Harlem, New York
Steven Miller
Black Student Union
California State College
Los Angeles, Calif.
Una G. Mulzac
Liberation Bookstore
Harlem, New York
Charles J. Nealy
Black Workers Alliance
Los Angeles, Calif.
Bernard Nicholas
Co-National Co-ordinator of the National Association of Black Students
Washington, D. C.
Earl Ofari
Writer, member of the Afro-American Cultural Association
Los Angeles, Calif.
Willie F. Petty
Third World Solidarity Committees with Vietnam
Chicago, Ill.
Jacqueline Rice
Third World Task Force of the Student Mobilization Committee
Detroit, Mich.
Patricia Robinson*
Writer, Co-chairwoman C.O.B.A.T.A.M.E.
New Rochelle, N. Y.
Charles E. Simmons
U. N. Correspondent
New York City
A. B. Spellman
Co-editor, Rhythm Magazine
Atlanta, Ga.
Askia Muhammad Toure
Editor-at-large, Journal of Black Poetry
New York City
Halima Agila Toure
Editor-at-large, Journal of Black Poetry
New York City
Robert F. Van Lierop*
Attorney--Sccy. Treas. of C.O.B.A.T.A.M.E
New York City
B. R. Washington
Rank and File Caucus, Transit Workers Union
New York City
Kenneth J. Watson
Executive Committee of League of Revolutionary Black Workers
Detroit, Mich.
Ruth Webb
Black Representation Organization of Columbia University
New York City
Barbara A. Wheeler
American Society of Political Science
New York City
Harold Williams
President of the Black Resistance Party
Newark, N. J.
Lydia A. Williams*
Co-Chairwoman of C.O.B.A.T.A.M.E., Adult Advisor, Youth Unlimited
Brooklyn, N. Y.
Maxine Williams
Third World Women’s Alliance
New York City
Robert F. Williams
Detroit, Mich.
Reginald Wilson
Director of the Center for Black Students, University of Detroit
Detroit, Mich.
Gwendolyn Patton Woods*
Co-Chairwoman of C.O.B.A.T.A.M.E., Former National Co-ordinator of the National Association of Black Students
