Palestine

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10848
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Thu Feb 01, 2024 12:40 pm

AS`AD AbuKHALIL: Hamas’ Official Account
January 30, 2024

There is enough in the document to declare the birth of a new Hamas movement, which breaks with its early founding years.

Image
Hamas rocket attack from Gaza into Israel, Oct. 7, 2023. (Tasnim News Agency, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0)

By As`ad AbuKhalil
Special to Consortium News

Last week, the Information Office of Hamas issued a special document titled “This is our account: Why the Aqsa Deluge.” In it, the movement explains in detail its motives and goals for the operation.

The document is not likely to get Western media and government attention because Hamas’ narrative of the events of Oct. 7 clashes with the propaganda put out by Israel and spread by Western governments and media. Nevertheless, there is enough in the document to declare the birth of a new Hamas movement, which breaks with its early founding years.

In the history of Palestinian struggle, political organizations fade away while new ones always emerge to replace them. Leaders are discredited after major historical events, and new leaders emerge and capture the imagination of a new Palestinian generation.

Some political organizations (resistance groups) survive and stay, but undergo major political transformations. The Fatah movement was, in the 1960s and 1970s, the backbone of Palestinian military and political struggle.

While it did not achieve military success, and most of its operations against Israel failed, the Palestinian people rallied behind Fatah because Yasser Arafat was perceived to be the new (and later sole and undisputed) leader of the Palestinian revolution.

Image
Feb. 19, 1988: Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, addressing U.N. Commission on Human Rights in Geneva. (UN Photo)

Today, the Fatah movement is perceived, rightly, by most Palestinians as the surrogate army of the Israeli occupation and of the U.S. The Biden administration insists that Fatah (after some “revamping” and rebranding) will be the only acceptable party (acceptable to the U.S. and to some in Israel) to manage security and government in Gaza after the war.

The Palestinian people think otherwise and regard the army of the Palestinian Authority as the arm of repression on behalf of Israel and U.S. The notion that the U.S. and Israel can pick Palestinian leaders is as old as occupation and colonization.

Hamas has also changed over the years. When it was founded in 1987, it was a militant organization that focused heavily on religious rhetoric, and did not count on successful military operations as a source of legitimacy and credibility. It was associated closely with random bombings in the second intifada, when Arafat and the PLO were pushing a peaceful settlement with Israel.

But what accounts for change in the structure, role, and policies of a movement or resistance groups in the Arab East? In examining the changes in Hamas, it is instructive to look at the history of Hizbullah, the Shi’ite resistance group to Israel in Lebanon.

Change Factors

Image
Sayed Abbas Al Mosawi, the co-founder and secretary general of Hezbollah. (Tasnim News Agency, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0)

Nasrallah also Lebanonized the party and married it to the Lebanese political scene where it had been somewhat alien before. He was behind abandoning the goal of an Islamic Republic in Lebanon, which had been Hizbullah’s centerpiece when the party was first established.

Nasrallah did not end the collective leadership which characterized Hizbullah since its founding, but his charisma propelled him into regional leadership, far beyond the narrow confines of Lebanese politics. Nasrallah consults with Iran and others within his party, but he is expected to make the party’s final strategic decisions, especially when it comes to Palestine and Lebanon.

Hizbullah was feared before Nasrallah, never loved or understood. In the Nasrallah era, the party became loved by some (most before the 2011 Syrian war), hated by others and misunderstood by many. (Of course, Saudi regime media specialize in distorting the meaning of Nasrallah’s words as part of its regional propaganda campaign to demonize enemies of Israel.)

The new leader of Hamas, Yahda Sinwar, is causing a drastic change in the role, practice, and effectiveness of Hamas. Just like Nasrallah, Sinwar began to leave his mark soon after assuming leadership in 2017.

Like Nasrallah (who served a security role with Hizbollah years before assuming the leadership), Sinwar had a security role with Hamas. He allegedly hunted down Israeli collaborators within Hamas and inside Gaza.

Israel’s failure to reach Hamas’ leadership and command structure has been because of the security regime installed in Gaza by Sinwar.

Image
Khaled Meshaal in 2009. (Trango, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0)

He is not a wheeler-dealer like Khalid Mishal, the former Hamas leader, and avoids inter-Arab regime politics and conflicts. He also is a firm believer in the efficacy of the regional axis of resistance and puts that to great effect in how he husbands the movement’s military resources.

Hamas broke with its previous era when Mishal turned Hamas into an arm of Qatari foreign policy. Mishal was closer to Qatar and Turkey while Sinwar is closer to Iran, which supplies the movement with crucial military aid (Qatar supplies Hamas with financial aid, but reportedly in close coordination with Israel).

A party may change by learning from its past mistakes. When Hamas emerged, it had no qualms expressing anti-Jewish sentiments, even citing the notorious Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Hamas wasn’t even sensitive to Christian sensibilities at first. But that changed over time.

In this document (and in a political document of 2018) the movement made it clear that it harbors no ideology of hostility against Jews, qua Jews. This is a major shift, which was also articulated by Hizbullah in its political document of 2009.

To be sure, Israel and Western Zionists don’t want to concede that movements change. They want to pigeonhole all Palestinian and Arab resistance groups as Nazi-like, no matter what they do and say. To this day, Western media refers to the political rhetoric of Hamas from its first year and not from its more recent years.

They do the same with Hizbullah: Saudi regime media relish finding very old speeches of Nasrallah in which references to an Islamic state are made to alienate non-Shiite supporters in Lebanon and the Arab world.

Hamas also broke with its history of not trying to distinguish between Israeli military and civilian targets (despite its earliest statements that it does). It’s not easy for Arab resistance groups to make that distinction because: a) Israel and the Zionist movement since the 1930s never bothered to make distinctions between Arab civilians and combatants; b) because many Israelis (males and females) are armed and serve in the reserves.

Image
Hamas’ Yadar Sinwar , left, during police force exercise in Gaza in 2012. (Fars Media Corporation, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0)

The wave of suicide attacks by Hamas during the second intifada turned off Arab and non-Arab supporters of the Palestinians. In the new document Hamas enunciates a declared policy of avoiding targeting civilians as part of its religious and ethical doctrine. (I will delve deeper into this question in Part Two of this article.)

There was a similar path in Hizbullah’s history. Hizbullah is now very keen to avoid targeting civilians. Even in the recent months of war between Hizbullah and Israel, Hizbullah strictly targeted military sites in Israel when it would have been much easier to fire randomly.

In contrast, Israel in all its wars, manages to kill many (or mostly) civilians. In fact, Israel — in this recent war of genocide – does not deny that most of its victims in Gaza have been civilians but maintains many of those slaughtered were Hamas combatants.

(U.S. intelligence estimates that Israel has exaggerated the percentage of combatants killed). In the July war of 2006, the overwhelming majority of those killed by Hizbullah were soldiers and officers, while most of those who were killed on the Lebanese side were civilians.

https://consortiumnews.com/2024/01/30/a ... l-account/

*******

Israel Plans to Attack Lebanon Because Israel Is Not Winning Against Hamas
Posted on January 30, 2024 by Yves Smith

Once in a great while, things so speak for themselves that there is not much point in going on overmuch. Israel is not winning against Hamas. So it plans to take on a much tougher opponent, Hezbollah, which will be the result of executing on its plan to enter and occupy Lebanon up to the Litani River. This is not the way clear-thinking people operate.

But as Alastair Crooke explains (more on this soon), the Israelis recognize that they are no longer feared militarily in their ‘hood. Maintaining that fear is fundamental to Israeli citizen’s sense of security. Proof comes via Israel having had to pull its citizens out of the border to Gaza and Lebanon and not having been able to turn things around so they can return. Although I cannot prove a negative, Crooke and some Twitterati maintain that this effective loss of territory very much puts Israel on the back foot, since Israel historically has used buffer zones as an interim step in increasing the area under its control, and understands the risks when that process goes the other way.

Despite the assumption by many military experts at the start of the Israel campaign in Gaza, that the IDF would prevail given its much greater resources and ease of resupply, here we are, over 100 days in, and Israel is not all that much closer to victory, save in exterminating the Palestinian population in Gaza, as opposed to eliminating or at least crippling Hamas. Israel has not killed any of the leadership of Hamas’ military wing. Israel has not rescued any hostages. It is not clear how many Hamas fighters Israel has killed, but its claim of 10,000 versus the 27,000 dead reported in Gaza seems unreasonably high, particularly given admissions that schemes like flooding the tunnel system have not worked very well.


Hamas has been retaking Northern Gaza after Israel claimed to have secured it. And on top of that, as an article in today’s Links pointed out, Israel is having to husband its artillery use in Gaza in light of global shortages. So they plan to take on Hezbollah with less than a full magazine?

There are signs of dissent within Israel over where to go in the war. More and more family members of hostages have been getting sympathetic coverage in the press and support from some officials for their demand that Israel negotiate with Hamas now to get the hostages back. A new story in Christian Science Monitor recounts a key rupture:

The cracks in what had been near universal public unity supporting Israel’s war aims in the conflict’s first few months have even reached the five-person wartime Cabinet tasked with prosecuting the campaign against Hamas.

In a bombshell television interview on Israel’s Channel 12 this month, Gadi Eisenkot, a centrist politician and former military chief who joined Mr. Netanyahu’s wartime coalition in October, said the welfare of the hostages had to take precedence.

The government, he added, needed to stop “selling fantasies” to the public that their release would be achieved through force alone.

And the dissent continues:


But at this point, with Hamas doing not badly given the givens, it has escalated its demands. Israel meeting its demands for their return would be seen by its citizens as a capitulation:


Netanyahu, who also has his own survival to consider, is fiercely maintaining that defeating Hamas remains the priority, and the release of the hostages will follow from that.

Mind you, there are recent reports of negotiations between Israel and Hamas over the release of the hostages. With Tony Blinken involved, I didn’t see much reason to be optimistic (how many deals has Blinken said were imminent, like Egypt accepting Palestinian refugees in bulk, that came to naught?). Alastair Crooke, who has long-standing, high-level contacts all over the Muslim world, didn’t see fit to dignify them in his recent presentations. A new report in the Times of Israel suggests they are not going anywhere. The subhead:

Terror group appears to pour cold water on mediators’ latest offer after Qatari PM says ‘good progress’ made; Israel said open to lengthy truce but refuses to end war

On top of that, Israel is telegraphing its intent to go into Lebanon, despite the Anglopshere media not taking much notice. Israel first engaged in the lame pretext of “negotiating” with Lebanon to pull back to the Litani, as in cede a habited area to Lebanon for the benefit of Israeli settlers near the border. Israel is housing these families at what is reported to be non-sustainable cost. The border residents have said they won’t return until they can’t see Lebanese from their homes. Quite the ask, and Israel has said it will deliver. It has promised these border denizens they will return. The initial promise was by the end of January, which is clearly na ga happen. But Israel is signaling it plans to move soon. From the Times of Israel over the weekend:

The IDF said Saturday it was further increasing its preparedness on the northern border, publishing footage from recent “intensive” training exercises carried out by the 226th Reserve Paratroopers Brigade, as Hezbollah-led forces in Lebanon continue to launch attacks on Israeli communities and military posts along the border…

The drill by the health system this week dealt with a variety of potential scenarios involving the operation of hospitals, health maintenance organizations’ community clinics, medical evacuations, and the provision of support to chronically ill people in need of immediate assistance.

From the Reuters today:

Israeli troops will “very soon go into action” near the country’s northern border with Lebanon, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said tonight, as tensions surge amid the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

Gallant told troops near the border with the Gaza Strip that others were being deployed to Israel’s north.

“They will very soon go into action… so the forces in the north are reinforced,” Gallant said.

“The forces close to you… are leaving the field and moving towards the north, and preparing for what comes next,” he said.


Yes, Hezbollah has been shelling the border area, but in tit for tat attacks. Crooke contends that both sides so far have been somewhat careful, hoping to goad the other side into a disproportionate reaction they can use to justify a larger attack.

But reminiscent of the Great Ukraine Counteroffensive, Israel is committed to Doing Something, and is making that awfully clear in advance too.

Without belaboring the issue, there is no reason to think Israel will win against Hezbollah. It was eventually beaten in 2006. Hezbollah is a much better fighting force than then while Israel is no better and perhaps worse. Among other things, Israel is betting on the US entering the conflict and saving its bacon, when Scott Ritter has warned that recent war game have shown Israel to lose against Hezbollah even when the US saddles up. And those didn’t factor in the Houthis interfering with ship getting to Israel’s ports. On top of that, the US has brought aerial refueling planes after the supposed drone attack on an outpost in Jordan that killed three service members. Many observers claim that means the US feels it needs to keep its jets in the air so as not to have them destroyed on the ground. That would have to complicate air support for Israel in Lebanon.

In other words, this plan seems, to be polite, a reckless gamble. Yet the Israelis seem fanatically committed to moving ahead with it. Crooke tries to explain what looks like determination to self-destruct:

Israel is boxed-in, as is becoming very evident to many Israelis. One Israeli correspondent (formerly a Cabinet Secretary) illustrates its nature:

The meaning of the 7th October default is not only the loss of lives … but mainly the potential transformation of how Israel is perceived … as no longer to be feared by Middle Eastern actors.

The Israeli leadership must internalize that we can no longer be content with a ‘sense of victory’ among the Israeli public … It is doubtful whether victory in Gaza is enough to restore the fear of Israel to the levels we had vis-a-vis our enemies. A victory that boils down to just the release of the captives and confidence-building measures to establish a Palestinian state would not be enough in shoring up Israel’s image in that regard.

If the quagmire of Gaza … brings the [Israeli] leadership to the realization that there is no ability to present a clear victory on this front, one that will lead to a strategic change in the region, they must consider switching fronts and reasserting Israeli deterrence through the removal of the strategic threat in Lebanon … victory against one of the richest and most powerful terrorist organizations in the world – Hezbollah – can restore deterrence in the region in general … Israel must remove the threat from the north and dismantle the power structure Hezbollah has built in Lebanon, regardless of the situation in the south.

But without victory in the south, a significant achievement in the north becomes that much more important.

The above quotation goes directly to the heart of the issue. That is: ‘How can Zionism be saved?’. All the rest of the ‘blah-blah’ coming from world leaders is largely bluff. Not only is Gaza NOT giving Israelis a sense of victory; on the contrary, it is widely proliferating a violent anger at a surprise, ‘shameful’ defeat…

The latest Peace Index survey reflects the pervasive gloom: 94% percent of Jews think Israel has used the right amount of firepower in Gaza (or “not enough” (43%)). Three-quarters of all Israelis think the number of Palestinians harmed since October is justified to achieve its aims; a full two-thirds of Jewish respondents say numbers of casualties are definitely justified (only 21% say “somewhat” justified).

Crooke explains that Zionism promised Jew security within Israel, and that promise has been turned on its head. Not only are Jews in Israel now insecure, but blowback from the Gaza campaign is also threatening the diaspora. Biden is merely pursuing containment posturing; the two state solution is a non-starter and as we described earlier, the normalization scheme with Saudi Arabia is an empty exercise in optics.

He argues in his latest article that Israel feeling it has its back pushed against the wall has unleashed deeper impulses in the form of hewing to cultural archetypes. His article goes through some analogies. I think Crooke is on the right track but has not quite nailed this analytically. But explaining what looks like a mass psychosis is not easy.

Crooke has another go at trying to explain Israel’s overwrought state in his current Judge Napolitano talk, where he describes the conflict as an Armageddon-like struggle which is partly fueled by the way the Islamic world has been in decline for the last 1000 years, with the meddling of Europeans in the last 500 years a major contributor. And the Israel side even more so is seeing it in Biblical and eschatological terms. Hence the emotionality and lack of sound calculations.

Crooke has warned (as have a few others) that Israel is putting its survival as a state at risk if it launches a full scale attack against Lebanon. But even that possibility seems to be no deterrent.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/01 ... hamas.html

******

‘Diamond in the sky': Hezbollah flashes new missile at Israel

Hezbollah's launch of the Iranian-made Almas missile — reverse-engineered from the Israeli ATGM, Spike — is a major military development in the northern battlefield, and a dismaying surprise for Tel Aviv.


The Cradle's Military Correspondent

JAN 30, 2024

Image
Photo Credit: The Cradle

On 25 January, the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah orchestrated a bold strike against Israel's strategic Jal al-Alam site, using what appeared to be a new missile system that immediately captured the attention of war observers.

As seen in a video released by Hezbollah's media division, the Iranian-made Almas missile appeared to ascend before homing in on its target with extraordinary clarity - thanks to a camera affixed to the projectile itself — prompting widespread buzz about this "special weapon," its features, and capabilities.


‘Plunging fire’

The Almas is an anti-armor missile equipped with a distinctive "top attack" feature. Unlike traditional systems such as the American TOW, Russian Concourse, or Russian Kornet, which follow a straight trajectory toward the target, this weapon takes an “indirect” path. Operating on an arc trajectory, the missile ascends to a specific altitude before descending toward its target from above.

Why the top-down approach? Armored vehicles, including tanks, prioritize varying thicknesses of armor on different sides to balance weight and maintain mobility. Typically, armor is thickest on the front, less on the sides, and even less on the back or roof.

For instance, a tank's front armor might be three to four times thicker than its side armor. Consequently, a projectile needs a smaller, more targeted explosive charge to penetrate the tank, specifically from above or the front.

The concept of top-down missiles is not novel, and recent conflicts have seen a surge in their use. In the Second Nagorno-Karabakh war between Azerbaijan and Armenia, Israeli Spike anti-tank missiles wreaked havoc on Armenian vehicles, complemented by Turkish Bayraktar drones dropping projectiles from above. Both weapons rarely failed to break the armor of Soviet-era Armenian tanks, (mostly T-72E and B tanks).

Image
Hezbollah's Almas Missile

Drones and anti-tank dynamics

The battlefield in Ukraine, it should be said, has been a wider and more geographically and temporally extended arena for experimenting with multiple different types of these munitions.

As air defenses heightened on both sides, larger armed drones like the Bayraktar and its Russian counterpart, the Orion, were sidelined in favor of smaller quadcopters. These nimble drones either drop munitions from the air or act as suicide missions, targeting tanks at their weakest points—namely, the roof, sides, or rear.

Notable anti-armor weapons, such as the US-made Javelin or the British NLAW, initially shifted the balance but later succumbed to conventional two-dimensional anti-armor weapons like the Kornet-inspired Stugna.

Several countries boast portable weapons with top-attack capabilities, including China's Red Arrow and Japan's Type 1 LMAT. Notably, Israel possesses a range of such weapons, with the Spike system leading the pack in various sizes and ranges.

The differentiating factor lies in the Spike's ability to not only employ the "fire-and-forget" (F&F) feature, where the missile autonomously directs itself based on the target image, but also in its semi-automatic guidance across the line of sight. This distinctive feature also surfaced in a recent rocket utilized by the Lebanese resistance in two strikes, leaving analysts speculating on the identity of this advanced weapon.

Iranian engineering excellence

In recent years, Hezbollah’s ally Iran has achieved remarkable advancements across various military technology domains, showcasing prowess in cruise missiles, drones, and air defense systems. A notable addition to this arsenal boasting a top attack feature is the Almas (Diamond) missile, described as a clone of the Spike-MR.

Initially unveiled in a 2020 video, the Diamond made its debut on the global stage with the armed Ababil-3 surveillance and reconnaissance drone, gaining attention at military exhibitions. What distinguishes this weapon is its readiness for export, as evident from appearances not only in Iranian military showcases but also at arms exhibitions abroad.

The screen of the Almas’ scoring device matches the screen that appeared in the one launched by Hezbollah, and the blurred image of the device in the second video of the Naqoura strike matches the shape of the weapon itself, which is mounted on a three-legged base.


A similar Iranian anti-tank guided missile, the Sadid-365, which differs from the Almas in various aspects, surfaced in a test video last year. The Naqoura site's second video revealed a significant change in the rocket's post-launch behavior, transitioning from a fully-driven system to a lock frame, a departure from the Sadid’s method of scoring.

This locking mechanism appeared to memorize the target's image, adjusting its course based on the target's shape rather than a singular point and direction, as observed in the case of the Almas.

Despite the rocket's upward trajectory in the first video, the missile's sensor remained fixated on the target. This seemingly complex operation is facilitated by top-down missiles employing a biaxial seeker or "gimbal," akin to the gyroscope principle used in stabilizing cameras for movement. This feature allows the missile's researcher to maintain focus on the target while the rocket ascends, directing the hull towards the target when reaching a certain altitude.

Shaking up the northern front

There are three main tactical implications for Hezbollah using this new weapon on the battlefield against the Israeli occupation forces:

First, is to target the enemy's vulnerabilities: The Almas’ ability to hit Israeli tanks and vehicles from above exploits the weakest angle of their armor. Cages installed on Israeli tanks may offer little defense against such munitions, designed primarily for smaller threats like quadcopter-dropped munitions.

Second, is to defeat Israel's costly Trophy systems: The Israeli defense system, "Trophy" or "Windbreaker," proves ineffective against projectiles coming from above.

Third, is complicating Israel's target searches: Launching the rocket from behind natural barriers, without direct line-of-sight, makes it nigh impossible for enemy forces to locate the shooters or their launch areas. This goes beyond the Israeli struggle with direct missiles like the Kornet; the Almas creates new angles and possibilities that evade traditional search calculations, rendering the old shooting-and-hiding tactics unnecessary.

The ramifications of Hezbollah's Almas missile disclosure are not just limited to the weapon's battlefield implications. This tactical “reveal” also places Israel's military top brass on notice about the potential pitfalls of an expanded conflict with Lebanon.

The cost of conflict for Tel Aviv could significantly increase if the resistance adopts this method to strike the enemy's military vehicles and gatherings. The weapon's unique features, including its wired guidance through fiber optic wire, make traditional countermeasures like jamming ineffective.

While the Almas’ existence does not single-handedly alter the strategic outlook of the battles on Israel's northern front, it complements second-generation anti-armor weapons like the Konkurs. Each weapon on the battlefield plays a specific role, and their integration with shooters and strategic planners is crucial in imposing Hezbollah's will on the occupation entity.

https://thecradle.co/articles/diamond-i ... -at-israel

******

Egypt Rejects Israeli Control of the Philadelphi Corridor


Image
A tank of the Israeli occupation forces. | Photo: X/ @KnowTheWorld23

Published 31 January 2024

Israel's retaking control of this zone would violate the 1979 peace treaty, said the chairman of Egypt's State Information Service.

On Tuesday, an Egyptian high-ranking official said that any Israeli attempt to control the Philadelphi Corridor along the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip is "unacceptable."

"No new arrangements have been discussed with Israel regarding the Philadelphi Corridor on the border, and any Israeli unilateral moves in this regard are unacceptable," the unnamed Egyptian official was quoted as saying by Egypt's Al-Qahera News TV.

The remarks came a week after Diaa Rashwan, the chairman of Egypt's State Information Service, warned that Israel's retaking control of the Philadelphi Corridor would violate its 1979 peace treaty with Egypt.

Also known as "The Philadelphi Route," this corridor is a 100-meter wide, 14-km-long buffer zone along the Egypt-Gaza border.


Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently expressed his desire to retake control of the corridor to ensure future demilitarization of Gaza and prevent the alleged smuggling of weapons into Gaza through border tunnels. Rashwan also denied last week the Israeli claims about the weapon smuggling from Egypt to Gaza.

The Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza has been a major lifeline to provide humanitarian aid to the Palestinians in the war-ravaged enclave, which has witnessed relentless Israeli bombings and a massive military offensive since last year.

Since October 7, 2023, Israeli occupation forces have killed 26,751 Palestinians and injured 65,636 people. The death toll figures could be higher due to the undetermined number of Palestinians trapped under the rubble of buildings and homes.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Egy ... -0003.html

******

China Urges Effective Implementation of ICJ Ruling
JANUARY 30, 2024

Image
Wang Wenbin, spokesperson for China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Photo: VCG/File photo.

On Monday, China urged the effective application of the provisional measures issued by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) regarding the genocide perpetrated by the Israeli entity against defenseless Palestinian civilians. The ICJ ruling requires the Israeli colony to take immediate measures to halt its genocidal actions.

The spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Wang Wenbin, said that the ruling, ratified almost unanimously by the ICJ judges, responds to the widespread concern of the international community to protect civilians, de-escalate the threat of an expanding war, and ease the humanitarian crisis.

China condemns attacks on Palestinian civilians
China’s position on the Palestinian issue is consistent and clear, Wang said: the country condemns all acts against the civilian population and opposes measures that violate international law.

The definitive answer to the Palestinian question lies in compliance with the two-state solution, said Wang, which could bring a comprehensive, fair, and lasting solution to the problem.



Attacks continue
Despite the ruling of the international court, indiscriminate attacks, bombing, and killings of civilian populations by Israeli occupation forces continue.

A report issued on Sunday indicated that at least 26,422 Palestinians have been killed and 65,087 injured since last October as a result of the constant attacks and bombings perpetrated by the Israeli occupation entity in the Gaza Strip and other parts of the occupied Palestinian territories. Most of the casualties are children and women.

https://orinocotribune.com/china-urges- ... cj-ruling/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10848
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Fri Feb 02, 2024 12:37 pm

Possible US Withdrawal From Syria and Iraq: The Worst-Case Scenario
JANUARY 31, 2024

Image
US troops in Iraq. File photo.

By Brian Berletic – Jan 29, 2024

Rumors and announcements have swirled recently regarding the presence of US troops in Syria and Iraq, and the prospect of at least a drawdown of troops taking place in one or both locations. This follows escalating violence between local militias and US forces, who have traded missiles and airstrikes amid the ongoing Israeli invasion of Gaza and a resulting decline in regional security.

While the Pentagon was quick to deny claims that US forces might withdraw from Syria, CNN in a January 25, 2024 article, “US and Iraqi governments expected to start talks on future of US military presence in the country,” would note that discussions would “focus on whether and when it will be feasible to end the US military presence in Iraq.”

A similar process took place preceding the eventual withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan in Central Asia, completed in August 2021.

The withdrawal from Afghanistan was interpreted at the time as a symptom of waning US power, and while that may be a contributing factor, other analysts feared it was merely a means of freeing up US resources to expand conflict elsewhere.

This fear was confirmed by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken during a press conference in December 2022, in which he admitted, “When it comes to Russia’s war against Ukraine, if we were still in Afghanistan, it would have, I think, made much more complicated the support that we’ve been able to give and that others have been able to give Ukraine to resist and push back against the Russian aggression.”

It should be noted that the US had been deliberately drawing Russia into a wider conflict in Ukraine for years leading up to Russia’s Special Military Operation. The RAND Corporation in a September 2019 policy paper titled, Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground, included an entire chapter titled, “Provide Lethal Aid to Ukraine,” explaining that:

Expanding US assistance to Ukraine, including lethal military assistance, would likely increase the costs to Russia, in both blood and treasure, of holding the Donbass region. More Russian aid to the separatists and an additional Russian troop presence would likely be required, leading to larger expenditures, equipment losses, and Russian casualties. The latter could become quite controversial at home, as it did when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.

The following month, under the Trump administration, the US would begin supplying Ukraine lethal aid in the form of Javelin anti-tank missiles, ABC News would report. It was clearly the beginning of a policy meant to draw Russia in and draw as much “blood and treasure” from Russia as possible. It was at this time a withdrawal from Afghanistan was under serious consideration. It would begin under the Trump administration and finally be fully implemented under the subsequent Biden administration.

The withdrawal, in hindsight, was a clear prerequisite for freeing up the resources required for the upcoming US proxy war in Ukraine against Russia.

Withdrawal from Iraq and Syria equals more, not less war

It is thus troubling to consider similar policy papers to RAND Corporation’s 2019 Extending Russia exist and lay out options for likewise drawing Iran into a large-scale war with US-backed regime change as the ultimate objective.

Such papers specifically lay out the necessary prerequisites for doing so, and note the US occupation of Iraq as an obstruction for these planned provocations designed to draw Iran into wider war.

Among the many provocations laid out in the 2009 Brooking Institution’s paper, Which Path to Persia? Options for a New American Strategy toward Iran, is the use of Israel as a proxy to attack and draw Iran into a war the US can wade into after hostilities begin.

In Chapter 5 titled, “LEAVE IT TO BIBI Allowing or Encouraging an Israeli Military Strike,” the Brookings Institution’s authors explain that in order for Israeli warplanes to strike Iran, they must overfly either US allies or nations occupied by US forces themselves, implicating the US in the strikes and negating the primary benefit of this option, “distancing the United States from culpability.”

The paper notes:

As the occupying power in Iraq, the United States is responsible for defending Iraqi airspace. The alternatives via Turkish airspace (over 2,200 kilometers) or Saudi airspace (over 2,400 kilometers) would also put the attack force into the skies of U.S. allies equipped with American-supplied air defenses and fighter aircraft. In the case of Turkey, an Israeli overflight would be further complicated by the fact that Turkey is a NATO ally that the United States has a commitment to defend, and it hosts a large, joint Turkish-American airbase along the most likely route of attack.

The paper also notes:

From the American perspective, this negates the whole point of the option—distancing the United States from culpability—and it could jeopardize American efforts in Iraq, thus making it a possible nonstarter for Washington.

An obvious solution exists to this problem, not only have US troops leave Iraq, but leave Iraq on apparently bad terms with Baghdad. Even if withdrawal is still underway when Israeli warplanes cross Iraqi airspace, Washington can attempt to convince the world that it was in the process of leaving the region, and this was a decision made by Israel, and Israel alone.

Recent attempts by the US to appear to urge restraint from Israel in its operations in Gaza, are likewise meant to grant Washington plausible deniability regarding Israel’s escalating provocations across the entire region where Israeli forces are not only invading and planning a long-term occupation of Gaza, but are also carrying out airstrikes in Lebanon and Syria, with Iran the next logical target for Israeli provocations.

Another important consideration regarding a US withdrawal from either Syria or Iraq (or both) is the removal of isolated, vulnerable US bases that would be quickly targeted and destroyed should war be provoked with Iran.

And while a US withdrawal would make Israeli provocations more convincing in an attempt to trigger a wider war with Iran and also remove vulnerable US troops from the line of fire if such efforts succeed, a US withdrawal or drawdown from the Middle East could also be done simply to free up additional resources for Washington’s ongoing proxy war in Ukraine against Russia, or perhaps for ongoing efforts to provoke war with China in the Asia-Pacific region.

Like the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, it is tempting to assume the US is on the backfoot and in retreat, but recent events have made it clear that if the US is withdrawing forces from one long-standing conflict, it is only to free up resources for an even larger and more dangerous one.

Only time will tell what Washington’s true motives may be, however considering the likely motives of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in freeing up resources for the much more dangerous proxy war in Ukraine, caution should be exercised in analyzing US hints at similar withdrawals from the Middle East.

https://orinocotribune.com/possible-us- ... -scenario/

*******

Netanyahu approves post-war Gaza plan: Report

The plan, which includes several stages, will allow Israel to assume military control over post-war Gaza and carry out operations across the strip

News Desk

JAN 31, 2024

Image
(Photo credit: Akos Stiller/Bloomberg)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has discreetly approved a plan for Israel to assume military control over Gaza in a “transition period” that is supposed to lead to the reformation of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the eventual realization of a form of Palestinian statehood.

According to a 31 January report by the Jerusalem Post, this several-stage initiative was drawn up by a group of “businessmen” with close ties to the prime minister.

“Stage one involves the creation of a comprehensive Israeli military government in Gaza to oversee humanitarian aid and assume responsibility for the civilian population during a ‘transition period,’” the Israeli outlet writes.

“Stage two will see the formation of an international Arab coalition, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, the UAE, Bahrain, and others. This coalition is to be part of a broader regional normalization agreement, backing the establishment of ‘the new Palestinian Authority,’” it adds.

According to the report, this plan will allow officials – neither Hamas-affiliated nor linked to the current PA and its president – to “inherit” Gaza’s administration from Tel Aviv. It adds that the plan will allow Israel to carry out security operations in Gaza – just as the 1993 Oslo Accords allowed for Israeli army operations in the occupied West Bank.

The “subsequent phase” will depend on how well Gaza is “stabilized” and how successful the newly reformed PA will be. It will include widespread reforms of PA facilities in the occupied West Bank, including education.

It will also include the formation of a mechanism for “terror management.”

The report goes on to say that if this stage pans out smoothly for two to four years, Israel will then recognize a “delineated Palestinian state within the Palestinian Authority territories and consider transferring additional, non-settlement-requiring lands to that state.”

It also says that the initiative falls in line with Washington’s vision for Gaza and the region.

The Jerusalem Post report makes no mention of east Jerusalem, which the PA has for decades demanded as the capital of any future Palestinian state.

It comes one day after Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that Israel plans to directly occupy Gaza after the war.

Netanyahu had previously said that re-occupation of Gaza was not on Israel’s agenda, but that Tel Aviv would have to maintain “indefinite” security control of the strip after the war.

https://thecradle.co/articles/netanyahu ... lan-report

The enemy within: Arab states that trade with Israel

West Asian exports to Israel have skyrocketed since 2020. These are the Arab and Muslim governments that put goods on Israeli shelves, despite their public stances supporting Gaza.


Mohamad Hasan Sweidan

JAN 31, 2024

Image
Photo Credit: The Cradle

Israeli import data reveals that a number of Arab countries play a significant role in buoying the occupation state’s trade volume, despite attempts by other regional nations to weaken Israel's economy.

Since this decade's onset, Israeli ports have been teeming with the arrival of goods from across the region. Each shipment not only boosts the occupation state's economy, but also weaves a narrative that goes beyond trade statistics as these economic interactions carry a hidden stream of political significance.

Image

Business as usual

Taking third place is Jordan, whose exports to Israel in 2022 reached $469.25 million, a massive 489 percent increase from 2018. Key export categories from the Hashemite Kingdom include plastics ($135.2 million), electrical and electronic equipment ($127.93 million), and iron and steel ($74.35 million).

Image

As for Egypt, the first Arab state to make peace with and recognize Israel, its 2022 exports to the occupation state amounted to $179.31 million. Notable export categories include inorganic chemicals, precious metals compounds ($61.15 million), building materials ($14.26 million), foodstuffs ($12.78 million), and plastics ($11.32 million).

Surprisingly, in fifth place is Algeria, with Israel-bound exports reaching $21.38 million in 2022, the majority of which are inorganic chemicals, precious metals compounds, and isotopes. The revelation of trade relations between Algeria and Israel by the UN database raises questions about Algeria's long-held stance against normalization, including its criminalization two years ago.

Morocco stands in sixth place, with exports to Israel amounting to $17.92 million in 2022, predominantly composed of foodstuffs. Rabat resumed diplomatic and trade relations with Israel as part of the 2020 accords.

Finally, Bahrain's exports to Israel in 2022 reached $10.58 million, reflecting an astounding 12,083 percent increase from 2020, the year of the normalization agreement between Manama and Tel Aviv. Key exports include aluminum ($8.78 million) and iron and steel ($2.62 million).

As such, the combined exports of West Asian countries to Israel surged by $4,359.530,000 between 2020 and 2022, marking an increase of almost 111 percent.

Image

Israeli Energy Imports

Israel depends heavily on oil and natural gas for its power generation, with these sources constituting 80 percent of its total energy supply. It is a net exporter of natural gas, having sent 9.4 billion cubic meters abroad in 2022, with 6.5 billion cubic meters going to Egypt and 2.9 billion cubic meters to Jordan.

In contrast, Israel imports all its oil supply, and consumes approximately 220 thousand barrels per day. Of this, 62 percent comes from two Muslim-majority countries, namely Kazakhstan (93 thousand barrels) and Azerbaijan (45 thousand barrels). The remainder is sourced from West African countries, including Gabon, Nigeria, and Angola, in addition to Brazil, and an undisclosed amount is transported illegally from Iraqi Kurdistan.

To facilitate the import of most of Israel's oil, the Turkish port of Ceyhan in southeastern Turkiye plays a crucial role. It serves as a loading point for oil tankers carrying crude from Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan through the Caspian Sea via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. Tankers also transport oil from Iraqi Kurdistan along the eastern Mediterranean Sea to the ports of Haifa and Ashkelon.

Oil tankers arrive in the occupied state via two main seaports: the aforementioned Ashkelon, equipped with 22 tanks holding 11 million barrels, and Eilat in the south, with 16 large oil tanks capable of holding about 1.4 million cubic meters of oil. The latter has seen an 85 percent fall in activity amid increased naval operations executed by Yemen’s Ansarallah-aligned forces in the Red Sea against vessels bound for Israel.

Approximately 180,000 barrels per day reach Ashkelon, from where internal pipelines transport the oil to the ports of Ashdod and Haifa. Both ports have oil refineries with capacities of 100,000 and 197,000 barrels per day, respectively. Additionally, a pipeline connects Ashkelon and Eilat, traversing the Negev desert with a capacity of 1.2 million barrels per day.

Despite the growing tensions and sharp rhetoric by some regional states toward Israel since its military assault on the Gaza Strip commenced, trade activity remains largely uninterrupted. Turkiye, despite calling Israel a “terrorist” state, contributes heavily to Israel's economic well-being by helping Tel Aviv circumvent the Yemeni blockade, increasing its overall exports to Israel, and playing a pivotal role in oil transportation.

Despite the war on Gaza, Turkish exports grew from 319.5 million dollars in November 2023 to 430.6 million dollars in December — higher even than the 408.3 million dollars exported in July, prior to the 7 October Al-Aqsa Flood operation.

Exports to Israel from the UAE, Jordan, Egypt, and Morocco are hardly surprising: these are the Arab states most vested in championing regional policies that serve the interests of the occupation state. The more surprising connection, however, is the trade relations — however minimal — between Algeria and Israel.

To understand the true positions of states means to skip over the official rhetoric and examine the economic ties that politics often conceals.

https://thecradle.co/articles/the-enemy ... ith-israel

*******

Iraqi Militia Suspends Attacks on US Forces, Paving Way for Troop Withdrawal
Posted on January 31, 2024 by Yves Smith

Yves here. Holy moley, if this reading of the latest developments in Iraq and the aftermath of the attack on the US installation in a still-disputed location (Jordan? Syria) is correct, there may be an unexpected silver lining to the servicemembers deaths. If you are up on this developing story, Biden had decided to attack so-called Iran-linked militias rather than attacking Iran, keeping the response at a tit-for-tat level. That’s not such a bad outcome but still left room for more exchanges sooner rather than later leading to escalation, either by accident or design.

But this piece reports that the Iraq Kata’ib Hezbollah, which has nothing to do with the more famous Hezbollah in Lebanon, put up its hand and ‘fessed up to the attack. As important, it said it had nothing to do with Iran and promised to cut it out so as not to make life more difficult for the government in Iraq. It further contends this means the plan to pull US forces out of Iraq is back on track.

Admittedly I am not sure how I missed the underlying accounts, since CNN had the story hours ago, with the headline predictably depicting Kata’ib Hezbollah as “Iran-backed.”

Recall the press reported a few days ago the US will finally leave Iraq after being told in not very polite terms by the Iraqi government to get out and the US initially balked. From Aljazeera in US, Iraq begin formal talks on winding down US-led military coalition:

Currently, there are about 2,500 US troops still deployed in Iraq as part of the coalition that was formed in 2014 to help the Iraqi government defeat ISIL.

The US says its aims to set up a committee to negotiate the terms of the mission’s end were first discussed last year.

But as Israel’s war on Gaza ramps up, US forces in Iraq and Syria have faced frequent attacks by Iran-allied groups, resulting in US retaliatory attacks and Iraqi complaints of US “aggression” against its territory.

If you skim the Congressional Research Services report on the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, the number evacuated was greater that the force commitment because we also attempted to transport US civilian personnel and US citizens along with “government personnel”.

By Jake Johnson, a staff writer at Common Dreams. Originally published at Common Dreams

A militia group that the Biden administration blamed for the deadly attack on U.S. forces stationed at a shadowy base in Jordan said Tuesday that it would stop targeting American troops in Iraq, a move that could clear the way for the withdrawal of U.S. soldiers more than two decades after the 2003 invasion.

“We announce the suspension of military and security operations against the occupation forces—in order to prevent embarrassment to the Iraqi government,” Abu Hussein al-Hamidawi, the leader of Kata’ib Hezbollah, said in a statement. “Our brothers in the Axis, especially in the Islamic Republic of Iran, they do not know how we conduct our Jihad, and they often object to the pressure and escalation against the American occupation forces in Iraq and Syria.”

Pentagon officials have specifically named Kata’ib Hezbollah as one of the groups behind the drone attack on U.S. troops in Jordan over the weekend. U.S. President Joe Biden and administration officials have said they ultimately hold Iran responsible for the attack, accusing that country’s government of funding and arming Kata’ib Hezbollah and other militia groups in the region.

Kata’ib Hezbollah’s leader said in his statement that the group has launched attacks on U.S. forces at its “own will, and without any interference from others.” Biden administration officials have admitted they have no evidence that Iran directed the Jordan attack.

Biden told reporters on Tuesday that he has decided how to respond to the Jordan attack but declined to provide any details.

Asked during a media briefing about Kata’ib Hezbollah’s statement, Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said he doesn’t “have a specific comment to provide, other than actions speak louder than words.”

The drone attack on American forces in Jordan came a day after the U.S. and high-ranking Iraqi officials held their first round of formal talks on the process of removing the roughly 2,500 U.S. troops still deployed in the country.

Analysts have argued that the continued presence of U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria has dramatically increased the likelihood of a broader regional war. The Intercept‘s Ken Klippenstein reported Tuesday that U.S. military personnel in Iraq received a memo this month instructing them to be “on standby to forward deploy to support troops in the case of on-ground U.S. involvement in the Israel-Hamas war.”

Hisham al-Rikabi, an adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, toldCNN on Tuesday that Kata’ib Hezbollah’s vow to suspend its attacks on U.S. forces “is the result of efforts made by” Iraq’s government to “ensure the smoothness of the negotiation process and in order to complete the withdrawal [of U.S. troops] from Iraq.”

The New York Timesreported Tuesday that Kata’ib Hezbollah had previously ignored the Iraqi government’s requests to stop attacking U.S. forces, “but once the attack in Jordan on Sunday took American lives, Mr. Sudani demanded a complete halt from Kata’ib Hezbollah.”

“Mr. Sudani reached out directly to Iran, according to a military strategist for the Revolutionary Guards who works closely with the Axis groups in Iraq,” the Times added.

Erik Sperling, executive director of Just Foreign Policy, said in response to al-Rikabi’s comments that, “if true, this is the least bad outcome.”

“Iraqi militias agree to stop targeting thousands of U.S. troops, who then can be safely removed from harm’s way, more than two decades after the disastrous Iraq war,” Sperling wrote on social media. “Hope we’ll see U.S. troops in Syria brought home too.”

Domestic and regional pressure on the U.S. to withdraw its forces from Iraq has grown since Israel began its latest assault on the Gaza Strip in October following a deadly Hamas-led attack. Militia groups, including Kata’ib Hezbollah, have launched upwards of 160 attacks on American troops in Iraq and Syria since October 7, and the Biden administration has retaliated with airstrikes in both countries—infuriating the Iraqi government and fueling concerns about a full-scale regional war.

The Jordan attack took those concerns to new levels as warhawks in the U.S. Congress demanded that Biden retaliate with strikes inside Iran. Progressive lawmakers, for their part, have called for an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, warning that further military action would only exacerbate the regional crisis.

Amir Saeid Iravani, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, said Tuesday that “if any party attacks Iran’s territory, or its interests or citizens abroad, it will be met with a decisive response.”

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/01 ... rawal.html

Wonder why those so-called 'progressives' have not petitioned their Lord & Master to stop supplying the bombs?
Disingenuous and worthless.

******

U.S. Ramps Up War Crimes After ICJ Rules Against Israel

Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist 31 Jan 2024

Image
Secretary of State Blinken meets with UNRWA officials in November 2023 (Photo: X platform @SecBlinken)

The Biden administration colluded with Israel to slander the United Nations Relief Works Agency for Palestine in anticipation of the ICJ ruling against Israel on the charge of genocide. Washington is attempting to cover up genocide by committing the war crime of collective punishment against the people of Gaza.

On December 29, 2023, the Republic of South Africa charged Israel with violating the United Nation’s Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in regards to its assault on the population of Gaza. On January 26, 2024 the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that claims of genocide against Israel are plausible and that the killing of Palestinians in Gaza must end. Despite attempts to obfuscate or to claim an Israeli victory, the meaning of the court ruling could not have been clearer.

The ICJ did not use the word “ceasefire” as many people had hoped, but judges did say that the killing must stop. The court did not dismiss the case as Israel asked it to do. All of the parsing in the world cannot dispute the court’s determination.

The Court considers that, with regard to the situation described above, Israel must, in accordance with its obligations under the Genocide Convention, in relation to Palestinians in Gaza, take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of all acts within the scope of Article II of this Convention, in particular: (a) killing members of the group; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; and (d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group. The Court recalls that these acts fall within the scope of Article II of the Convention when they are committed with the intent to destroy in whole or in part a group as such (see paragraph 44 above). The Court further considers that Israel must ensure with immediate effect that its military forces do not commit any of the above-described acts.


The Court is also of the view that Israel must take all measures within its power to prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to commit genocide in relation to members of the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip. (Emphasis mine)

Even if one cannot read and understand the ruling, the defeat of Israel is made even clearer by actions of the United States and its allies. On the very day that the ICJ issued its ruling, the State Department announced that the U.S. would temporarily suspend funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) because of Israel’s allegation that 12 UNRWA employees participated in the Hamas military action of October 7. The State Department action was quickly followed by similar announcements from the UK, Canada, and the European Union, who followed along like the obedient vassals that they are.

It is interesting that Secretary of State Antony Blinken praised the UNRWA after October 7. On November 5, 2023 he posted the following on the X social media platform. “During my visit to Jordan, I spoke with @UNRWA staff in Gaza. I heard about the extraordinary lifesaving work they are doing in the face of extremely difficult conditions. We are working to expedite assistance to them so that they can get it to the Palestinian people.”

By Blinken’s own admission, the absence of U.S. funding ensures that Palestinians in Gaza will go hungry. The U.S. action is in itself a war crime. Withholding food and other aid is a form of collective punishment , in this case because of the alleged actions of twelve people.

Despite its claims of care for humanitarian concerns and talk of private communications with Israel, the Biden administration is obviously supportive of its ethnic cleansing campaign in Gaza. The Biden foreign policy team knew full well that the ICJ ruling was a defeat for Israel and thus for the U.S. too. They decided to delegitimize it by keeping food and medical aid away from people whose homes and hospitals have been destroyed. Israel’s war crimes couldn’t be committed without U.S. support and direction, which makes this country equally culpable of all its crimes. It is not coincidental that the anti-UNRWA decision was announced on the same day that the ICJ spoke.

The ICJ ordered Israel to, “...take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.” Hence the need to trash the UNRWA, which is tasked with providing these needs.

Once again, the United States proves itself to be the world’s rogue nation. In this case it is responsible for helping another nation commit genocide and war crimes and then when the culprit is taken to task, commits even more crimes in an effort to prevent a just resolution of the suffering it caused.

Donald Trump was at least consistent when he removed all federal funding from the UNRWA. Now we are told to put Biden back in the white house, lest Trump’s policies reappear. But Biden has already followed Trump policy in the region, by pursuing the worthless Abraham Accords (getting Gulf state potentates to recognize Israel), keeping the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem, and doing everything else that Israel wants. Now they even reverse their own course of restoring funds and have literally taken food out of Palestinian’s mouths, just as Trump did.

While the media parrot assertions of UNRWA involvement in the events of October 7, members of congress are largely silent about this evil turn of events. The United States is attempting to undermine the ICJ ruling and makes a mockery of its own claims of following a “rules based order.” The rules of international law are certainly not considered when Biden or any other U.S. president makes a decision. Their rules are based on a commitment to domination and nothing else.

Hamas is vilified as a terrorist organization along with unnamed “Iranian backed militia groups.” However, the real terrorists are Israel and its patron, the United States. Their devotion to war crimes and genocides makes them the worst violators of human rights in the world.

https://blackagendareport.com/us-ramps- ... nst-israel

********

Misery & Suffering in Gaza Getting Worse Daily: UN Relief Chief
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on JANUARY 31, 2024



Briefing by Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), on the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question, during the Security Council, 9540th meeting.

UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths, said fierce fighting was continuing around the hospitals in Khan Younis, threatening the wellbeing of thousands, and driving thousands more south to Rafah.

“Each day that passes only of course deepens the misery and suffering of people in Gaza and indeed in Israel”

The number of people killed in Gaza has reportedly surpassed 26,000, and those injured reportedly more than 65,000, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health. The vast majority are women and children, he said.

Martin Griffiths, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, briefs on the humanitarian situation in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

He said more than 60 per cent of housing units have been destroyed or damaged, with some 75 per cent of the total population of Gaza displaced.

“Clean water is almost completely inaccessible”.

Any persons displaced from Gaza must be guaranteed the right to voluntarily return, as international law demands, he said.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2024/01/ ... d-nations/

U.S. Military Personnel in Iraq Put on Standby to Support Israel’s Genocidal Campaign in Gaza
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on FEBRUARY 1, 2024
Ken Klippenstein

Image
U.S. Army soldiers fire the M119A3 Howitzer during a joint artillery training exercise under Operation Inherent Resolve at al-Asad Air Base, Iraq, on Oct. 26, 2023. Photo: 2nd Lt. Daphney Black/U.S. Army

A JANUARY U.S. Air Force personnel memo obtained by The Intercept describes military orders to be “on standby to forward deploy to support troops in the case of on ground US involvement in the Israel Hamas war.” According to a separate personnel document, the standby order related to personnel deployed last year to Iraq.

While the documents do not suggest that U.S. military ground involvement in the war is forthcoming, the January memo is the latest intimation of the Pentagon’s preparations to support Israel in the wake of Hamas’s October 7 attack. Days after the attack, the U.S. military reportedlyOpens in a new tab put 2,000 troops on prepare-to-deploy orders for potential support to Israel, though from neighboring countries — orders that were confirmed by a procurement document obtained by The Intercept.

The Department of Defense did not respond to a request for comment on the personnel memo about preparing for ground involvement, but in the past the White House has stressed that its support for Israel in the Gaza war would not include boots on the ground.

“There are no plans or intentions to put U.S. boots on the ground in combat in Israel,” White House national security spokesperson John Kirby saidOpens in a new tab on October 17. “But as we’ve also said, we have significant national security interests in the region.”

Two days after Kirby’s remarks, the White House inadvertently sharedOpens in a new tab a picture of President Joe Biden in Israel posing alongside members of the secretive U.S. special operations units, before quickly deleting it. In late October, the New York Times reportedOpens in a new tab that American special operations personnel were in Israel to help with hostage rescue efforts.

U.S. Still in the Middle East

The documents obtained by The Intercept provide a stark reminder of the pervasive U.S. military presence in the Middle East, with personnel deployed to theaters where many Americans think the mission ended long ago — and how quickly those orders can be repurposed for new conflicts.

The records, for instance, involve personnel deployed to Iraq in support of Operation Inherent Resolve, the U.S. military’s name for the war against the Islamic State group. Though ISIS was driven from its last strongholds years ago, the war persists, providing a legal basis for continued U.S. military presence in Iraq and Syria.

“We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency,” former President Donald Trump tweeted in December 2018. Shortly thereafter, Trump announced that U.S. troops in the country are “all coming back and they’re coming back now.” Trump would later announce that all U.S. troops in Iraq would be withdrawn as well.

Despite the announcements, U.S. forces remained in Syria as well as Iraq, where they are still present to this day. The deployments are “part of a comprehensive strategy to defeat ISIS,” the White House informedOpens in a new tab Congress in December, “to limit the potential for resurgence of these groups and to mitigate threats to the United States homeland.”

A grim reminder of the longevity of the anti-ISIS deployment emerged Sunday, when three American soldiers were killed in a drone attack on a secret U.S. base in Jordan, near the border of Syria.

“These three fallen heroes were deployed to Jordan in support of Operation Inherent Resolve and the international coalition working to ensure the lasting defeat of ISIS,” Defense Department deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh said in a press briefing on Monday.

ISIS, however, did not launch the drone that killed the American soldiers. It was an alliance of Iraqi militias backed by Iran, according to the Pentagon.

The deaths represent the first U.S. troops killed since the October 7 Hamas attack. And they may not be the last, if the militia claiming responsibility for the attacks is to be believed. A senior official from an alliance of Iraqi militia groups claiming credit for the attack tied it to U.S. support for Israel in its Gaza war, as The Intercept previously reported.

“As we said before, if the U.S. keeps supporting Israel, there will [be] escalations,” the senior militia official said. “All U.S. interests in the region are legitimate targets, and we don’t care about U.S. threats to respond.”

With U.S. troops stationed all over the Middle East fighting wars long declared over, there are plenty of targets.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2024/02/ ... n-in-gaza/

Unlikely...unless Biden doubles down on that 'wartime president' thing, which is unlikely to get him a win. Only Trump can do that.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10848
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Sat Feb 03, 2024 12:17 pm

Hamas Slams Beit Lahia Massacre, Calls for Documenting Israeli Atrocities
FEBRUARY 1, 2024

Image
Palestinians victims of Israeli genocide being buried in blue bags. Photo: The Palestine Information Center.

The Hamas Movement has condemned the executions of handcuffed and blindfolded Palestinian civilians that were carried out by Israeli soldiers in Beit Lahia, north of the Gaza Strip.

“The occupation regime’s ongoing crimes against our Palestinian people unfold day after day, the latest of which was documented by the Palestinian Prisoner Society and reported by Palestinian citizens about the executions of about 30 Palestinians, whose bodies were found dumped inside a schoolyard in northern Gaza while being handcuffed and blindfolded,” Hamas said in a statement on Wednesday.

“This indicates that the occupation army carried out a massacre against civilians through executing them on-site after brutalizing them,” Hamas added.

“This heinous crime and others that had been committed by the neo-Nazis against our Palestinian people will remain a curse haunting them. There will be a day when they will be held accountable for their brutality and crimes that have exceeded the most horrific violations ever known to humanity in our modern era,” the Movement said.

“We urge human rights groups to document this horrific crime in order to take legal action against this criminal army and its Nazi leaders who continue to kill and massacre our Palestinian people with no regard for the ruling of the International Court of Justice that demanded it to stop the crime of genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza.”

The dead bodies of some 30 Palestinians have been found in a school in north Gaza after the Israeli occupation army’s withdrawal, following weeks of Israeli criminal activity and rampage, which has laid waste to the area and cut off civilians from communication and aid.

The bodies were discovered in the Khalifa bin Zayed School in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza – an area which had been besieged and attacked by the Israeli army for weeks. Israeli forces also conducted mass arrests of Palestinian civilians in that area.

According to footage aired by Al Jazeera satellite channel on Wednesday, the bodies were found handcuffed and blindfolded in plastic bags which had been buried underneath piles of dirt and sand.

Al Jazeera has spoken to witnesses who discovered the bodies and identified them.

“As we were cleaning, we came across a pile of rubble inside the schoolyard. We were shocked to find out that dozens of dead bodies were buried under this pile,” a man said.

“The moment we opened the black plastic bags, we found the bodies, already decomposed. They were blindfolded, legs and hands tied. The plastic cuffs were used on their hands and legs and cloths straps around their eyes and heads,” he added.

(The Palestine Information Center)

https://orinocotribune.com/hamas-slams- ... trocities/

*****

The Only Right That Palestinians Have Not Been Denied Is the Right to Dream: The Fifth Newsletter (2024)
FEBRUARY 1, 2024

Image
Malak Mattar (Palestine), Gaza, 2024.

Dear friends,

Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

On 26 January, the judges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found that it is ‘plausible’ that Israel is committing a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. The ICJ called upon Israel to ‘take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of all acts’ that violate the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948). Although the ICJ did not call explicitly for a ceasefire (as it did in 2022 when it ordered Russia to ‘suspend [its] military operation’ in Ukraine), even a casual reading of this order shows that to comply with the court’s ruling, Israel must end its assault on Gaza. As part of its ‘provisional measures’, the ICJ called upon Israel to respond to the court within a month and outline how it has implemented the order.

Though Israel has already rejected the ICJ’s findings, international pressure on Tel Aviv is mounting. Algeria has asked the UN Security Council to enforce the ICJ’s order while Indonesia and Slovenia have initiated separate proceedings at the ICJ that will begin on 19 February to seek an advisory opinion on Israel’s control of and policies on occupied Palestinian territories, pursuant to a UN General Assembly resolution adopted in December 2022. In addition, Chile and Mexico have called upon the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate crimes committed in Gaza.

Israel’s reaction to the ICJ’s order was characteristically dismissive. The country’s national security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, called the ICJ an ‘antisemitic court’ and claimed that it ‘does not seek justice, but rather the persecution of Jewish people’. Strangely, Ben Gvir accused the ICJ of being ‘silent during the Holocaust’. The Holocaust conducted by the Nazi German regime and its allies against European Jews, the Romani, homosexuals, and communists took place between late 1941 and May 1945, when the Soviet Red Army liberated prisoners from Ravensbrück, Sachsenhausen, and Stutthof. However, the ICJ was established in June 1945, one month after the Holocaust ended, and began its work in April 1946. Israel’s attempt to delegitimise the ICJ by saying that it remained ‘silent during the Holocaust’ when it was, in fact, not yet in existence, and then to use that false statement to call the ICJ an ‘antisemitic court’ shows that Israel has no answer to the merits of the ICJ order.

Image
Malak Mattar (Palestine), Gaza (detail), 2024.

Meanwhile, the bombardment of Palestinians in Gaza continues. My friend Na’eem Jeenah, director of the Afro-Middle East Centre in Johannesburg, South Africa, has been reviewing the data from various government ministries in Gaza as well as media reports to circulate a daily information card on the situation. The card from 26 January, the date of the ICJ order and the 112th day of the genocide, details that over 26,000 Palestinians, at least 11,000 of them children, have been killed since 7 October; 8,000 are missing; close to 69,000 have been injured; and almost all of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have been displaced. The numbers are bewildering. During this period, Israel has damaged 394 schools and colleges, destroying 99 of them as well as 30 hospitals and killing at least 337 medical personnel. This is the reality that occasioned the genocide case at the ICJ and the court’s provisional measures, with one judge, Dalveer Bhandari of India, going further to say plainly that ‘all fighting and hostilities [must] come to an immediate halt’.

Amongst the dead are many of Palestine’s painters, poets, writers, and sculptors. One of the striking features of Palestinian life over the past 76 years since the Nakba (‘Catastrophe’) of 1948 has been the ongoing richness of Palestinian cultural production. A brisk walk down any of the streets of Jenin or Gaza City reveals the ubiquity of studios and galleries, places where Palestinians insist upon their right to dream. In late 1974, the South African militant and artist Barry Vincent Feinberg published an article in the Afro-Asian journal Lotus that opens with an interaction in London between Feinberg and a ‘young Palestinian poet’. Feinberg was curious why, in Lotus, ‘an unusually large number of poems stem from Palestinian poets’. The young poet, amused by Feinberg’s observation, replied: ‘The only thing my people have never been denied is the right to dream’.

Image
Malak Mattar (Palestine), Gaza (detail), 2024.

Malak Mattar, born in December 1999, is a young Palestinian artist who refuses to stop dreaming. Malak was fourteen when Israel conducted its Operation Protective Edge (2014) in Gaza, killing over two thousand Palestinian civilians in just over one month – a ghastly toll that built upon the bombardment of the Occupied Palestinian Territory that has been ongoing for more than a generation. Malak’s mother urged her to paint as an antidote to the trauma of the occupation. Malak’s parents are both refugees: her father is from al-Jorah (now called Ashkelon) and her mother is from al-Batani al-Sharqi, one of the Palestinian villages along the edge of what is now called the Gaza Strip. On 25 November 1948, the newly formed Israeli government passed Order Number 40, which authorised Israeli troops to expel Palestinians from villages such as al-Batani al-Sharqi. ‘Your role is to expel the Arab refugees from these villages and prevent their return by destroying the villages… Burn the villages and demolish the stone houses’, wrote the Israeli commanders.

Malak’s parents carry these memories, but despite the ongoing occupation and war, they try to endow their children with dreams and hope. Malak picked up a paint brush and began to envision a luminous world of bright colours and Palestinian imagery, including the symbol of sumud (‘steadfastness’): the olive tree. Since she was a teenager, Malak has painted young girls and women, often with babies and doves, though, as she told the writer Indlieb Farazi Saber, the women’s heads are often titled to the side. That is because, she said, ‘If you stand straight, upright, it shows you are stable, but with a head tilted to one side, it evokes a feeling of being broken, a weakness. We are humans, living through wars, through brutal moments… the endurance sometimes slips’.

Image
Malak Mattar (Palestine), Two Gazan Girls Dreaming of Peace, 2020.

Malak and I have corresponded throughout this violence, her fears manifest, her strength remarkable. In January, she wrote, ‘I’m working on a massive painting depicting many aspects of the genocide’. On a five-metre canvas, Malak created a work of art that began to resemble Pablo Picasso’s celebrated Guernica (1937), which he painted to commemorate a massacre by fascist Spain against a town in the Basque region. In 2022, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) published a profile on Malak, calling her ‘Palestine’s Picasso’. In the article, Malak said, ‘I was so inspired by Picasso that, in the beginning of my art journey, I tried to paint like him’. This new painting by Malak reflects the heartbreak and steadfastness of the Palestinian people. It is an indictment of Israel’s genocide and an affirmation of Palestinians’ right to dream. If you look at it closely, you will see the victims of the genocide: the medical workers, the journalists, and the poets; the mosques and the churches; the unburied bodies, the naked prisoners, and the corpses of small children; the bombed cars and the fleeing refugees. There is a kite flying in the sky, a symbol from Refaat Alareer’s poem ‘If I Must Die’ (‘you must live to tell my story… so that a child, somewhere in Gaza while looking heaven in the eye… sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above and thinks there is an angel there bringing back love’).

Image
Zulfa al-Sa’di (Palestine), King Faysal I of Iraq, 1931.

Malak’s work is rooted in Palestinian traditions of painting, inspired by a history that dates back to Arab Christian iconography (a tradition that was developed by Yusuf al-Halabi of Aleppo in the seventeenth century). That ‘Aleppo Style’, as the art critic Kamal Boullata wrote in Istihdar al-Makan, developed into the ‘Jerusalem Style’, which brightened the iconography by introducing flora and fauna from Islamic miniatures and embroidery. When I first saw Malak’s work, I thought of how fitting it was that she had redeemed the life of Zulfa al-Sa’di (1905–1988), one of the most important painters of her time, who painted Palestinian political and cultural heroes. Al-Sa’di stopped painting after she was forced to flee Jerusalem during the 1948 Nakba; her only paintings that remain are those that she carried with her on horseback. Sa’di spent the rest of her life teaching art to Palestinian children at an UNRWA school in Damascus. It was in one such UNRWA school that Malak learned to paint. Malak seemed to pick up al-Sa’di’s brushes and paint for her.

It is no surprise that Israel has targeted UNRWA, successfully encouraging several key Global North governments to stop funding the agency, which was established by United Nations General Assembly Resolution 302 in 1949 to ‘carry out direct relief and works programmes for Palestine refugees’. In any given year, half a million Palestinian children like Malak study at UNRWA schools. Raja Khalidi, director-general of the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute (MAS), says of this funding suspension: ‘Given the long-standing precarious nature of UNRWA’s finances… and in light of its essential role in providing vital services to Palestine refugees and some 1.8 million displaced persons in Gaza, cutting its funding at such a moment heightens the threat to life against Palestinians already at risk of genocide’.

I encourage you to circulate Malak’s mural, to recreate it on walls and public spaces across the world. Let it penetrate into the souls of those who refuse to see the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people.

Warmly,

Vijay

https://thetricontinental.org/newslette ... ine-mural/

******

Boycott, Divestment And Sanctions

Despite its utter cruelty and destructiveness Israel is far from achieving its goal of ethnic cleansing Gaza. It also has not even dared yet to attack Hizbullah in south Lebanon. This while Zionists settlers had to move out of the areas surrounding Gaza and from the ground near to the Lebanese border.

Netanyahoo is in a trap. He has to 'do something' to allow for the return of the internal refugees to their homes. But any action towards that will cause more death of his troops and may well hurt Israel's strategic viability.

It seems that the Zionist idea of a settler colony exclusively for Jews is coming, slowly but surely, to its inevitable end.

There have long be signs of this. The boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign (BDS) against Israel has been continuously growing.

I remember that some decades ago groceries in Germany were selling 'Jaffa oranges'. These were from Israel - good fruits by the way - but already back then a constant and more or less silent campaign was underway to shun Israeli products. 'Jaffa oranges' are no longer marketed here. I presume that are now used to produce orange juice which can be sold without naming the country from where the fruits in the juice came from.

There were other failed attempts to sell Israeli produce into European markets. A year or two ago some local Aldi store had potatoes for sale with the country of origin marked as 'Israel/Germany'. I talked to the sales manager and protested against that designation. He admitted that it was wrong to use two origins for one product but complained that if he would label the origin as 'Israel' nobody would buy them.

I have since seen no potatoes from Israel.

People check the country of origin when they buy tangerines. Others check the first three numbers of the barcode on canned products. Anything that starts with 729 comes from a company registered in Israel. I don't buy those neither should you.

During my time as an IT executive I had worked with network managers who would shun any equipment from Israel. Not only because there was a high risk that it could be used for espionage but out of principle concern over Israeli policies.

Back in October Starbucks had sued Workers United - the union organizing its employees — because the union had posted a pro-Palestinian message on social media. The result was a global call to boycott Starbucks. Its success is astonishing:

World's biggest coffee chain cuts sales forecast and misses market expectations amid boycotts - MSN, Jan 31 2024

The world's biggest coffee chain told investors on Tuesday night there was a "significant impact on traffic and sales" in the Middle East due to the Israel-Hamas conflict.
The impact was also felt in the US as boycotts of the chain took place, chief executive Laxman Narasimhan told attendees of a post-quarterly earnings conference call.

Some had avoided Starbucks in the Middle East and US after it took legal action in October against Workers United for using Starbucks's name and similar logo.

A post from the union's social media account in October expressed solidarity with the Palestinian people before being deleted.


Boycotting Israel related products is the one small thing each and everyone of us can do without much effort of strain.

Over time it will be successful.

Posted by b on February 2, 2024 at 15:18 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/02/b ... l#comments

******

Nearly two million at risk as Israel threatens assault on Rafah

Since the start of its ground offensive, Israel has repeatedly claimed that civilians would be safe in Rafah

News Desk

FEB 2, 2024

Image
(Photo credit: Hatem Moussa/AP)

Nearly two million Palestinians stranded in south Gaza’s Rafah were struck with panic after the Israeli defense minister said the southern city – previously described as a safe zone to which the displaced can flee – will be the next target of Israel’s brutal offensive on the strip.

Around 1.9 million Palestinians live in increased fear following the Israeli threats, Al-Jazeera reported on 2 February.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant claimed on 1 February that the presence of Hamas would be dealt with in Rafah as it is being dealt with in Khan Yunis.

“Hamas’s Khan Yunis Brigade boasted that it would stand against the IDF, now it’s falling apart,” Gallant said, despite the fact that the Israeli army continues to face fierce resistance from the Qassam Brigades in the southern city.

“I am telling you here, we are completing the mission in Khan Yunis and we will also reach Rafah and eliminate everyone there who is a terrorist who is trying to harm us,” the defense minister added.

“They don’t have weapons, they don’t have ammunition,” Gallant said about Hamas fighters across Gaza, as RPG attacks continued to target Israeli tanks and troop carriers in Khan Yunis on 2 February.

In the first months of the war, hundreds of thousands of residents in north and central Gaza were forced to flee to Rafah – where Tel Aviv repeatedly said civilians would be safe from harm.

Despite this, Israeli warplanes bombarded Rafah several times.

As the army began pushing into Khan Yunis in early December, hundreds of thousands more were forced deeper south into Rafah. Israel continues to order more forced evacuations – despite Rafah being severely overcrowded with the displaced.

Last month, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported, citing Israeli and Egyptian officials, that Israel is planning a risky military operation to take control of the Philadelphi Corridor.

The Philadelphi Corridor is the border area of the southern Gaza Strip, which includes the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.

Image

A map showing the Philadelphi Corridor, the southern border area of the Gaza Strip which includes the Rafah crossing with Egypt.
An Israeli operation in this area – and in the city of Rafah in general – would have catastrophic effects on the civilian population currently stranded there.

Gallant’s threats came in the wake of new truce discussions. A Palestinian source told Al-Mayadeen on Thursday evening that Hamas has yet to agree to the proposal, and dispelled rumors that it sent a delegation to Cairo for negotiations.

https://thecradle.co/articles/nearly-tw ... t-on-rafah

Hamas dispels talk of successful truce agreement

A source in the Palestinian factions said Hamas is still studying the proposal and has not gone to Cairo

News Desk

FEB 2, 2024

Image
(Photo credit: Mahmud Hams/AFP via Getty Images)

A senior Palestinian source told Al-Mayadeen on 1 February that reports of a truce deal being reached are false, and that no delegation belonging to Hamas made its way to Cairo that day as reported in Arabic, western, and Hebrew media.

“There is no agreement on the framework yet and Hamas has significant remarks. The Qatari statement was issued with haste and is incorrect,” a source from within the Palestinian factions said.

A Qatari foreign ministry spokesman had stated on Thursday evening that Israel agreed to the latest proposal, and that Hamas gave “initial positive confirmation.”

“We received a message from the leadership of Hamas sent to the brothers and comrades, the leaders of the Palestinian factions, about the framework paper presented based on the Paris meeting. The framework is under study and will be evaluated based on the agreed national parameters,” the source added.

The Palestinian source confirmed that Hamas will not accept any deal that does not include a complete cessation of the Israeli assault on Gaza, and a full withdrawal of troops from the strip.

The source outlined conditions that the displaced be adequately sheltered, Gaza be reconstructed, the siege be lifted, and that only a “serious prisoner exchange process” will be accepted.

Dispelling media reports, the source said “no delegation from the Hamas leadership has gone to Cairo, and a date for the meetings has not yet been set.”

“Mediation efforts have been unified by the Egyptian and Qatari brothers. Zionist media is publishing fabricated and false news to stir public opinion about the negotiations,” the source added.

An Al-Araby correspondent reported on Thursday afternoon that a Hamas delegation arrived in Cairo and was meeting with the head of Egyptian intelligence, Abbas Kamel.

US, Israeli, Qatari, and Egyptian officials had met in Paris over the weekend to discuss a new initiative calling for a truce of up to three months, during which Hamas would exchange Israeli prisoners for as many as 5,000 Palestinians detained across Israeli jails.

The proposed agreement would be implemented in several phases.

The framework agreed upon by Arab and western officials in the French capital would reportedly call for a first phase of prisoner releases over a six-week pause, with three Palestinian prisoners released for each Israeli captive returned from Gaza.

According to informed officials who spoke with CNN at the end of January, that ratio would go up for Israeli soldiers, and a longer pause beyond six weeks is possible for later phases.

A Palestinian source told Reuters on 1 February that Hamas would "likely not reject the offer it would receive from the mediators, but would not sign it without guarantees from Israel, which would commit to ending the war."

A correspondent for Anadolu Agency (AA) reported earlier on 1 February that the Israeli army had begun withdrawing from certain areas in the strip, including the neighborhoods of Al-Tawam, Al-Karama, and Al-Rashid Street.

Clashes persist in Gaza City in the north, and in central and south Gaza.

https://thecradle.co/articles/hamas-dis ... -agreement

******

Israel’s attacks continue to decimate ambulance and maternity services in southern Gaza

Israeli attacks on healthcare in the Gaza Strip continue, with violence increasing against health workers and patients in West Bank

February 02, 2024 by Ana Vračar

Image
PRCS teams burying the bodies of three martyrs among the displaced in the besieged courtyard of Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis. Photo: PRCS

Yousef Zaind and Ahmad Al-Madhoun, two staff members of the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS), went missing after being sent to rescue a 6-year-old trapped in a car. The girl spent hours talking to PRCS’ dispatcher, surrounded by the bodies of family members killed in an Israeli attack. After the ambulance reached the car’s location, all contact was lost, and the whereabouts of the child and PRCS workers remain unknown, as reported by the organization.

PRCS is a central figure in the unfolding healthcare crisis in South Gaza. As expected, Israeli forces are destroying health infrastructure through relentless bombardments, sniper fire, and evacuation orders, forcing thousands to move to Rafah, the next target of the Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF).

Between October 7, 2023, and February 1, 2024, more than 100,000 people in Gaza were killed, injured, or are missing presumed dead, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Those trapped under the rubble rely on emergency services, including PRCS’ ambulances. At the same time, PRCS is coping with the disappearance of its staff, including Zaind and Al-Madhoun. Some are confirmed to be held by the IOF. Despite the release of one of them, Muhammed Abu Rukbeh, on February 1, others have been in prison for over 40 days.

More PRCS staff members were killed in Israeli attacks, adding to the devastating death toll of health workers in Gaza. Most recently, bombardments and attacks on the front steps of Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis killed two PRCS staff members, Naeem Hasan Al-Jabali and Khalid Kulab, on January 31.

Read more: In suspending funding to UNRWA, the West has become an active participant in Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians
Nasser Hospital, once the most important referral institution in southern Gaza, “has gone from partially to minimally functional” in just a week, said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. What remains of the health services is due to volunteers, who are steadfast in their efforts despite an acute shortage of both trained surgeons and medical supplies.

Describing the situation at the hospital, Thaer Ahmad, a US-based physician, told Democracy Now! that the building is full, with people seeking shelter from heavy bombardments.

“The physicians that I was working alongside have been working nonstop for nearly four months. They are also hungry. They also are concerned about where they can get clean water from. Their families have been displaced multiple times. And they’re being asked to take care of waves and waves of people who are coming in as victims of bomb strikes or tank shellings,” Ahmad said.

Maternity and obstetrics services are nowhere near actual needs, especially with thousands of pregnant women displaced in tent camps. Emirati Hospital, the main institution for maternity services in Rafah, struggles to cope, leaving many without adequate antenatal care, sometimes with devastating consequences.

“Without enough supplies and too many patients, the healthcare system is overstretched, and mothers are forced to be discharged just hours after giving birth,” Rita Botelho da Costa from Doctors Without Borders (MSF) warned.

Her warning should be taken with adequate dread: early discharges, particularly those in the 24 hours following delivery, increase the risk of complications. Considering that the mothers and babies are discharged into conditions without clean water, sanitation, or food, the risks are even higher than they would usually be.

Read more: Israeli destruction of health infrastructure in Gaza places women and newborns in danger
The IOF’s attention has mostly shifted to southern Gaza, but healthcare in the northern areas remains staggered due to the lack of fuel, food, and supplies that Israeli authorities still do not allow in. MSF’s team accompanying a recent UN mission to Al-Shifa Hospital observed most procedures taking place in only a couple of rooms, while the rest remained filled with displaced people or heavily damaged.

“The team told us that they had recently lost a patient because they were unable to give him a blood transfusion. Their blood bank was empty,” MSF reported.

Meanwhile, Israeli attacks on health have increased in the West Bank as well. In a blatant violation of international rules protecting healthcare, masked Israeli soldiers entered Ibn Sina Hospital on January 30. Dressed as doctors, nurses, and patients, they stormed the hospital, ultimately murdering three people.

“They killed the three youth — Basel and Mohammed Ghazawi and Mohammed Jalamneh — in their room while they were sleeping on their beds in the room. They were killed in cold blood with direct gunshots to the head,” Naji Nazzal, medical director of Ibn Sina explained.

These assaults are certain to cause deep uncertainty among patients and health workers alike, increasing the mental health burden. It will now be impossible for patients in the West Bank to know with certainty if the nurse opposite them is a caregiver or a masked Israeli soldier. A nurse meeting a new patient will face the same doubt.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2024/02/02/ ... hern-gaza/

US approves plan to bomb Iraq and Syria

The country approved plans to widen the scope of the regional war originating in Israel’s genocide in Gaza

February 01, 2024 by Peoples Dispatch

Image
US troops conduct area reconnaissance in Syria (Photo: Spc. Jensen Guillory)

Following an attack by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq against US foreign outpost “Tower 22”, which killed three US soldiers stationed near the Syria-Jordan border, the United States has approved plans for a multi-day strike against Iraq and Syria.

The death of three US troops, the first casualties among US forces in a widening conflict in West Asia, drew attention to the hundreds of US military bases and outposts spread throughout the world.

In confirming responsibility for the attack, an Islamic Resistance official declared, “If the United States continues to support ‘israel,’ there will be an escalation.” and that “All American interests in the region are legitimate targets.”

The United States is using the strikes as a way to continue to blame Iran for the wider resistance in West Asia. The strikes will purportedly be against “Iranian targets.” Resistance organizations such as the Islamic Resistance in Iraq are frequently accused of being Iranian “proxies” by US officials and in the mainstream press.

Contrary to seeking peace for the hundreds of thousands being slaughtered in Gaza, the United States and the Western world have continually chased escalation. Earlier in January, the US and the UK began an airstrike campaign against Yemen, in retaliation against the nation’s casualty-free blockade of the Red Sea, which Yemeni forces claim to be carrying out in solidarity in Gaza. The only deaths surrounding the blockade have been suffered by Yemenis, and have been as a result of the US and UK’s bombing campaign.

The United States and several Western nations have also directly worsened the plight of Gazans by cutting all their funding to the UNRWA, due to dubious accusations made by Israel that some UNRWA were involved in the October 7 operation.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2024/02/01/ ... and-syria/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10848
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Sun Feb 04, 2024 12:19 am

Image

Biden Says The US “Does Not Seek Conflict In The Middle East” While Actively Dropping Bombs There

Saying the US does not seek conflict in the middle east is like saying the Kardashians do not seek attention. It’s like saying Jeff Bezos doesn’t seek money. It’s like saying the Hamburglar doesn’t seek hamburgers. It’s kind of their thing.

Caitlin Johnstone
February 3, 2024

The Biden administration has begun its latest bombing campaign in the middle east, reportedly dropping over 125 munitions on more than 85 Iranian and Shia militia targets in Iraq and Syria on Friday.

The mainstream press have been falling all over themselves to describe the strikes as “retaliatory” in nature, framing it as a provoked response to a drone attack which killed three US troops at a base on the border of Jordan and Syria. Which is a bit odd, given that this supposed “retaliation” is being directed at a nation which the US government itself admits is not known to have been involved in said drone attack at all.

While US Central Command says the strikes targeted “Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force and affiliated militia groups,” the US has already openly admitted that it has no evidence Iran was behind the drone attack. On Monday Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh admitted that there was no information showing that Iran had actually ordered or orchestrated the attack, saying only that Iran “bears responsibility” for the strike because it has been supporting such groups in the region. This position was later confirmed by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and by President Biden himself.

Asked by the press on Thursday how much Iran knew in advance about the drone attack by Iraqi militants, Austin said “we don’t know, but it really doesn’t matter because Iran sponsors these groups.”

Austin was almost telling the truth. Yes it’s true the US has no knowledge of any Iranian involvement in the deaths of those three US troops, and yes it is true that it doesn’t matter to the US whether it did or didn’t. But the real reason it “doesn’t matter” has nothing to do with Iran sponsoring militia groups which align with its interests. In reality, “it really doesn’t matter” whether Iran was behind the attack because Iran is the most powerful non-US-aligned state in the middle east, and for that reason the US has spent generations seizing every opportunity to harm and subvert it and its interests in the region. This is just one more opportunity for the US empire to do what it always does in the middle east.

It is a bit odd, then, that the US president announced the beginning of this new series of airstrikes with a statement which claims “The United States does not seek conflict in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world.” Conflict in the middle east is what the US empire does. The entire US empire is held together by endless conflict, especially in resource-rich regions where strategic control is necessary to retain planetary hegemony. The US empire is conflict.


Saying the US does not seek conflict in the middle east is like saying the Kardashians do not seek attention. It’s like saying Jeff Bezos doesn’t seek money. It’s like saying the Hamburglar doesn’t seek hamburgers. It’s kind of their thing. To make such a ridiculous claim while actively raining military explosives upon the middle east, in “retaliation” for an attack which the people you’re bombing didn’t even commit, is just extra icing on the cake of ridiculousness.

From Gaza to Iraq to Syria to Iran to Yemen, conflict in the middle east is the US empire’s bread and butter. The most murderous power structure on the planet continually paints itself as a poor little victim of any backlash against its abuses and as an innocent passive witness to the suffering it orchestrates, but nobody who’s involved in that many acts of violence has ever been interested in peace.

https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2024/02 ... mbs-there/

*******

<snip>

Joe Biden is pulling a page from Donald Trump and has authorized a strike that is going to be touted as massive retaliation. Except the targets of those attacks already know it is going to happen and are taking evasive steps. Biden is doing this for sheer political benefit to try to calm the chorus of members of Congress and the neo-con class demanding action while presenting himself to the American public as a man of action. At the same time it looks like Biden and his team wisely decided to avoid actually killing Iranians or their proxies. As I have written previously, a serious attack on Iranian interests will provoke significant retaliation from Iran and face the United States with the dilemma of launching a new war in the Middle East during an election year.

https://sonar21.com/biden-signs-off-on- ... -and-iraq/

*******

IRGC ‘withdrawal’ from Syria inaccurate: Report

Western media claimed that Israeli attacks prompted Tehran to scale-back deployment of its senior officers in Syria

News Desk

FEB 1, 2024

Image
(Photo credit: Syrian Central Military Media)

Informed sources told Al-Mayadeen on 1 February that reports of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) scaling back their presence in Syria are exaggerated.

“Iranian advisors were asked to be present in Syria without their families with them,” the outlet cites reliable sources as saying.

“These rumors came within the framework of exaggeration, in light of the continuing Israeli attacks on Syria, which mainly targeted IRGC officers,” Al-Mayadeen added.

Several IRGC members were assassinated in Israeli strikes on Damascus last month.

Five sources told Reuters on 1 February that the IRGC “have scaled back deployment of their senior officers in Syria due to a spate of deadly Israeli strikes and will rely more on allied Shi'ite militia to preserve their sway there.”

Reuters describes the latest round of Israeli assassinations as “one of their most bruising spells in Syria since arriving a decade ago to aid President Bashar al-Assad.”

Three of the sources claimed “Iran's decision to pull out senior officers is driven partly by its aversion to being sucked directly into a conflict bubbling across the [region],” coming at a time when “hardliners in Tehran demand retaliation.”

The sources added that Iran has no intention of fully ending its presence in Syria, referring to the alleged scale-back of forces as a “rethink” that “underscores how the consequences of the [Gaza] war … are unfolding in the region.”

“Senior Iranian commanders left Syria along with dozens of mid-ranking officers” in a significant “downsizing” of the Iranian presence in Syria, one of the sources – a regional security official “briefed by Tehran” told Reuters.

"The Iranians won't abandon Syria but they reduced their presence and movements to the greatest extent," Reuters reported, citing another official close to Tehran.

The IRGC entered the Syrian conflict in 2013, shortly after Lebanon’s Hezbollah, to help government forces reclaim large swathes of the country seized by US, EU, and Gulf-backed extremist groups.

Reuters claims Hezbollah will help the IRGC manage Syrian operations “remotely.”

The claims come one day after a source told Iraqi news outlet Shafaq that IRGC Quds Force Commander Esmail Qaani visited Baghdad last week to meet with resistance faction leaders and “help reduce escalation against the US,” following an Iraqi resistance attack that killed three US soldiers near the Syrian–Jordanian border on 28 January.

Iraqi faction Kataib Hezbollah, believed to be a prominent member of the shadowy coalition of Iraqi resistance groups formed in October, announced on 30 December its cessation of attacks against US bases in Iraq and Syria – which had been near-daily since October.

https://thecradle.co/articles/irgc-with ... ate-report

US carries out major bombing in Iraq, Syria

The airstrikes came in response to the killing of three US soldiers last week in Jordan and hit targets of the Axis of Resistance that were largely evacuated in advance

News Desk

FEB 3, 2024

Image
B-1 bombers were used in the strikes (Photo credit: Reuters/File))

The US air force carried out strikes on 85 sites in the border regions connecting Iraq and Syria early on 3 February.

US Central Command stated its forces struck targets "belonging to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and its allies, in Iraq and Syria" using "long-range bombers launched from the United States."

The statement added that US forces "used more than 125 precision-guided munitions in the air strikes. The facilities that were struck included command and control operations, intelligence centers, missiles and missiles, drone warehouses, logistical facilities, and the ammunition supply chain."

The strikes came in response to an attack on Tower 22, a US base on the Jordan-Syria border on 28 January. The attack killed three US soldiers and injured dozens. Kataib Hezbollah, an Iraqi armed group that is part of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq and enjoys support from Iran, claimed responsibility. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq seeks to expel US forces from the country and stop Israel's genocide in Gaza.

According to sources speaking with Al-Mayadeen, most of the sites targeted by US warplanes Saturday had been completely evacuated before the attacks were launched.

The assault targeted sites near the cities of Deir Ezzor, Al-Mayadeen, and Al-Bukamal and nearby towns in eastern Syria on the Euphrates River.

The US bombing targeted sites in the town of Al-Hari and the Al-Sikka and Al-Hajjana crossing in Al-Bukamal city, near the Syrian border with Iraq.

Targets in the Al-Hamdaniya neighborhood, the grain silos, and the vicinity of the Ain Ali shrine in the city of Al-Mayadeen were also hit, according to Al-Mayadeen's sources.

From the Iraqi side, Al-Mayadeen confirmed that the US bombing also targeted sites in the cities of Al-Qaim and Akashat near the Syrian border opposite Al-Bukamal, killing two.

The strikes targeted sites affiliated with the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), which receive support from Iran but are formally part of Iraq's armed forces and also have connections to the Islamic Resistance in Iraq.

An Iraqi security official told NBC News the US also targeted a weapons warehouse and three houses belonging to Kataib Hezbollah in Anbar province in western Iraq.

The spokesman for the Commander-in-Chief of the Iraqi Armed Forces confirmed the strikes in the Iraqi border areas, describing them as a violation of Iraq's sovereignty and an undermining of the efforts of the Iraqi government to maintain stability in the country.

US President Joe announced the strikes "started today and will continue at the times and places that we determine," while claiming "America does not seek a conflict in the Middle East, or anywhere else in the world."

The White House National Security Council spokesman, John Kirby, confirmed the Iraqi government was informed before the attacks were launched.

President Biden drew criticism from the top Republican member of the Armed Services Committee in the US Senate, Roger Wicker, who said that the White House “spent nearly a week foolishly sending signals about the intentions of the United States to our adversaries, giving them time to move and hide.”

https://thecradle.co/articles/us-carrie ... iraq-syria

Iraq denies Washington notified govt prior to deadly overnight attack

The bombing campaign by US warplanes killed at least 16 people in Iraq, including civilians, prompting Baghdad to summon the US envoy to deliver a formal protest

News Desk

FEB 3, 2024

Image
(Photo Credit: Roberto Schmidt/AFP)

Iraqi government spokesman Bassem al-Awadi on 3 February denied US claims that Washington notified Baghdad before an overnight bombing campaign that killed at least 16 people and injured 25 more.

“The US side deliberately falsified the facts by announcing prior coordination to commit this aggression, which is a false claim aimed at misleading international public opinion and disavowing legal responsibility for this crime by all international laws,” Awadi told reporters on Saturday, adding that the latest US aggression on Iraqi soil “will put security in Iraq and the region on the brink of the abyss.”

On Friday night, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby claimed the US informed the Iraqi government about the strikes before they were launched. Baghdad says US warplanes hit the positions of Iraqi security forces in Akashat and Al-Qaim, as well as neighboring civilian places.

A statement from Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani’s office stressed that the presence of the US-led coalition in the region “has become a reason for threatening security and stability in Iraq and a justification for involving Iraq in regional and international conflicts.”

The Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs also summoned the US charge d’affaires in Baghdad to deliver a formal protest.

According to the Pentagon, 85 sites in the border regions connecting Iraq and Syria were targeted during the air raids.

Damascus strongly condemned the attack on its territory, revealing that the US warplanes hit eastern regions where the Syrian army has been fighting remnants of ISIS, accusing Washington of "working to revive its activity.”

In a statement, the Syrian foreign ministry “categorically rejected all the pretexts and lies promoted by the US administration to justify this attack,” noting that “the United States proves, once again, that it is the main source of global instability, and that its forces threaten international peace and security.”

Syrian state media reported several casualties after the attacks in the country’s desert region and border areas with Iraq.

According to sources speaking with Al-Mayadeen, most of the sites targeted by US warplanes on Saturday had been completely evacuated before the attacks were launched.

US President Joe on Friday announced retaliatory attacks against “Iran-backed militias” responsible for the deaths of three US service members "started today and will continue at the times and places that we determine," while claiming "America does not seek a conflict in the Middle East, or anywhere else in the world."

https://thecradle.co/articles/iraq-deni ... ght-attack

Yemenis ditch UAE–Saudi coalition for Gaza

The Gaza war and renewed US–UK strikes on Yemen are shattering what remains of the UAE–Saudi-led coalition. Now Yemenis of all stripes are flocking to embrace the Sanaa government and its resistance stance.


Mohammed Moqeibel

FEB 1, 2024

Image
Photo Credit: The Cradle

While the Red Sea military operations of Yemeni resistance movement Ansarallah have shaken up geopolitical calculations of Israel’s war on Gaza, they have also had far-reaching consequences on the country's internal political and military dynamics.

By successfully obstructing Israeli vessels from traversing the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait, the Ansarallah-led Sanaa government has emerged as a powerful symbol of resistance in defense of the Palestinian people – a cause deeply popular across Yemen's many demographics. Sanaa's position stands in stark contrast to that of the Saudi and Emirati-backed government in Aden, which, to the horror of Yemenis, welcomed attacks by US and British forces on 12 January.

The US–UK airstrikes have offended Yemenis fairly universally, prompting some heavyweight internal defections. Quite suddenly, Sanaa has transformed into a destination for a number of Yemeni militias previously aligned with the UAE and Saudi Arabia, now publicly declaring their allegiance to Ansarallah.

One such figure, Colonel Hussein al-Qushaybi, formerly with the Saudi–UAE coalition forces, announced in a tweet:

I am Colonel Hussein al-Qushaybi, I declare my resignation from my rank and my defection from the Legitimacy Army [army backed by Saudi-led coalition] that did not allow us, as members of the Ministry of Defense, to show solidarity with Palestine.
My message to army members: Go back to your homes, for our leaders have begun to protect Zionist ships at sea and support the [Israeli] entity, even if they try to deceive, but their support has become clear and it is still there.


Qushaybi claims he was incarcerated in Saudi prisons for 50 days – along with other Yemeni officers – for his outspoken defense of Gaza, during which he endured torture and interrogation by an Israeli intelligence officer.

Major Hammam al-Maqdishi, responsible for personal protection of Yemen's former Defense Minister in the coalition-backed government, has also arrived in Sanaa, pledging allegiance to Ansarallah.

Simultaneously, a leaked 'top-secret' document from the Saudi-backed, UN-recognized Yemeni Ministry of Defense instructs military leaders to suppress any sympathy or support for Hamas or Ansarallah, as “this might arouse the ire of brotherly and friendly countries” – an implicit reference to Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Image

Defections and dissent

The wave of defections within the ranks of Saudi–Emirati coalition forces is not limited to officers. Many regular troops have openly rebelled against their commanders – abandoning their positions and pledging allegiance to Ansarallah – following the recent airstrikes on Yemen. Dozens of these soldiers have been arrested and detained for displaying solidarity with Gaza.

Yemeni news reports claim the US government, in a missive to the coalition's Chief of Staff Saghir bin Aziz, expressed “dissatisfaction” with the lack of solidarity among his forces and demanded action.

While this trend of defections in the Saudi–Emirati coalition is not entirely new, it has accelerated considerably since the onset of the war in Gaza and the recent US-UK strikes on Yemen.

Last February, high-ranking coalition officers, including brigade commanders from various fronts, began a series of defections, though none as significant as the current rebellion.

These earlier defections were primarily driven by financial conditions and dissatisfaction with Saudi Arabia and the UAE for their dismissal of military commanders associated with the Islah Party (Muslim Brotherhood in Yemen), who were replaced by members of the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) militias and those commanded by Tariq Saleh, nephew of pro-Saudi former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Most of these defections were by officer and troops associated with the Islah Party during a time when the foreign coalition began marginalizing the party's military and political leadership, and dismantling several military sectors under their control – in favor of the UAE-controlled STC.

Now, the Gaza war has the Islah Party leadership fully breaking with its old alliances. As party official Mukhtar al-Rahbi tweeted upon the launch of US-UK strikes:

Any Yemeni who stands with the US, UK, and the countries of the coalition protecting Zionist ships should reconsider their Yemeni identity and Arab affiliation. These countries protect and support the Zionist entity, and when Yemen closed the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea to the ships of this terrorist entity, this dirty alliance struck Yemen and punished it for its noble stance towards Gaza and Palestine.

In stark contrast, the UAE-backed STC and the Tareq Saleh-led National Resistance Forces expressed readiness to protect Israeli interests. On the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, STC President Aidarus al-Zoubaidi reaffirmed his support for the British attacks against Yemen, conveying this stance to British Foreign Secretary David Cameron.

Following these statements, an entire battalion under Saleh's command defected to Ansarallah, while many other fighters now refuse his authority because they reject supporting US–UK strikes against Sanaa and its resistance leaders.

A shift in public sentiment

In response to the latest western aggression against Yemen, media outlets affiliated with the STC and its supporters have launched a campaign against Ansarallah and the Palestinian resistance, casting doubt on the Yemeni resistance movement's capabilities and motives. But, their efforts have backfired badly, instead leading to widespread public fury in the country's southern regions controlled by the UAE and Saudi-backed government.

Image
Map of areas controlled by Ansarallah and Saudi-led coalition

Their anger is directed at the Aden-based government's perceived alignment with Israel's regional projects, sparking both protests and symbolic acts, such as burning pictures of UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed and the Israeli flag.

According to Fernando Carvajal, a former member of the UN Security Council's Yemen expert team, Ansarallah have managed to leverage – to their benefit – the untenable position of Abu Dhabi, which normalized relations with Israel as part of the 2020 US-brokered Abraham Accords. This, he argues, has helped them gain widespread support both within Yemen and internationally.

In the wake of this unexpected public outrage, the STC has experienced a further wave of defections within its ranks. Several leaders have joined the Southern Revolutionary Movement, and openly expressed their objective of liberating southern Yemen from what they see as "Saudi–Emirati occupation."

Amidst the wave of military realignments, prominent Al-Mahra tribal Sheikh Ali al-Huraizi – arguably the most influential figure in eastern Yemen – has come out to praise Ansarallah's military operations against Israel-bound shipping in the Red Sea, hailing its actions as a resolute and national response to the suffering of the Palestinian people.

Huraizi stressed that the US and British aggression against Yemen was launched to protect the Zionist state, because Ansarallah's targeted strikes were negatively impacting Israel's economy. Calling for unity among Yemenis, the tribal leader urged steadfast resistance against Israeli influence in the country. He also called on other Yemeni factions to follow the bold leadership of Abdul-Malik al-Houthi as a means to halt the genocide taking place in Gaza.

Countdown to the coalition’s collapse

Yemen's deteriorating economic conditions, currency collapse in coalition-ruled areas, and ongoing conflicts among southern militias have left many Yemenis disillusioned with Emirati and Saudi proxies, whom they had hoped would bring – at the very least – economic prosperity.

In contrast, the Ansarallah-led Sanaa government has managed to maintain a relatively stable economic situation in the areas under its control, despite the foreign-backed war aimed at toppling it. This disparity has led to a growing sentiment among UAE-aligned soldiers that they are merely pawns fighting for the interests of Persian Gulf Arab rulers, without receiving due recognition from these governments.

The contrasting stances on Palestine between the coalition and Ansarallah have deepened the Yemeni divide since the events of 7 October. Sanaa's support for the Palestinian cause has significantly boosted its domestic standing, while US–UK strikes on the country have complicated their Persian Gulf allies' position by prioritizing Israeli interests over all other calculations.

Disillusionment with the coalition will have profound political and military implications for Yemen, reshaping alliances, and casting the UAE and Saudi Arabia as national adversaries. Palestine continues to serve as a revealing litmus test throughout West Asia – and now in Yemen too – exposing those who only-rhetorically claim the mantle of justice and Arab solidarity.

https://thecradle.co/articles/yemenis-d ... n-for-gaza

******

250 U.S. Cargo Planes and At Least 20 Ships Have Delivered More Than 10,000 Tons of Armaments and Military Equipment to Israel Since War on Gaza Started
By Jeremy Kuzmarov - February 2, 2024 0

Image
U.S.-supplied military equipment arriving in Israel, December 2023. [Source: timesofisrael.com]

Unfazed by the International Court of Justice’s Genocide Case Brought by South Africa, Even More Deadly Weapons Are on the Way

ATimes of Israel report on January 25 noted that more than 250 U.S. cargo planes and 20 ships have delivered more than 10,000 tons of munitions and military equipment to Israel since its onslaught on Gaza began in October.

The same article stated that Israeli Defense Ministry Director General Eyal Zamir visited Washington in late January to finalize the purchase of 25 F-35 stealth fighter jets, 25 F-15 fighter jets and 12 Apache helicopters from the U.S.

In late December, The Times of Israel reported that the Israeli Defense Ministry had made almost $2.8 billion in additional purchases from the U.S. since the war started—in addition to the $3.8 billion in military aid that the U.S. provides to Israel annually.[1]

Image
U.S. military vehicles arriving in Israel. [Source: timesofisrael.com]

On January 26, a 17-judge panel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague issued a ruling that South Africa had solid foundation to bring its case of genocide before the world’s highest court.

As of this writing, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have killed more than 26,000 civilians in Gaza and injured 65,000 more while reducing much of Gaza to rubble following the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel.

The ICJ case may very well implicate the U.S., which has provided most of the weapons used to kill Palestinian civilians in violation of the laws of war.

Palestinian journalist Ramzy Baroud wrote that “the fingerprints of U.S. weapons are on the body of every Palestinian killed in Gaza, from the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, to UN schools, to every house and every street.”

According to Baroud, “never before in the history of the U.S.’s relationship with the Middle East has Washington been so directly involved in an Israeli war. The closest was the 1973 war, and even then, the U.S. involvement arrived a week later, and was hardly as direct.”[2]

Image
Ramzy Baroud [Source: asiapacificreport.nz]

In December, Amnesty International carried out an investigation, which determined that Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) manufactured by Boeing at a factory in St. Louis, Missouri, were used by the Israeli military in two unlawful air strikes on homes full of civilians in the Gaza Strip on October 10 and 13, with the fragments from the bombs found in the rubble.

Image
A Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) kit fixed to a bomb on display at the Navy League’s 2003 Sea-Air-Space Exposition. [Source: wsws.org]

The strikes on the al-Najjar family home in Deir al-Balah and Abu Mu’eileq family home in the same city killed a total of 43 civilians, including 19 children, and 14 women. In both cases, survivors told Amnesty International there had been no warning of an imminent strike.

Image
A fragment of the JDAM that struck the Abu Mu’eileq family home. [Source: amnesty.org]

Image
Damage caused to the al-Najjar family home. [Source: amnesty.org]

Image

Image
Members of the al-Najjar family who were killed in the strike. [Source: amnesty.org]

Image
Members of the Abu Mu’eileq family who were killed in the strike. [Source: amnesty.org]

Amnesty has also raised alarm at the use of white phosphorus bombs in Gaza in violation of international law that it believed “may have been exported” from the U.S. In the 2008-2009 Operation Cast Lead, Israel used white phosphorus bombs that had been produced in Louisiana and Arkansas.

A target of anti-war activism during the Vietnam era, white phosphorus bombs are designed to burn people’s flesh to the bone.

Image
Spraying of Willie Peter in Vietnam. [Source: wearethemighty.com]


Another weapons used widely by Israel are BLU-109 2,000 pound bunker buster bombs made in the U.S., which according to AP News have killed thousands of people after being dropped in densely populated neighborhoods on the Gaza strip.

Image
Bunker buster bomb on its way to Israel. [Source: middleeastobserver.org]

Image
Aftermath of buster bunker bomb dropped on Palestinian refugee camp. [Source: cnn.com]

According to a report on the World Socialist Website (WSWS), Israeli air strikes in Gaza have been carried out from a fleet of American made warplanes consisting of:

40 F-35 advanced Lockheed Martin stealth warplanes
196 F-16 multi-purpose planes made by General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin
83 F-15 fighters designed and produced by McDonnell Douglas (which is now part of Boeing)

These warplanes are equipped with bombs, missiles and guidance kits largely manufactured in the United States.

The bombs include MK-80 bombs made by General Dynamics in Garland, Texas, and retrofitted in McAlester, Oklahoma, at the McAlester Army Ammunition Plant, which produces a wide variety of bombs, including the infamous Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) bombs dropped on Afghanistan, whose yield is comparable to a tactical nuclear weapon.[3]

Image
A worker at the General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems, Inc., plant in Garland, Texas, works on the MK-80 series of bombs. [Source: wsws.org]

Image
McAlester Army Ammunition Plant where they are proud of their deadly creation. [Source: armymilitary.net]

According to the WSWS, the MK-80 is a “primary bomb being used by the IDF as it destroys Gaza.” The IDF has also likely been using GBU-12 (Paveway) laser-guided bombs manufactured by Lockheed at its plant in Archbald, Pennsylvania, that are dropped from Lockheed F-35 fighter jets manufactured at a Lockheed plant in Fort Worth, Texas.

Image
Lockheed’s Archbald plant, where smart bombs used by the IDF to kill Gazan civilians are manufactured. [Source: wsws.org]

Government contracts show that, at its main production headquarters in Tucson, Arizona, Raytheon makes its own variant of the Paveway laser-guided bomb kit and a variety of other missiles for the IDF, including the TOW, the AGM-65 Maverick, the Sidewinder, and the AIM-120 AMRAAM missile.

The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) explains that Raytheon “provides weapon systems, components, and maintenance services to the Israeli Air Force’s fleet of F-15, F-16, and F-35 fighter jets. For example, the company and its subsidiary Pratt & Whitney have provided F100 engines—the ‘engine of choice’ for F-15 and F-16 aircraft—and APG-82(V)1 radars.”

Raytheon also makes a variety of smaller electronic components as well for the IDF, regularly working with Elbit Systems, a leading Israeli weapons manufacturer.

Image
[Source: tucson.com]

Of the protests in the U.S. over the Israel-Gaza War, a number have targeted the weapons pipeline coming out of the United States. For example, as the WSWS reports:

On Thursday, November 2, 60 protesters blocked the entrance to Raytheon in Tucson, demanding the company end its extensive sales to the IDF.
On Friday, November 3, hundreds of protesters and several rank-and-file members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) stalled the military vessel Cape Orlando in Oakland, California, as it headed to Israel with military supplies.
On Monday, November 6, hundreds more protesters tried to block Cape Orlando in Tacoma, Washington. At least three dock workers refused to handle the cargo.
On the same day, 75 young protesters blocked entrances to the Boeing plant outside of St. Louis, Missouri, the one which builds JDAMS, delaying the start of the shift by four hours, according to St. Louis Public Radio.
Several protests have occurred at Elbit Systems, one of the largest Israeli defense companies. This includes a protest by more than 200 people at Elbit’s U.S. headquarters in Boston.

Image
Protesters blocking an entrance to Boeing manufacturing plant 598 near St. Louis, Missouri, which produces JDAM kits used in bombs that have killed Gazan civilians. [Source: wsws.org]

The Merchants of Death war crimes tribunal, headed by former Lancaster prosecutor Brad Wolf, has sought to hold leading weapons contractors accountable for their war profiteering.

Image
[Source: merchantsofdeath.org]

Besides enriching the coffers of leading arms manufacturers, the Biden administration’s support for Israel is contingent on Israel’s function as what Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has called a virtual aircraft carrier for the U.S. in the oil-rich Middle East.

Israel performs vital services for the U.S. by attacking nationalistic regimes hostile to U.S. interests like, that led by Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt in the 1967 Six-Day War and Bashar al-Assad of Syria today, and has allowed the U.S. to establish a secret military base in the Negev Desert that can be used as a launching pad for wider U.S. military operations in the Middle East.

Image
U.S. cargo jet at secret U.S. military base in the Negev. [Source: theintercept.com]

It is no surprise then that the Biden administration is unfazed by the recent ICJ court ruling, and will continue to arm Israel as it commits genocide against the Palestinian people who count for little in the U.S.’s larger geopolitical designs.

Iranian Hawks Beat Drums of War as Biden Plans Military Strike

The war drums are starting to beat louder and louder for Iran following a drone attack on the Syria-Jordan border in the Al-Tanf area that killed three U.S. servicemen and wounded 34.

The Biden administration blamed the attack on Iran without offering any proof, with Iran denying any involvement.

Biden said on January 30 that “I do hold them [Iran] responsible in that they’re supplying the weapons to the people who did it.”

Biden also said that the U.S. response to the drone attack would be carried out “over the course of several days,” striking “multiple targets,” a U.S. official told ABC News. “These are going to be very deliberate targets—deliberate strikes on facilities that enabled these attacks,” on U.S. forces, the official said.

Though Biden claimed he does not want a wider Middle East war, U.S. action is threatening exactly that—something neoconservatives have long wanted.

In a characteristic segment on Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News on January 26, Florida Congressman Mike Waltz (R-FL) claimed that Iran had carried out 165 attacks on U.S. troops since October 7 plus an additional 78 since Biden took office, leaving out that these troops were illegally occupying Middle-Eastern countries.

Waltz said in response to the attacks that the U.S. should develop a multi-pronged strategy in which it “hit Iranian operatives, dried up Iranian cash revenues, and supported Iranian efforts to overthrow their government, like in the Green revolution and Masha Ahmini protests,” which Obama and Biden had done little in his view to effectively support.

Sean Hannity chimed in with the false claim that Iran was now “only months away from obtaining nuclear weapons capability” and said that Americans should be “deadly afraid of the marriage of radical ideology and nuclear weapons.”

The third guest, Fox News contributor Pete Hegseth said that the “bad guys” [Iran] should know that if they attack Americans, they will be killed.”

Image
[Source: msn.com]

Hegseth said that this wasn’t happening under the Biden administration, which was constraining the operations of U.S. troops holding the line against ISIS. The Biden administration was bombing warehouses to make it look like it was doing something and could have used some of the troops guarding the Jordan-Syrian border on the U.S.-Mexican border.

In Hegspeth’s view, Biden and his supporters naively believed that “a ceasefire in Gaza would cause Iran and its proxies–the Houthis, Hizbollah, Hamas and the anti-American militias that had targeted U.S. troops to stand back, which was a pipe dream.”

The choice was clear in the 2024 election between Biden and Trump, who according to Waltz, had “defeated ISIS, killed Baghdadi, made Iran broke and without nuclear weapons, and signed the Abraham Accords [drawing Israel closer to various Gulf Arab countries in an anti-Iran alliance].”

The above Republican talking points sadly resonate among certain segments of the U.S. electorate who have been conditioned to hate Iran and Muslims more broadly and to support imperialistic foreign policies. They embody the lie that Trump is an antiwar candidate and that U.S. foreign policy would be less aggressive or recklessly militaristic under his leadership than under Biden’s.

On Tuesday January 30, Hannity had on his show Iran-Contra felon and CIA agent Oliver North who reminisced about how he had a cyanide poison pill with him on one of his missions to Iran in the 1980s in case he had to commit suicide. (North was in Iran to procure illegal weapons sales in order to finance Nicaraguan counter-revolutionaries mobilized by the CIA to overthrow the socialist Sandinistas).

North echoed Hannity in calling Biden the “appeaser-in-chief” for ignoring the alleged 160+ attacks on U.S. troops since Biden took office, leaving out like Waltz that those troops were illegally occupying Muslim countries. (Iran also was never proven to have been directly responsible for any of the attacks).

Calling the Iranian regime a suicidal one that embraced a death cult, North advanced a five point program for Iran that he said would deter Iranian aggression and prevent World War III.

The plan called for a) accelerating harsh sanctions on Iran, b) warning the Ayatollah that the U.S. would cut off Iran’s oil supplies if U.S. ships were struck again; c) indictment of the leaders of Iranian proxies that attacked U.S. troops; d) an end to any secret meetings supposedly being held in an attempt to revitalize the Iran nuclear agreement that Trump pulled out of, and e) acceleration of the sale of liquified natural gas to U.S. allies to shore up their strength.

Image
Lt. Colonel Oliver North [Source: ww2.cbn.com]

Hannity responded to North by proposing bombing Iran’s oil refineries, which North seemed to agree with, as did two other guests on Hannity’s show, historian Victor Davis Hanson, and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee.

Twenty years ago, Hannity was leading the way in championing the U.S. invasion of Iraq, bringing on similar kinds of guests making similar kinds of arguments.

One would think that the outcome of that war would have had a humbling effect and would limit calls for yet more military intervention in the Middle East.

One should remember, however, that Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch has deep CIA ties and that Fox is a mouthpiece for a Republican Party that is financed by big oil companies who made a killing in Iran prior to the 1979 Islamic revolution when the Shah gave them what they wanted.


1.After the war broke out in mid-October, President Biden requested a $14 billion aid package to Israel and Biden also removed restrictions on Israel’s ability to access a weapons stockpile that the Pentagon has kept in Israel since the 1980s. The State Department further invoked emergency provisions that allowed it to send tens of thousands of artillery shells and other munitions to Israel without review of Congress. ↑

2.Baroud continued: “Every statement made by top U.S. officials, starting with Biden, to Blinken to Sullivan, to all others, indicate that the U.S. is a party in the war, not an outsider, a benefactor, and certainly not a mediator. They even sat in on meetings to discuss Israeli war plans on Gaza. They cannot claim ignorance.” ↑

3.The bomb was nicknamed the “mother of all bombs.” ↑

https://covertactionmagazine.com/2024/0 ... a-started/

******

The Three Strands to the ‘Swarming of Biden’

Alastair Crooke

February 2, 2024

The U.S. seemingly aims to find a way to hurt Iranian and Resistance forces just enough to show that Biden is ‘very angry’, Alastair Crooke writes.

“The Iranians have a strategy, and we don’t”, a former senior U.S. Defence Department official told Al-Monitor: “We’re getting bogged down in tactical weeds – of whom to target and how – and nobody’s thinking strategically”.

The former Indian diplomat MK Bhadrakumar has coined the term ‘swarming’ to describe this process of non-state actors miring the U.S. in the tactical attrition – from the Levant to the Persian Gulf.

‘Swarming’ has been associated more recently with a radical evolution in modern warfare (most evident in Ukraine), where the use of autonomous swarming drones, continuously communicating with each other via AI, select and direct the attack to targets identified by the swarm.

In the Ukraine, Russia has pursued a patient, calibrated attrition to drive hard-Right ultranationalists from the field of battle (in central and eastern Ukraine), together with their western NATO facilitators.

NATO attempts at deterrence towards Russia (that recently have veered off into ‘terrorist’ attacks inside Russia – i.e. on Belgorod) notably have failed to produce results. Rather, Biden’s close embrace of Kiev has left him exposed politically, as U.S. and European zeal for the project implodes. The war has bogged down the U.S., without any electorally acceptable exit – and all can see it. Moscow drew-in Biden to an elaborate attritional web. He should ‘get out’ quick – but the 2024 campaign binds him.

So, Iran has been setting a very similar strategy throughout the Gulf, maybe taking its cue from the Ukraine conflict.

Less than a day after the attack on Tower 22, the military base ambiguously perched on the membrane between Jordan and the illegal U.S. al-Tanaf base in Syria, Biden promised that the U.S. would provide a quick and determined response to the attacks against it in Iraq and Syria (by what he calls ‘Iran-linked’ militia).

Simultaneously however, White House National Security spokesman John Kirby stated that the U.S. doesn’t want to expand military operations opposite Iran. Just as in Ukraine, where the White House has been loath to provoke Moscow into all-out war versus NATO, so too in the region, Biden is (rightly) wary of out-right war with Iran.

Biden’s political considerations in this election-year will be uppermost. And that, at least partly, will depend on the fine calibration by the Pentagon of just how exposed to missile and drone attacks U.S. forces are in Iraq and Syria.

The bases there are ‘sitting ducks’; a fact would be an embarrassing admission. But a hurried evacuation (with overtones of the last flights from Kabul) would be worse; it could be electorally disastrous.

The U.S. seemingly aims to find a way to hurt Iranian and Resistance forces just enough to show that Biden is ‘very angry’, yet without perhaps doing real damage – i.e. it is a form of ‘militarised psychotherapy’, rather than hard politics.

Risks remain: bomb too much, and the wider regional war will ignite to a new level. Bomb too little, and the swarm just rolls on, ‘swarming’ the U.S. on multiple fronts until it finally caves – and finally exits the Levant.

Biden thus finds himself in an exhausting, ongoing secondary war with groups and militias rather than states (whom the Axis seeks to shield). In spite of its militia character, however the war has been causing major damage to the economies of states in the region. They have fathomed that American deterrence has not been showing results (i.e., with Ansarallah in the Red Sea).

Some of those countries – including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – have initiated ‘private’ steps that were not coordinated with the U.S. They are not only speaking with these militia and movements, but also directly with Iran.

The strategy to ‘swarm’ the U.S. on multiple fronts was plainly stated at the recent ‘Astana Format’ meeting between Russia, Iran, and Turkey on 24-25 January. The latter triumvirate are busy preparing the endgame in Syria (and ultimately, in the Region as a whole).

The joint statement after the Astana Format meeting in Kazakhstan, MK Bhadrakumar has noted:

“is a remarkable document predicated almost entirely on an end to the U.S. occupation of Syria. It indirectly urges Washington to give up its support of terrorist groups and their affiliates “operating under different names in various parts of Syria” as part of attempts to create new realities on the ground, including illegitimate self-rule initiatives under the pretext of ‘combating terrorism.’ It demands an end to the U.S.’ illegal seizure and transfer of oil resources “that should belong to Syria””.

The statement thus spells out the objectives starkly. In sum, patience has run out over the U.S. weaponising the Kurds and attempting to revitalise ISIS in order to disrupt the tripartite plans for a Syria settlement. The trio want the U.S. out.

It is with these objectives – insisting that Washington give up its support of terrorist groups and their affiliates as part of attempts to create new realities on the ground, including illegitimate self-rule initiatives under the pretext of ‘combating terrorism’ – that the ‘Astana’ Russian and Iranian strategy for Syria finds common ground with that of the Resistance’s strategy.

The latter may reflect an Iranian strategy overall – but the Astana Statement shows the underlying principles to be Russia’s too.

In his first substantive statement after 7 October, Seyed Nasrallah (speaking for the Axis of Resistance as a whole) indicated a strategic Resistance pivot: Whereas the conflict triggered by events in Gaza was centrally connected with Israel, Seyed Nasrallah additionally underlined that the backdrop to Israel’s disruptive behaviour lay with America’s ‘forever wars’ of divide-and-rule in support of Israel.

In short, he tied the causality of America’s many regional wars to the interests of Israel.

So, here, we come to the third strand to the ‘swarming of Biden’.

Only it is not regional actors that are contriving to box-in Biden – it is America’s own protégé: Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Netanyahu and Israel are the principal target of the bigger regional ‘swarm’, but Biden has allowed himself to be enmeshed by it. It seems that he cannot say ‘no’. So here Biden is: boxed-in by Russia in Ukraine; boxed-in in Syria and Iraq, and boxed-in by Netanyahu and an Israel that fears the walls closing-in on their Zionist project.

There is likely no electoral ‘sweet-spot’ to be found here for Biden, between inserting America into an unpopular and electorally disastrous, all-out Middle East war, and between ‘green-lighting’ Israel’s huge gamble on victory over war against Hizbullah.

The confluence between the failed Ukrainian ploy to weaken Russia, and the risky ploy for Israel’s war on Hizbullah, is unlikely to be lost on Americans.

Netanyahu too is between a rock and a hard place. He knows that ‘a victory’ that boils down to just the release of the hostages, and confidence-building measures to establish a Palestinian state, would not restore Israeli deterrence – inside or outside the state. On the contrary, it would erode it. It would be ‘a defeat’ – and without a clear victory in the south (over Hamas), a victory in the north would be demanded by many Israelis, including key members of his own cabinet.

Recall the mood within Israel: The latest Peace Index survey shows that 94% percent of Israeli Jews think Israel used the right amount of firepower in Gaza – or not enough (43%). And three-quarters of Israelis think the number of Palestinians harmed since October is justified.

If Netanyahu is boxed in, so is Biden.

On Tuesday, Netanyahu former said:

“We will not end this war with anything less than the achievement of all its objectives … We will not withdraw the IDF from the Gaza Strip and we won’t release thousands of terrorists. None of that is going to happen. What is going to happen? Total victory.”

“Is Netanyahu capable of veering strongly to the left… entering into an historic process that will end the war in Gaza and lead to a Palestinian state – coupled with an historic peace agreement with Saudi Arabia? Probably not. Netanyahu has kicked over many other similar buckets before they were filled”, opined veteran commentator, Ben Caspit, in Ma’ariv (in Hebrew).

Biden is making a huge bet. Best to wait on what Hamas and the Gaza Resistance answers to the hostage proposal. The omens, however, do not look positive for Biden —

Senior Hamas and Islamic Jihad officials responded yesterday to the latest proposal:

“The Paris proposal is no different from previous proposals submitted by Egypt … [The proposal] does not lead to a ceasefire. We want guarantees to end the genocidal war against our people. The resistance is not weak. No conditions will be imposed on it” (Ali Abu Shahin, member of Islamic Jihad’s political bureau).

“Our position is a ceasefire, the opening of the Rafah crossing, international and Arab guarantees for the restoration of the Gaza Strip, the withdrawal of the occupation forces from Gaza, finding a housing solution for the displaced and the release of prisoners according to the principle of all for all … I am confident that we are heading for victory. The patience of the American administration is running out because Netanyahu is not bringing achievements” (Senior Hamas official, Alli Baraka).


https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/ ... -of-biden/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10848
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Sun Feb 04, 2024 1:30 pm

Hundreds of Western Officials Protest Israel’s Genocide in Gaza

Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on FEBRUARY 2, 2024
The Cradle

Image

The officials wish to oppose their countries’ support for Israel’s genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza but will not publicly reveal their names for fear of reprisal

More than 800 officials in the US, the UK, and the EU signed a public letter of dissent to protest their governments’ support of Israel in its war on Gaza, which may constitute ethnic cleansing and genocide.

The letter marks the first time officials in western nations have come together to criticize their governments’ support for the war openly, current and former officials involved in the effort, The New York Times reported on 2 February.

The officials say that it is their duty as civil servants to speak up publicly to change their countries’ policies toward Israel after their efforts to express concerns internally were dismissed.

“Our governments’ current policies weaken their moral standing and undermine their ability to stand up for freedom, justice, and human rights globally,” the letter says.

It adds that “there is a plausible risk that our governments’ policies are contributing to grave violations of international humanitarian law, war crimes and even ethnic cleansing or genocide.”

The Israeli bombing and ground campaign in Gaza has killed over 27,000 Palestinians, the majority women and children. Israel has destroyed tens of thousands of homes, as well as hospitals, schools, mosques, churches, and graveyards in a campaign to make Gaza uninhabitable. Hundreds of thousands of Gazans face starvation.

Israeli officials have expressed their desire to expel Gaza’s 2.3 million residents to Egypt and other countries to conquer and annex the enclave and build Jewish settlements.

The New York Times notes that the signers of the letter did not reveal their names because they fear reprisal, said one organizer who has worked in the US State Department for decades.

But about 800 current officials have approved the letter as it circulated within the governments of several countries, the official said.

One organizer said about 80 of the signers are from US government agencies, including many from the State Department.

The largest number of signers of the letter come from various agencies of the EU, followed by the US and the Netherlands. Officials from Sweden and Switzerland also approved the letter, said another person familiar with it, including many from their respective foreign ministries.

Josh Paul, who resigned from the State Department in October over the White House’s support of Israel’s military campaign, stated that “The political decision-making of Western governments and institutions” over the war “has created unprecedented tensions with the expertise and duty that apolitical civil servants bring to bear.”

Only a few EU countries, most prominently Ireland, Spain, and Belgium have opposed Israel’s war on Gaza and called for a ceasefire.

Berber van der Woude, a former Dutch diplomat who served in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, spoke on behalf of current Dutch dissenters within the foreign ministry.

“Being a civil servant doesn’t absolve you from your responsibility to keep on thinking,” she said. “When the system produces perverse decisions or actions, we have a responsibility to stop it. It’s not as simple as ‘shut up and do what you’re told’; we’re also paid to think.”

Ms. Van der Woude resigned in 2022 over her government’s policies in support of Israel.

Transatlantic Civil Servants’ Statement on Gaza:

It Is Our Duty To Speak Out

When Our Governments’ Policies Are Wrong


Released February 2, 2024

Declaration of civil servants regarding Gaza:

Recalling that:

We have the duty to respect, protect and uphold our constitutions and international and national legal obligations which our democratically elected executives have committed us to;
We are expected as civil servants to respect, serve and uphold the law while implementing policies, regardless of the political parties in power; that we have done so for our entire careers;
We have been hired to serve, inform and advise our governments/institutions and we have demonstrated professionalism, expertise, and experience that our governments have relied on over the past decades of our service;
We have internally expressed our concerns that the policies of our governments/institutions do not serve our interests and called for alternatives that would better serve national and international security, democracy and freedom; reflect the core principles of western foreign policy; and incorporate lessons learned;
Our professional concerns were overruled by political and ideological considerations;
We are obliged to do everything in our power on behalf of our countries and ourselves to not be complicit in one of the worst human catastrophes of this century; and
We are obliged to warn the publics of our countries, whom we serve, and to act in concert with transnational colleagues.
We publicly reiterate our concerns that:

Israel has shown no boundaries in its military operations in Gaza which has resulted in tens of thousands of preventable civilian deaths; and that the deliberate blocking of aid by Israel has led to a humanitarian catastrophe, putting thousands of civilians at risk of starvation and slow death;
Israel’s military operations have not contributed to its goal of releasing all hostages and is putting their well-being, lives and release at risk;
Israel’s military operations have disregarded all important counterterrorism expertise gained since 9/11; and that the operation has not contributed to Israel’s goal of defeating Hamas and instead has strengthened the appeal of Hamas, Hezbollah and other negative actors;
The ongoing military operation will be detrimental not just for Israel’s own security but also regional stability; the risk of wider wars is also negatively impacting stated security objectives of our governments;
Our governments have provided the Israeli military operation with public, diplomatic and military support; that this support has been given without real conditions or accountability; and that when faced with humanitarian catastrophe, our governments have failed to call for an immediate ceasefire and an end to blockages of necessary food/water/medicine in Gaza;
Our governments’ current policies weaken their moral standing and undermine their ability to stand up for freedom, justice, and human rights globally and weaken our efforts to rally international support for Ukraine and to counter malign actions by Russia, China and Iran; and
There is a plausible risk that our governments’ policies are contributing to grave violations of international humanitarian law, war crimes and even ethnic cleansing or genocide.
We therefore call on our governments/institutions to:

Stop asserting to the public that there is a strategic and defensible rationale behind the Israeli operation and that supporting it is in our countries’ interests;
Hold Israel, like all actors, accountable to international humanitarian and human rights standards applied elsewhere and to forcefully respond to attacks against civilians, as we are doing in our support to the Ukrainian people; this includes demanding immediate and full implementation of the recent order of the International Court of Justice;
Use all leverage available – including a halt to military support – to secure a lasting ceasefire and full humanitarian access in Gaza and a safe release of all hostages; and
Develop a strategy for lasting peace that includes a secure Palestinian state and guarantees for Israel’s security, so that an attack like 7 October and an offensive on Gaza never happen again.
Coordinated by civil servants in:

European Union institutions and bodies
The Netherlands
United States
Also endorsed by civil servants in:

Belgium
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Italy
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
United Kingdom
Transatlantic Civil Servants Statement on Gaza Feb2 Release

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2024/02/ ... e-in-gaza/

******

US FACES UNPRECEDENTED CHALLENGE FROM HOUTHI MISSILES
Feb 1, 2024 , 12:53 pm .

Image
The Axis of Resistance challenges the United States in the region (Photo: Europa Press)

The United States Naval Forces face a new and serious threat from the Yemeni armed forces. The commander of the Fifth Fleet based in Bahrain, Charles Bradford “Brad” Cooper II, has expressed deep concern in this regard.

The character has pointed out that his ranks face the challenge of making decisions in a matter of seconds to be able to intercept the missiles and drones launched by the Yemenis, given that they have the capacity to reach their targets in just 75 seconds from when they are launched.

In an interview with the American channel CBS in Bahrain, the commander stated that “Houthi” missiles and drones represent an unprecedented threat since an attack with ballistic missiles against American Navy ships had never been carried out before. Cooper accused Iran of providing the Houthi movement with the intelligence required to attack Israeli and American vessels, but did not present any evidence to support his claims.

The United States, far from pressuring Israel to stop the ongoing war in Palestine, has opted to form a military coalition and bomb targets in Yemen, which has further exacerbated the tense situation in the region.

The Houthi movement, which together with Iran, Syria and Lebanon's Hezbollah makes up the so-called 'Axis of Resistance', is firmly opposed to the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the US military presence in the area.

https://misionverdad.com/globalistan/ee ... les-huties

Google Translator

******

Ending The U.S. Presence In Middle East

The Biden administration, in its utter stupidity, is launching a(nother) full fledged war throughout the Middle East.

U.S. launches retaliatory strikes after deadly attack on Jordan base - Washington Post - Feb 3, 2024
The operation, targeting numerous sites in Iraq and Syria used by Iranian forces and its affiliates, followed the killing of American troops last weekend

> U.S. forces launched a broad attack against Iran’s powerful military wing and affiliated militias in Iraq and Syria on Friday, delivering a blow to armed groups that Washington has blamed for killing American troops in Jordan and a surge of violence across the Middle East. <
---
Daniel McAdams @DanielLMcAdams - 11:01 UTC · Feb 3, 2024
The Biden Administration just literally just blew up all the weapons of the Iraqi brigade that was fighting ISIS!
Let that sink in...

Hawkeye1812Z @Hawkeye1745 22:09 UTC · Feb 2, 2024
🇺🇸💥🇮🇶Footage shows the explosions of the headquarters of the Anbar Operation Command & the headquarters of the 13th Hashd al-Sha’bi Brigade, after it was targeted by US raids, in the Anbar province of Iraq

That is is unit which is fighting ISIS ... 🤔
Embedded video

---
Secretary Antony Blinken @SecBlinken - 21:01 UTC · Feb 2, 2024
I am returning to the Middle East this coming week to continue working with our partners on how to achieve durable peace in the region, with lasting security for Israelis and Palestinians alike.

---
President Biden @POTUS - 22:45 UTC · Feb 2, 2024
Today, at my direction, U.S. military forces struck targets in Iraq and Syria that the IRGC and affiliated militia use to attack U.S. forces.

We do not seek conflict in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world.

But to all those who seek to do us harm: We will respond.

---
Elijah J. Magnier @ejmalrai - 14:11 UTC · Feb 3, 2024
The US: We don't want to escalate the war in the ME, but we bombed Yemen & killed 10 Yemenis, we bombed Syria & Iraq & killed 16 Iraqis, 7 Syrians, but please de-escalate coz we will bomb you more in the coming days. In the meantime we are sending bombs to Israel to bomb Gaza.


---
In 2020, after the U.S. assassination of General Qassam Suleimani, the leadership of Iran announced that, in consequence, the U.S. presence in the Middle East will be ended. Iran and its allies have since diligently prepared themselves to achieve that aim.

The hot phase of the process itself was initiated primarily by Hamas on October 7 (which followed the October 2 desecration of Al-Aqsa Mosque by Zionist settlers). The secondary and tertiary steps were launched by Ansarollah in Yemen and Kataib Hizbullah in Iraq.

In each cases the U.S. and its Israeli proxy responded with harsh escalations.

It was the biggest mistake they could make.

agitpapa @agitpapa - 15:07 UTC · Feb 3, 2024
Harakat al Nujaba PMF declares that it will not be defeated or subdued by US airstrikes and vows to teach the US humility with fire, says it has surprises in store.
Attached image

---
Syrian military statement: US occupation cannot persist - Al Mayadeen - Feb 3, 2024
In its statement, Syria's military emphasizes that the US is working on reviving ISIS in Syria and Iraq.

> The statement also affirmed that the Syrian army will continue to defend Syria's land and people, and strike all terrorist groups, regardless of how much their sponsors and supporters try to obstruct this goal. It added that it is determined to liberate the entire Syrian territory from all terrorism and occupation, including the US occupation which "cannot persist." <


The Axis of Resistance is present throughout the Middle East. It has its own economic and social networks. It produces its own weapons and its fighters are well trained to fight under the local circumstances. This is an enemy the U.S. can not defeat.

As Aaron Maté explains:

These groups’ decision to strike US forces in response to the Gaza genocide follows a well-entrenched pattern of resisting joint US-Israeli aggression, or what the Journal describes as efforts to “push back against American and Israeli influence” in the Middle East. And contrary to US claims that Iran’s main regional allies – Hezbollah in Lebanon, Ansar Allah in Yemen (the Houthis), the PMU in Iraq, Hamas/Islamic Jihad in Palestine, and the Syrian government -- are all mere Iranian “proxies”, these groups “have domestic agendas of their own and operate with some measure of autonomy,” the Journal notes. US intelligence analyst Brian Katz concurs. Iran’s allies “are no longer simply Iranian proxies,” Katz writes. “Rather, they have become a collection of ideologically aligned, militarily interdependent, mature political-military actors committed to mutual defence.”

The conflict has boiling on a low flame for some time:

As the Washington Post notes, Iranian allies in the region “began targeting U.S. interests in 2018, after then-President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from a landmark nuclear deal with Tehran” as part of a hawkish policy of “maximum pressure.” Rather than return to the Iran nuclear deal upon taking office in January 2021, Biden continued the Trump agenda – and knowingly endangered US troops in the process.
When Biden “ordered airstrikes on militia groups” in Syria, the Washington Post reported in August 2021, that ended up “sparking a fresh cycle of reciprocal violence, with militiamen firing at a facility housing U.S. troops and American forces responding with artillery fire.” Biden’s support for Israeli aggression against Syria yielded the same result. When a drone strike hit a US military base located in southern Syria in October 2021, US and Israeli officials acknowledged that it was “Iranian retaliation for Israeli airstrikes in Syria,” the New York Times reported.

In launching and encouraging attacks on Iranian allies in the region, Biden was pursuing an arrangement that he forged with the Israeli government In August 2021, then-Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett urged Biden to pursue “a death by a thousand cuts” strategy, in which the US and Israel would “[counter] Iran through a combination of many small actions across several fronts — both military and diplomatic — instead of a single dramatic strike,” Axios reported. The goal would be to put Iran’s “regional aggression” – a euphemism for resisting US-Israeli hegemony – “back in the box.” Toward that goal, one of Bennett’s key requests was that “Biden not to pull U.S. forces out of Iraq and Syria,” which the Israeli delegation felt quite “optimistic” about. In Biden, Bennett gushed, “I found a leader who loves Israel, knows exactly what he wants and is attuned to our needs.”


In opposite to those plans it is the Resistance which is using small and increasingly larger cuts to eliminate, over time, the U.S. presence in the Middle East. It is dead serious.

As Aleks of Black Mountain Analysis writes:

I would like to ask you now to understand the following: It is not what I want or my opinion; it is the ice-cold reality: On October 7th, a war was started by the Axis of Resistance. It was started against both Israel and the Western occupation of the Middle East. As stated above, it will not end before all occupation forces are out of the Middle East, the Two State Solution has been implemented in Israel, or all people in the Middle East are dead ... period.
I have no emotions here; I’m not invested in the region. This is a logical assessment of what is currently happening in the region. It is not going to stop until one of the scenarios is implemented.


Other interested powers are already positioning themselves for a new situation in the Middle East.

Give it two, three or maybe even five years. But the envisioned results WILL be achieved.

Posted by b on February 3, 2024 at 15:38 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/02/e ... .html#more

******

U.S. Military Strikes in Iraq and Syria: A discussion on Iran’s Press TV

There is an old saying ‘once a spy, always a spy,’ whereas my field of activity, analysis of international affairs, has its own rule: the closer the world comes to Doomsday, the greater the demand for our commentary. No chance to retire in this field, only to leave it feet first.

And so, as the United States yesterday unleashed its latest escalation of hostilities in the Middle East on the claim that it did not want a wider war, I found myself with invitations to comment on air by not one but two major international broadcasters.

The questions posed by the respective moderators were different, and so I had the opportunity to deal with the subject at hand from different perspectives, which I hope viewers will find to be non-repetitive and informative. The only common point I made in both interviews is that U.S. support for Netanyahu and the Israeli genocide in Gaza will end not because humane considerations have taken the upper hand but because domestic U.S. politics so dictates if Biden is to have any chance of being re-elected. As always, domestic U.S. politics account for 90% of the direction of foreign policy, with the remaining 10% driven by the actual state of affairs in the world outside U.S. borders. In present conditions, underweighting the risks of provoking full-on war with Iran may have devastating consequences for U.S. power in the region and beyond.

The first broadcaster, Press TV Iran, with whom I spoke in the morning, has just sent me the link, which I now share:

https://www.urmedium.net/c/presstv/128436

Transcript (courtesy of Ed Paige)

Interviewer:
Mr Doctorow, I thank you for your patience, sir. Your initial thoughts on the fact that we have the U.S. carrying out 85 airstrikes in Iraq and Syria against a region that has been pushing back against occupation, against getting colonized in Palestine, in Syria, and in Iraq.

Doctorow:
I’d just like to introduce one element that was not mentioned in my fellow panelist’s remarks. And that is that the United States, according to this morning’s Financial Times article on the subject, a lead story, the United States knowingly attacked Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Quds, in Iraq and in Syria. Now that is– we have not heard about any Iranian response to that, but it is putting at risk what fragile peace there is in the Middle East.

And it comes– it is important because it underlines the kind of hypocrisy that is American policy, which is just not a matter of academic observation, but it’s an hypocrisy that can lead to a world war. The United States has made, has made its backing of Ukrainian regime fundamental to its foreign policy, and it has provided arms and training to Kiev’s forces. When Iran provides arms and training to its friends and allies in the Middle East, that becomes the subject of US military targeting. The United States essentially is saying that Iran is a co-belligerent, but no one is yet saying openly that the United States is a co-belligerent in the Ukraine war, with the consequences that come from being a co-belligerent.

Interviewer:
And you know in the back story here, Mr. Doctorow, is the fact that hundreds of thousands, not hundreds, not thousands, but hundreds of thousands of civilians have died as a result of imperialist powers. The US went into Iraq, you very well know, on false pretext and how many people did it slaughter in that country, civilians alone, in the last 20 years? In Afghanistan and in Syria where it still has– itself occupying oil fields there and taking money out of the pockets of the Syrian public, you know. And then not to mention their ally in Tel Aviv, what that’s doing to the indigenous people that should be living in peace there on the Mediterranean.

Doctorow:
There’s one very big distinction between what you’ve described in the past going back to American war crimes in Iraq in Afghanistan and elsewhere. But there’s a distinction between that and what we’re seeing today. The distinction is the case brought before the International Court of Justice by South Africa. For the first time in history, the belligerents, those who are implementing genocidal policies, are being called to account. The United States was, of course, practicing genocide in Iraq, but nobody said a word. What’s going on now is being spoken about, and the decision, the interim decision of that court, is against Israel. The final decision, which will come in months, will most certainly be against Israel, for not only having intent to commit genocide but for actually doing it.

Now in that case the question arises: who will pay for that? What will the price be, both in political leadership who are carrying out these genocidal acts, and for their backers in the United States? So this is a very big turning point in history that we are now witnessing; and I’d say it’s, at least for once, it’s a positive development.

Interviewer:
And how do you describe and explain and justify it? Maybe “justify it” is a stretch, but how do you, or how does the U.S. explain its presence today in Iraq, in Syria? What’s the justification, at least from the White House’s and the Pentagon’s point of view, why they are still in the region?

Doctorow:
Well, it’s a big lie. They are saying exactly the opposite of what my fellow panelist correctly pointed out: the United States has, certainly in the whole Syrian civil war, been on the side of the Devil. It has been actively supporting the extremist radicals who are intent on destroying civil society in the Middle East. That has not changed. It is a good excuse to create chaos, which the Americans can then dominate.

Interviewer:
And is it ironic to you that the U.S. has carried out 85 strikes and promised more strikes to come, before entertaining the idea of pushing the regime in Tel Aviv to stop its campaign of genocide against the women and children of Gaza?

Doctorow:
Well, how long Mr Biden can continue his awful policy is a matter of great discussion. For political purposes, he is ruining his chances of re-election. And you have to remember that American foreign policy is 90% dependent on domestic politics and 10% dependent on the realities of the world outside the United States. So in the given instance, without appealing to wisdom, or to humanity, or any other quality that’s probably not to be found in Mr. Biden and his fellow would-be war criminals, we can see a solution of the United States withdrawing its support for Israel’s genocide that comes as a result of domestic American politics.

Interviewer:
Good stuff. Thank you for joining us, Mr Gilbert Doctorow, independent international affairs analyst from Brussels. Stay safe, sir, and thanks again.

https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2024/02/03/ ... -press-tv/

******

New wave of US, UK strikes target Yemen

The attacks come after the US bombing of Syria and Iraq, indicating the White House is escalating its war against the Axis of Resistance in defense of Israel's genocide on Gaza

News Desk

FEB 4, 2024

Image
The Navy destroyer Carney struck a radar site in Yemen on Saturday, officials said. The warship is shown here intercepting Yemeni drones and missiles in the Red Sea in October. (Photo credit: Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Aaron Lau/Navy)

US and UK warships and fighter jets bombed Yemen on 4 February, in a wave of missile strikes US officials claim hit 36 targets.

The US said in a CENTCOM statement that it hit “36 targets at 13 locations,” striking “underground storage facilities, command and control, missile systems, UAV storage and operations sites, radars, and helicopters.”

According to the statement, the US, UK, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, and New Zealand took part in the attacks.

The strikes were in response to Yemeni efforts to target Israeli-linked commercial ships passing through the narrow Bab al-Mandab Strait in the Red Sea. The Yemeni attacks are in response to Israel’s genocidal bombing campaign in Gaza.

Rather than press its ally Israel to stop its military campaign, which has killed over 27,000 Palestinians, the majority women and children, the US has joined forces with the UK to bomb Yemen.


Saturday’s strikes were launched by US F/A-18 fighter jets from the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier, British Typhoon FGR4 fighter aircraft, and the Navy destroyers USS Gravely and the USS Carney firing Tomahawk missiles from the Red Sea, according to US officials and the UK Defense Ministry.

The Yemen Armed Forces issued a statement detailing where the attacks took place, reporting 13 raids on Sanaa, 9 on Hodeidah, 11 on Taiz, 7 on Al-Bayda, 7 on Hajjah, and one on Saada.

“These attacks will not deter us from our moral, religious, and humanitarian stance in support of the steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, and will not go unanswered and punished,” read the statement.

The strikes come one day after the US sent B-1 bombers to target 85 locations affiliated with the Islamic Resistance of Iraq in eastern Syria and western Iraq, killing at least 16. This was in response to an operation by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq that targeted US military outpost Tower 22 in Jordan last week, killing three US soldiers.

US officials reportedly told Al-Jazeera that the strikes on Yemen are “considered a next round of retaliation for the killing of the [US] soldiers in Jordan.”

Like Ansarallah, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq coalition, formed after 7 October, has also targeted Israel, as well as US bases in Syria and Iraq. The groups say their attacks are in response to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, which the US has supported militarily and diplomatically.

Ansarallah leaders in Yemen say they have no intention of scaling back their campaign despite pressure from the US and UK bombing.

Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, an Ansarallah official, said, “military operations against Israel will continue until the crimes of genocide in Gaza are stopped and the siege on its residents is lifted, no matter the sacrifices it costs us.” He wrote on social media that the “American-British aggression against Yemen will not go unanswered, and we will meet escalation with escalation.”

https://thecradle.co/articles/new-wave- ... rget-yemen

Hamas makes comeback in northern Gaza

Hamas has deployed officers and made salary payments to civil servants in Gaza City in recent days

News Desk

FEB 4, 2024

Image
(Photo credit: Reuters)

Hamas is resurging in Gaza City and the northern Gaza Strip, AP reported on 3 February, following repeated claims by Israel’s army that its military wing has been dismantled there.

Israel has withdrawn some of its forces from north Gaza in the past month. On 1 February, more withdrawals from areas of the north took place, according to Anadolu Agency (AA), resulting in the reappearance of some displaced residents.

Gaza City residents and an unnamed Hamas official told AP that the group has been “deploying police officers and making partial salary payments to some of its civil servants in Gaza City in recent days.”

Hamas’ Qassam Brigades have not stopped operating in the north since the ground assault began and have continued to fire rockets from the northern strip despite Israeli efforts to stifle the resistance’s military capabilities.

Israeli daily The Times of Israel said the resurgence highlights Hamas’ “resilience” and is a “signal that Israel has not delivered a knockout blow to Hamas.” So far, Israel is no closer to its stated goal of eradicating the group.

Tel Aviv had claimed in January that its forces have “completed the dismantling of Hamas’s military framework in the northern Gaza Strip.”

Locals said on 3 February that Israeli jets bombed some of the offices temporarily reestablished by Hamas in the north.

Clashes are continuing in other areas of the north. Yet Israeli army operations are focused in the south, where fierce fighting between Israel and the Qassam Brigades is raging in the southern city of Khan Yunis.

Tel Aviv is now threatening to push its ground assault into the border city of Rafah, where nearly two million Palestinians – most of whom have been displaced from other areas of Gaza – are stranded.

The planned assault on Rafah poses the threat of an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe.

Meanwhile, Hamas has said it needs more time to announce a position on the latest truce proposal mediated by US, Israeli, Qatari, and Egyptian officials.

A Palestinian source denied reports on 1 February that an agreement had been reached and that a Hamas delegation had traveled to Cairo for negotiations.

Hamas leader Osama Hamdan said on Saturday that false reports on Hamas’ position of the truce proposal are part of an “Israeli disinformation campaign.”

Israel has “rejected all initiatives made so far … in order to continue the aggression,” Hamdan added.

The group has said it will not agree to anything that does not include an end to the war and a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from the strip.

https://thecradle.co/articles/hamas-mak ... thern-gaza
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10848
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Mon Feb 05, 2024 1:17 pm

Hezbollah confirms nearly 1,000 attacks on Israel

Israel’s north remains in crisis as Hezbollah plans to continue operations until the war on Gaza ends

News Desk

FEB 5, 2024

Image
(Photo credit: X)
Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah announced via its military media page on 4 February that it has carried out 961 operations against Israel since the start of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.


In an infographic detailing its attacks on Israeli sites across the border, Hezbollah said it averaged eight operations per day. 26 operations were the most carried out in a single day, while the minimum was two.

The graphic adds that each of 22 Israeli settlements were hit 72 times. Other Israeli military sites and border points were struck hundreds of times.

43 Israeli settlements have been evacuated with 230,000 settlers displaced, Hezbollah reveals. Two military factories and two Iron Dome platforms were targeted, along with numerous other sites and positions.

A total of 56 military vehicles including tanks and troop carriers were hit.

In terms of casualties, Hezbollah estimates that at least 2,000 Israelis have been either killed or injured by the resistance operations.

The operations have left Israel in crisis. In early January, Hebrew media reported that sales in the north had fallen by 70 percent.

Head of the Matah Asher Regional Council in the western Galilee, Moshe Dowidowicz, said at the time that northern residents live in “uncertainty” and “a large segment of them have no source of income.”

Dowidowicz added that Hezbollah poses the greatest danger to the north, and that this danger is “not limited to the security situation, but extends to the psychological and economic situation.”

Evacuated settlers have expressed they have no intention of returning until the threat of Hezbollah is removed. Government promises of financial compensation have done little to motivate Israelis to return north.

Western officials have made several trips to Beirut since October to pressure Hezbollah and the state on behalf of Israel.

Last month, senior White House advisor Amos Hochstein visited Lebanon. According to Al-Akhbar newspaper, Hochstein told officials that Hezbollah must withdraw from the border, threatening that “otherwise, Israel will launch a war against Hezbollah, which, along with Lebanon, must learn from what happened in Gaza.”

Hochstein visited Israel over the weekend for talks with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

According to Hebrew outlet Channel 12, Hochstein conveyed “signs” of a possible diplomatic solution which would include Hezbollah moving away from the border. The report adds that Israeli officials felt “optimistic” about a deal for the first time since the start of the war.

However, Lebanese officials told Hochstein during his last visit to Lebanon that no solution can be discussed until the war on Gaza ends, in line with Hezbollah’s position.

https://thecradle.co/articles/hezbollah ... -on-israel

Multiple deaths following drone attack on US-occupied Syrian oil field
Members of a US-backed Kurdish militia were killed in an attack that originated from government-controlled territory in Deir Ezzor

News Desk

FEB 5, 2024

Image

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced on 5 February that seven of its members were killed and 18 were wounded in Syria's Deir Ezzor governorate as a result of a drone attack that hit a training academy in the US-occupied Al-Omar oil field.

According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), the drone attack marks “the first response" by local resistance groups against the US occupation army following deadly airstrikes that hit Iraq and Syria over the weekend.

In a statement issued on Monday, the SDF confirmed its “right to provide an appropriate military response to the source of the attack.”

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI) umbrella group claimed responsibility for the overnight drone attack, saying in a statement that the continued operations come “in response to the massacres committed by [Israel] against Palestinian civilians.”

Over the past year, Washington's Kurdish proxy has come under continuous attacks by the IRI, the Turkish army, and local Arab tribes who have staged an uprising against SDF authorities in northeastern Syria.

Last week, an attack by the local tribes on SDF positions in Deir Ezzor left at least eight dead. Violent clashes also broke out recently between the Turkish-backed National Army militants and the SDF, following an attempted infiltration by the SDF into the villages of Jalbal and Kemar in the northern countryside of Aleppo.

The SDF helps Washington maintain control of nearly 30 percent of Syria's territory and is an integral partner in the ongoing looting of the country's natural resources. The Kurdish militia partnered with the US army in 2017 to take control of areas of Deir Ezzor east of the Euphrates during the race against Damascus and its Russian and Iranian allies to defeat ISIS and gain control of Syria’s major oil and wheat-producing regions.

The SDF also controls at least 20 makeshift prisons for about 10,000 ISIS militants, whom US officials have previously described as an ISIS “army in waiting” and its “next generation.”

https://thecradle.co/articles/multiple- ... -oil-field

US House panel proposes $17.6bn in military aid for Israel

The supplemental package will upgrade Tel Aviv's air defenses and expand its artillery and munitions arsenal

News Desk

FEB 4, 2024

Image
(Photo Credit: AP)

The Washington House of Representatives Appropriations Committee disclosed its new proposed bill on 3 February.

US House Speaker Mike Johnson said a congress vote will likely be held next week, as he reiterated that "the need to support our closest ally and our own forces in the region has never been more pressing."

The House, under Republican control, previously passed a measure to provide Israel with $14.3 billion in additional military assistance, reallocating a portion of funds previously designated for the Internal Revenue Service.

The Senate, led by Democrats, resisted that condition and is anticipated to introduce a legislative proposal supporting Israel while offering military aid to Ukraine in its conflict with Russia.

According to a Haartez report published last week, the US is currently finalizing three major military aircraft sales to Tel Aviv.

This acquisition includes 25 F-35 fighter jets, 25 F-15 fighter jets, and potentially a new squadron consisting of 12 Apache attack helicopters. It was reported that the jets and helicopters will be purchased using US aid allocated to Israel.

The weapons will replenish Israel’s arsenal for combat against the Palestinian resistance in Gaza, and in preparation for continued conflict on its northern front with Hezbollah, the Lebanese resistance.

Israel's new proposed budget has already increased weapons spending by an extra $8.3 billion, now projecting it to a historic high of around $37 billion.

https://thecradle.co/articles/us-house- ... for-israel

US forces loot more Syrian oil

The oil theft and smuggling operation comes two days after a brutal US attack on Syria and Iraq

News Desk

FEB 4, 2024

Image
(Photo credit: X)

US occupation troops in Syria's northeastern Jazira region looted 60 tankers of crude oil and transported it through an illegal border crossing into its military bases in Iraq, Syrian state media reported on 4 February.

“The American occupation continued its plundering of Syrian oil wealth, transferring it from the areas it occupies in the Hasakah countryside to its bases in Iraqi territory through illegal crossings,” SANA news outlet reported.

Local sources in the Yarubiyah countryside told SANA’s correspondent that “an American occupation convoy of 60 tankers loaded with stolen Syrian oil left Syrian territory, accompanied by an escort from the occupation forces and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militia, through the illegal Mahmoudiyah crossing towards the occupation bases in northern Iraq.”

US troops in Syria have continued to systematically loot the country’s natural resources, including oil, wheat, and barley – transferring the plundered goods to Iraq illegally.

An in-depth investigation by The Cradle in 2022 details the process of the oil smuggling operation by US forces and the use of several illegal border crossings that lead to the Iraqi Kurdistan region.

According to the exclusive, there are usually no less than 70 to 100 tankers transporting Syrian oil during each journey. The Syrian oil ministry has incurred billions-worth of losses as a result.

The Kurdish SDF, which faces an ongoing tribal rebellion that began in its areas of control in August last year, helps Washington oversee the occupation of Syrian oilfields.

Sunday’s looting operation follows Washington’s brutal attacks on Syria and Iraq two days earlier. The airstrikes came in response to Iraqi resistance attacks on US bases in both countries, particularly one on US military outpost Tower 22 on the Jordanian side of the border with Syria, which killed three US soldiers.

The US air force carried out strikes on 85 sites in the border regions connecting Iraq and Syria early on 3 February, killing several.

US Central Command stated its forces struck targets "belonging to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and its allies, in Iraq and Syria" using "long-range bombers launched from the United States."

US and British fighter jets launched yet another joint assault on Yemen the following day, 4 February, in response to pro-Palestine naval operations carried out by the Ansarallah movement and the Armed Forces of the Yemeni government in Sanaa.

https://thecradle.co/articles/us-forces ... syrian-oil

Israel bombs kindergarten in Rafah as war moves to south Gaza

Palestinians in the border city face Israeli bombs or expulsion to Egypt as Israel presses offensive

News Desk

FEB 4, 2024

Image
An aerial picture shows displaced Palestinians who fled Khan Yunis setting up camp in Rafah further south near the Gaza Strip's border with Egypt, on December 7, 2023 (Photo credit: Mahmud Hams / AFP)

Israeli warplanes bombed a kindergarten in the city of Rafah in southern Gaza on 4 February, killing two children and injuring dozens more, WAFA news agency reported.

The kindergarten was hosting civilians seeking shelter from Israeli bombing in other parts of the besieged enclave, according to local and medical sources speaking with the agency.


Palestinians also reported that two girls were killed in a house following Israeli airstrikes and tank shelling, Reuters reported the same day.

At the funeral for the children, a relative, Mohammed Kaloub, said the airstrike hit a room full of women and children in Rafah's Al-Salam neighborhood.

"There is no safe place in Gaza, from the wire fence to the wire fence (borders from north to south), there is no safe place," he told Reuters.

Scores more were wounded after Israeli warplanes bombed a residential area in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip.

Further injuries occurred when Israeli forces targeted a house belonging to the Masran family in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. At the same time, airstrikes hit various areas in the city of Khan Yunis, where clashes between Israeli troops and the Palestinian resistance groups are ongoing.

After almost four months of war, some 90 percent of Gazans have been displaced from their homes, including many who moved south to Rafah to escape Israeli bombing and heavy fighting in north and central Gaza.

But Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant vowed last week to expand Israeli military operations in Rafah.


The advance on Rafah is also a worry for Cairo, which has said it would not admit any influx of Palestinian refugees in what it describes as a bid to prevent any permanent expulsion of Palestinians, as occurred in the 1948 Nakba.

An Israeli official told Reuters the military would seek ways to evacuate most of the displaced people northward ahead of any Rafah ground sweep. But many neighborhoods in the north have been destroyed, and Israel has often bombed areas it claimed would be safe and encouraged Palestinians to flee to.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warned against the consequences of an expanded assault on Rafah, stating that around 1 million Palestinians "have been displaced progressively against the Egyptian border. Israel claimed they were safe zones, but in fact, what we see is that the bombing affecting the civilian population continues, and it is creating a very dire situation."

The prospect of a ground war in Rafah has raised fears about where the population would go to find safety. The UN recently said the town is becoming a "pressure cooker of despair."


Such an attack could push the refugees into Egypt, which many Israeli officials have stated is their goal. Large segments of Israeli society support forcibly expelling Gaza's 2.3 million residents to Egypt or elsewhere. They want Israel to annex Gaza and build Jewish settlements there.

An Al-Mayadeen correspondent reported a “reverse displacement movement from Rafah towards the central region of the Gaza Strip.”

The Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip since 7 October has killed over 27,238 people, the majority women and children, and injured over 66,451, in a campaign that is now widely viewed as constituting genocide.

https://thecradle.co/articles/israel-bo ... south-gaza

******

Image

However Bad You Think Israel Is, It’s Worse

However bad you think Israel is, you can always be sure that information will come out later that proves it’s even worse.

Caitlin Johnstone
February 5, 2024



So it turns out the IDF has been running a Telegram channel featuring homemade snuff films in which Gazans are brutally murdered by Israeli forces, captioned with celebrations of the gore and pain therein like “Burning their mother… You won’t believe the video we got! You can hear their bones crunch.” The IDF had previously denied any association with the channel, but Haaretz now reports that it was directly run by an IDF psychological warfare unit.

This is one of those many, many times where Israel is so awful that at first you’re not sure what you’re looking at. You think you must be misreading the report. Then you read it again and go “Oh wow, that’s SO much worse than I would have guessed.”

However bad you think Israel is, you can always be sure that information will come out later that proves it’s even worse.



Tucker Carlson has been spotted in Moscow, generating speculation that he’s there to interview President Vladimir Putin, and the liberal commentariat are losing their minds about it.

There’s no valid basis for westerners to object to Putin being interviewed by a western pundit. There’s no moral basis because Israeli officials have had unfettered access to a wildly sympathetic western press throughout four months of administering an active genocide. There’s no basis on the grounds that it hurts US information interests, because that would be admitting that US information interests depend on hiding information from the public about matters as basic as what a foreign leader thinks about his own actions, and essentially acknowledging that the western media are supposed to function as propaganda services for US military and intelligence agencies.

Every possible objection is also a confession about what the US empire and its media actually are.



Americans: healthcare please

US government: Sorry did you say bomb Syria, Iraq and Yemen in facilitation of an active genocide?

Americans: no, healthcare

US government: Alright you drive a hard bargain but let’s go bomb Syria, Iraq and Yemen in facilitation of an active genocide.



Biden isn’t technically lying when he says the US does not seek conflict in the middle east. The US seeks DOMINATION in the middle east, and would prefer to receive that domination willingly from submissive subjects. Only when middle easterners refuse to submit is there conflict.



The US has never done anything good for the middle east. All it’s brought to the region is a bunch of murderous military operations and the nonstop murderous military operation that is the state of Israel.



Setting up a bunch of military bases in countries on the other side of the planet and then going to war with anyone who tries to kick them out is pretty much the exact opposite of how a sane and ethical military would be used.



US foreign policy is essentially one big long war against disobedience. Bombing, regime changing, starving and destabilizing any population anywhere on earth who dares to insist on its own self-sovereignty instead of letting itself be absorbed into the folds of the global empire.

They call different parts of it the Israel-Hamas War, the Iraq War, the War on Terror, but really it’s all the same war: the war on disobedience. One long operation to brutalize the global population into obedience and submission, year after year, decade after decade.



When it comes to Israel the main difference between liberals and conservatives is that conservatives support Israel because they like it when Muslims get murdered while liberals support Israel because mumble mumble something something antisemitism Israel has a right to defend itself but we have serious concerns about the humanitarian HEY LOOK OVER THERE IT’S TRUMP!



If the Gaza genocide had happened pre-internet it would’ve been a fringe issue hardly anyone knew about. The western press would have been able to get away with exponentially more cover-ups of Israeli crimes, western politicians would’ve been able to get away with way more lies about what’s really happening, Israeli officials would have been far less careful about their statements of genocidal intent in their own media, and the IDF would’ve been vastly more blatant and obvious about its extermination campaign.

It’s only because normal people are getting eyes into what’s really happening that this issue is subject to worldwide outcry and condemnation that has placed the empire on the back foot. The political/media class never does the right thing because it wants to, it does the right thing when it is forced to by normal human beings with healthy consciences. The fate of humanity rests on the ability of ordinary people to freely circulate truth.

https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2024/02 ... its-worse/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10848
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Tue Feb 06, 2024 12:40 pm

Is the Axis of Resistance gaining support in the GCC?

Recent polls and public action indicate a renewed popularity of West Asia's Resistance Axis among Persian Gulf Arabs, potentially surpassing the 2006-era levels seen after Hezbollah's war with Israel.


Giorgio Cafiero

FEB 5, 2024

Image
Photo Credit: The Cradle

For decades, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states have regarded non-state actors within West Asia's Axis of Resistance, spearheaded by Iran, as a grave threat.

As counter-revolutionary states, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain’s rulers have perceived groups such as Hamas, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and Yemen’s Ansarallah as entities that dangerously challenge the regional status quo, particularly the dominance of its western imperium.

One reason some GCC member states want to see the Israeli war on Gaza end as soon as possible pertains to their fears of how Iran-aligned groups will act – and benefit – as the crisis further expands into other parts of the region.

Four months after Hamas’ Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and the subsequent Israeli war on Gaza, the status of the Axis of Resistance has been elevated throughout the region. This has shrunk the space for normalization efforts with Israel and exerted unwelcome pressure on those leaders who already have ties with Tel Aviv.

Support for resistance in the ‘Arab Street’

As anti-US sentiment in the Arab world surges to the highest levels since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, there is a rising wave of sympathy for actors in the Arab region that actively challenge US and Israeli interests.

Prominent Sunni figures and groups in the “Arab street” expressing support for actors within the Resistance Axis is reminiscent of the region's 2006 unity, when Arabs across the spectrum hailed Hezbollah for its electrifying battlefield performance against the occupation state.

Throughout the region, the 33-day war was seen as an “Arab victory” that left Israel humiliated. Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, recently wrote in a Responsible Statecraft article that “[US President Joe] Biden’s support for Israel’s war against the Palestinians has inflamed anti-American and anti-Western feelings across the entire Arab world. It has breathed new life into the resistance front.”

The prospect of Israel’s war on Gaza having a “radicalizing” impact on GCC nationals would be a grave concern to government officials in Saudi Arabia and other Arab states of the Persian Gulf, where authorities have long seen a need to control popular opinion and crack down on grassroots activism that threatens their legitimacy.

In Saudi Arabia, and likely elsewhere in the Gulf, evidence mounts of growing sympathy for Hamas as the group wages a stiff resistance to Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza.

Hamas
Pro-Israel think tank, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), conducted a poll in Saudi Arabia between 14 November and 6 December 2023, which found that 96 percent of the kingdom’s citizens agree that “Arab countries should immediately break all diplomatic, political, economic, and any other contacts with Israel, in protest against its military action in Gaza.”

WINEP’s survey also uncovered that the percentage of Saudis holding a positive attitude toward Hamas shot up from 10 to 40 percent since August 2023.

Mira al-Hussein, an Emirati sociologist and Research Fellow at the Alwaleed bin Talal Centre, University of Edinburgh, tells The Cradle:

“There are phrases and aesthetics popularized by Hamas militants that have been quickly adopted in the Gulf. The fact that these phrases are part of everyday use offers plausible deniability to those who repeat them. With regards to aesthetics, not only has the keffiyeh made a comeback in major Gulf cities, but the red triangle is now a trendy addition to fashion graphics.”

Saudi–UAE divergence

Within the GCC, Saudi Arabia and the UAE would be most worried about growing sympathy, or even outright support, for Hamas among Arabs in the Persian Gulf. Yet, Abu Dhabi and Riyadh are not on the same page when it comes to engaging the Palestinian resistance group. Moreover, their perspectives on the changing attitudes of GCC nationals toward Hamas are different. The UAE is rigidly opposed to Hamas for being an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood and other ideological reasons. Abu Dhabi “is not willing to entertain any kind of Islamist movement,” Aziz Alghashian, a fellow at Lancaster University in Britain, tells The Cradle. However, Saudi Arabia is a “bit more pragmatic,” and Riyadh, despite not accepting Hamas, recognizes the group as an “inevitable part of the Palestinian issue.”

Speaking to The Cradle, Zakaryia al-Muharrmi, an Omani scholar and writer, concurs:

“There is a clear divergence [which] can be observed in the Middle East [West Asia] regarding engagement with Hamas. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, having received Hamas leaders just months before the events of 7 October, maintains a pragmatic stance. While concerned about a potential Hamas–Iran rapprochement, it avoids an ideological condemnation. Conversely, the UAE has embarked on a path of greater religious openness, a move encountering resistance from some Muslim Brotherhood elements, including Hamas.”

“It is possible that this evolving scene will witness initiatives aimed at confronting the popularity of Hamas, like bolstering anti-Brotherhood Salafist factions or nationalist movements,” he adds.
Ultimately, while the majority of Saudis, at least according to WINEP’s polling, still do not support Hamas, the 30 percent rise in support for the Palestinian group is nonetheless notable.

This changed perception of Hamas among a large segment of the kingdom underscores widespread support for the Palestinian cause and the Saudi people’s rejection of the notion that the question of Palestine can simply be buried under the rubble of normalization agreements.

Across the Persian Gulf, the Palestinian cause is important, but there is also a widespread belief that infighting among different Palestinian groups has contributed to the problems faced by the Palestinian people.

Haila al-Mekaimi, a Professor of Political Science at Kuwait University, explains to The Cradle that:

“The reality of the popular position in the Gulf is that it supports the Palestinian people, and the Palestinian people have become a victim of extremist Israeli policies on the one hand, and on the other hand a victim of the feuding Palestinian factions.”

Yemen’s Ansarallah
Arabs across the region also commonly view the naval operations carried out by Yemen’s Ansarallah-aligned armed forces against Israeli-linked vessels traversing the Red Sea as a legitimate action within the context of the genocide in Gaza.

Developed by the International Committee on Intervention and State Sovereignty in 2001, the “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) was born out of the mass killings in Rwanda and former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, when western liberals believed military action was necessary to spare the world of genocide and other grave crimes.

An opinion held by many in the Arab world is that Ansarallah’s attacks on global shipping are similarly justified, while no western policymakers invoke R2P in relation to Israel’s war on Gaza. As scholar Muharrmi explains:

“Views on the Houthis among the Arab public have historically been divided. Nationalists, such as supporters of pan-Arab unity, tended to perceive them as a national liberation movement resisting the intervention of Gulf monarchies, seen as aligned with the West. Islamists and some Gulf regimes, on the other hand, viewed the Houthis as a Shia extremist movement acting as a proxy for Iran. They also criticized the Houthis' use of Iranian weaponry against the Sunni majority in Yemen. However, recent events have led to a shift in Arab public opinion. The Houthis’ interception of Israeli ships, followed by the subsequent American–British attack on them, has garnered sympathy and support from various sectors. Some now see the Houthis as allied in the broader struggle against Israeli occupation alongside the Palestinians.”

Lebanon’s Hezbollah
The actor within the Axis of Resistance that has gained the least reputationally in the Persian Gulf since 7 October is Lebanon's Hezbollah. GCC nationals, by in large, continue to see the Lebanese organization in a negative, sectarian light.

One of the major factors for this is the movement’s involvement in the war in Syria. While most Persian Gulf Arab states have mended fences with the Damascus government since late 2018, this rapprochement with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is not necessarily welcome among Saudi and other GCC nationals.

Hezbollah’s military intervention in Syria, which intensified in May/June 2013 with the battle for Qusair, did much to contribute to many in the GCC viewing the Lebanese Shia group as an increasingly nefarious actor acting on behalf of Iranian interests in the region. According to Emirati sociologist Hussein:

“Gulf regimes and their populace are extremely doubtful of Hezbollah. In addition to the sectarian element, Hezbollah's role in Syria is not forgotten. The general perception around their resistance-light response to the ongoing war on Gaza has reinforced beliefs about Iran’s political opportunism with regards to Palestine. The Houthis appear to be outliers, as they are not seen as closely tied to Iran as Hezbollah is.”

Some experts maintain that Hezbollah’s potential to regain the widespread Arab support it enjoyed back in 2006 will be tied to how the Lebanese force acts against Israel in the near future. As Muharrmi argues:

“Following its 2006 resistance against Israel, Hezbollah enjoyed a surge in Arab public support. However, its alignment with the Syrian regime during the uprising tarnished that image for many. While its recent participation in the war against Israel garnered some respect, skepticism surrounding the limited scope of its involvement lingers among a significant segment of the Arab public.”

“Future confrontations between Hezbollah and Israel," he adds, "may see a revival of its broader popularity. The path forward is likely to depend on the party's actions on the ground.”

Pressure in the Persian Gulf
It is difficult to exaggerate the extent to which Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and the events that followed 7 October have changed West Asia. The solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza expressed by GCC nationals speaks to a renewed sense of pan-Arab unity among Arab societies as an outcome of Israeli crimes in the besieged enclave, which has triggered powerful emotions all over the region.

The boycotts of Israeli, American, and German products by Persian Gulf Arabs underscores how widespread solidarity with the Palestinians has grown in the past four months.

After the dust settles in Gaza, what remains to be seen is if or when these social dynamics in the Gulf will lead GCC authorities to shift state policies vis-à-vis Israel–Palestine and the US.

In any event, Arab leaders of the Persian Gulf will, at the very least, face new pressures to conceal their engagement with Tel Aviv while also catering to public sentiments at a time when anger toward Israel and the US continues to mount.

https://thecradle.co/articles/is-the-ax ... in-the-gcc

‘Time running out’ for diplomacy with Lebanon: Israel

Hundreds of thousands of Israelis remain displaced from northern settlements due to Hezbollah's military operations

News Desk

FEB 5, 2024

Image
(Photo credit: AP)

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said on 5 February that “time is running out” for a diplomatic solution with Lebanon.

"Israel will act militarily to return the evacuated citizens" to the northern border, Katz told his French counterpart Stephane Sejourne as she was visiting Israel.

Katz’s comments came a day after Hezbollah confirmed it has carried out nearly 1,000 military operations against Israel since the war in Gaza began.

Hezbollah launched daily operations against Israeli military sites on the border on 8 October following the start of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. The operations came in solidarity with Gaza and its resistance, and Hezbollah has vowed to continue until Israel’s ethnic cleansing campaign in the strip ends.

The operations have displaced more than 230,000 Israelis from settlements in the northern border with Lebanon. These settlers have refused to return to their homes until the threat is dealt with, despite promises of financial compensation from the government.

The economy in the Israeli north is also in tatters.

Tel Aviv has indiscriminately targeted civilians, journalists, and residential areas in south Lebanon in response and has recently been threatening to launch a wide-range border operation.

Hezbollah says it does not want a full-scale war to engulf Lebanon but is ready for one if it is imposed on the country.

Western officials have made several trips to Beirut since October to pressure Hezbollah and the Lebanese state on behalf of Israel. However, officials have told Washington that they can not dictate the actions of Hezbollah.

Senior White House advisor Amos Hochstein visited Israel over the weekend for talks with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, where he reportedly conveyed “signs” of a possible diplomatic solution, which would include Hezbollah moving away from the border. A report from Channel 12 adds that Israeli officials felt “optimistic” about a deal for the first time since the start of the war.

Washington has reportedly proposed a three-stage plan to end the fighting on Lebanon’s southern border.

The first step is an eight to 10-kilometer withdrawal of Hezbollah forces from the border area. The second step calls for an increase in UNIFIL forces and the Lebanese army in the area.

Thirdly, Israeli residents will return to their evacuated settlements. The US proposal is also said to include talks for demarcating a land border between Israel and Lebanon.

Several areas of southern Lebanon have been under Israeli occupation for decades.

Last week, Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General Naim Qassem said: “The party is not interested in any discussion at present over Israeli demands regarding the southern front … Our position is clear: an end to the war on Gaza will automatically close the Lebanese front.”

https://thecradle.co/articles/time-runn ... non-israel

Iraq bans several commercial banks from US dollar dealings

The move comes as an attempt to avoid US restrictions on Iraq’s financial system

News Desk

FEB 5, 2024

Image
(Photo credit: Shafaq)

The Central Bank of Iraq (CBI) banned eight local banks from making US dollar transactions on 4 February, in an attempt to avoid sanctions and US financial restrictions.

A CBI document lists the banned banks as Ahsur International Bank for Investment, Investment Bank of Iraq, Union Bank of Iraq, Kurdistan International Islamic Bank for Investment and Development, Al-Huda Bank, Al-Janoob Islamic Bank for Investment and Finance, Arabia Islamic Bank, and Hammurabi Commercial Bank.

"We commend the continued steps taken by the Central Bank of Iraq to protect the Iraqi financial system from abuse, which has led to legitimate Iraqi banks achieving international connectivity through correspondent banking relationships,” a US Treasury Department spokesman said on Sunday.

The measures come after Iraqi officials met with the US Treasury Department’s top sanctions official Brian Nelson last week.

In late January, Washington imposed sanctions on Al-Huda Bank, one of the banks listed in the CBI document, under claims it laundered money for Iran. Several other banks have been hit with similar sanctions over the past year.

The Finance Committee in the Iraqi parliament made a statement on 31 January calling for the sale of oil in currencies other than the US dollar, aiming to counter US sanctions on the Iraqi banking system.

“The US Treasury still uses the pretext of money laundering to impose sanctions on Iraqi banks. This requires a national stance to put an end to these arbitrary decisions,” the statement said.

The US exercises significant control over the Iraqi financial system. Due to US sanctions, Baghdad has struggled to pay hefty energy debts owed to Iran. Additionally, Iraqi oil revenues are transferred to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Baghdad requires US permission to access these funds.

The Iraqi government has recently expressed hope in moving towards de-dollarization.

Iraq is set to implement several new economic measures to further strengthen the national currency against the US dollar, a government source told the Iraqi News Agency (INA) on 14 November.

Since October, Iraqi resistance factions have continuously targetted US bases in Iraq and Syria, in solidarity with Palestine and in an attempt to hasten a withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. Three US soldiers were killed in an Iraqi resistance attack near the Syrian–Jordanian border on 28 January.

The attack prompted violent US attacks on Iraq and Syria. Baghdad has been facing pushback from Washington in its attempts to diplomatically facilitate a withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, and a transition of the US presence in Iraq to an “advisory role.”

Following the attack near Jordan, the US Treasury Department said Washington expects Baghdad to help identify and disrupt the funds of Iran-backed resistance factions in Iraq.

https://thecradle.co/articles/iraq-bans ... r-dealings

******

More Signs of US Impotence in Middle East: Overkill Yet Ineffective Strikes, Deluded “Reshaping the Middle East” Planted Piece, Hamas Blame Pre-Positioning for Probable Ceasefire Negotiation Fail
Posted on February 5, 2024 by Yves Smith

To tell our Middle East tale a bit out of order, let’s start with what is currently a linchpin factoid and work around to other elements:
ashok kumar 🇵🇸
@broseph_stalin
·
Follow
Israel: we’ll pause bombing you for 30 days, free all the detainees, then we’ll resume the mass killing again, ok?

Palestinian resistance: no, we want a permanent ceasefire

Israel: OMG HAMAS SAID NO TO CEASEFIRE
So all the Israel government is willing to entertain is a protracted pause. All that does is extend the Gaza genocide timetable. Hamas leaders are presumably smart enough not to fall for that.

But with Israel having proposed a “ceasefire” that is actually unserious about stopping the extermination in Gaza, they have succeeded in playing their cards to make Hamas look like the bad guys. But since the West already runs crude Israel video fakes as real, Hamas would be scapegoated whether or not they were being reasonable. 1

If you have been following the state of play in the Middle East, Tony Blinken, who as far as I can tell has yet to get any deal done evah in the Middle East, looks to be continuing his track record. He set out to attempt to broker a ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel. Even though Netanyahu and right-wing members of his coalition had maintained that destroying Hamas is first and getting the hostages back will follow from that, protests by the families of hostages have put pressure on the government to entertain talk of a ceasefire. But if I read this correctly, it’s na ga happen:
The Saviour
@stairwayto3dom
·
Follow
🚨🇮🇱 Israeli coward Ben Gvir:

“I am not a sheep, if there is a ceasefire in Gaza, we will LEAVE the government!”

“I will NOT allow the signing of an agreement that will lead to the victory of Hamas!.”
The speaker, Itamar Ben-Gvir, is head of the National Security Council. More important, he’s willing to topple the government if he does not have his way. From a recent Wall Street Journal story based on an exclusive interview with Ben-Gvir:

Now, crucially, Ben-Gvir has enough support in the ruling coalition to undermine Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rule, and he says he is willing to use it. In his first interview with a foreign news organization since joining the government, Ben-Gvir warned that he would oppose any deal with Hamas that would free thousands of Palestinians held for terrorism or end the war before Hamas was fully defeated.

Ben-Gvir is a forceful proponent of clearing Gaza entirely of Palestinians and turning it into a Jewish enclave. He also believes Trump would be more willing to back these plans than Biden. It appears to take some months to organize new elections in Israel after a government falls (knowledgeable readers please pipe up). One could assume a caretaker government would continue existing policies and would not enter into something as important as a ceasefire deal, let alone one that was more than short term. So it is a little earlier than optimal for Ben-Gvir to force new elections. And Netanyahu obviously wants to stay Prime Minister as long as possible to hold off his prosecutions. But this calculus is part of the equation.

Consider also that, at least per some commentary, Biden is trying to contain the conflict surrounding Israel to more or less the current level, so as to avoid a regional war, at least before November elections. But it is hard to see his actions as being properly calibrated to achieve that end. Attacking g 85 targets to retaliate for 3 servicemember deaths on what is widely believed to be a US installation in Syria, hence illegal, is so excessive as to look silly, as in an admission of some combination of lack of emotional self control and lack of confidence in targeting.2 The US over the weekend made more strikes in Yemen when again many military experts have pointed out the use of force there won’t accomplish much….and it hasn’t save creating even stronger Yemeni support for the Houthis, more properly called Ansrallah. We can’t possibly invade Yemen. We don’t have the force strength and Hamas would likely sink some of our ships, a credibility disaster. And Yemen is just as difficult territory as Afghanistan, where neither the Soviet Union nor we prevailed.

And on the Iraq front, regardless of whether the strikes were all that effective, they look to have also had the effect being a big fat “no”‘ to an Iraqi insurgent offer to stop harassing the US if we’d keep on with the US plan to exit the country, as we’d allegedly said we’d do just a few days before. Recall, as we recounted, it was an Iraqi group, Kata’ib Hezbollah, that admitted to the strike that killed and said it was suspending strikes so as not to get in the way of the withdrawal deal. 85 strikes is way way more than what the US would need to make to keep up the appearance it was defending US forces. Perhaps one reason for the over-the-top number is that no way, no how will there be even an itty bittiest appearance that rebel action influence us.

On top of that, all of this threat display is using up more of our scarce weaponry. The US has supply issues with ship-borne missiles. We may not be as immediately constrained with ones launched from jets, but we look to be over-committed, between demands in Ukraine and sure-to-be-continuing needs on behalf of Israel.

With that introduction, let’s turn to the Administration’s fantasies about how it will get out of its current mess, as revealed in the planted Wall Street Journal story, U.S. Pairs Military Action With Diplomacy in Effort to Reshape Middle East. To its credit, the Journal plants a lot of skeptical markers: “monumental challenges,” “formidable obstacles,” “urgent challenge.” Its lead photo captures Tony Blinken in a “deer in the headlight” gaze.

Nevertheless, the article reveals the US is stuck in a badly-outdated picture of its influence, thinking it can drive events when we can’t even bring Israel to heel. From the report (emphasis ours):

On the military front, the U.S. has sought to buy time for its diplomacy by keeping Iran’s proxies at bay…

The administration’s effort faces formidable obstacles, not least the demanding compromises it would require on all sides.

The article also makes clear the US will engage in at most two-state theater:

Advancing the Palestinians’ prospects for a state of their own has become a prerequisite for pursuing Israeli-Saudi normalization and with it the hope of fostering a broad anti-Iran alignment in the region.

Right before the end, the piece does acknowledge that the US has a armaments problem:

Charles Lister of the Middle East Institute, a Washington-based think tank, said that the Friday strike was the largest military action the U.S. has launched against Iranian proxies in Syria and Iraq since the Iraq war.

“From the perspective of these proxies and Iran itself, they are engaged in a long-term attritional struggle against the U.S.,” Lister said. “For now at least, this looks more like a hiccup along the road for them.”

But rather than tease out the implications, the very next sentence talks about the US using hard power, as if we were still dominant in that category.

Contrast the US view of what it thinks it can still do with the Axis of Resistance perspective, conveyed in a Black Mountain Analysis article we highlighted in Links:

The main actor in the region, Iran, is driving the expulsion of foreign forces out of the Middle East, and is accelerating its efforts…

As soon as the Quds plan has been activated [and it was with October 7] there is no turning back. The Rubicon has been crossed. All disguised Quds operators across the Middle East act to help coordinate the moves. And since they have done this, they are visible to the Mossad….The end of what just started will be a free Middle East (from an Iranian perspective), or no Middle East.

In other words, good luck with Biden trying to contain the violence or have the US dictate or even significantly influence outcomes. Russia has been playing nice by geopolitical standards. The Axis of Resistance won’t if tested.

____

1 Hamas could try to set up a deal where the Israelis were likely to fail to deliver fully on their commitments, then cancel. For instance, it would make sense from a public health standpoint for Hamas to seek a very high level of food deliveries to make up for the many weeks of starvation conditions (as in get a little fat back on dangerously thin bodies). The Israelis make a point of holding up all arriving supplies with the excuse that they need to inspect truck for weapons. As for this idea in particular, in the event Hamas were to propose making up for the protracted calorie deficit, Israel is likely to contend this is actually a Hamas scheme to stockpile food for its own use.

2 CNN reported that the US says it destroyed or damaged 84 of the 85 targets. But as Scott Ritter and others reported regarding our previous strikes on Yemen, most if not all were targets we’d identified and shot at earlier. And on top of that, aside from it not being clear that there was much of anything left, it’s not clear there was much of anything there initially.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/02 ... -fail.html

******

In The Middle East The U.S. Has Reached The End Of Its Abilities

The Biden administration is trying everything to better the situation for the Israeli government except by withdrawing its financial and munition support which are the only two measures that could bring Israel to its senses.

There are now several small wars in the Middle East which may soon accumulate into a big one. Israel is fighting Hamas and the Islamic Jihad in Gaza. It is fighting a silent resistance in the West Bank. On its norther borders it is involved in daily clashes with Hizbullah and various Palestinian resistance groups.

Israel is also bombing Syria and killing Iranian envoys to that country. Iraqi and Syrian resistance groups are attacking U.S. bases in Syria and Iraq. The U.S. is bombing these groups for more or less therapeutic purposes while trying to not hurt them too much. In the Red Sea the Ansarullah government of Yemen is blocking sea traffic related to Israel, the U.S. and UK. The U.S. and UK are bombing Ansarullah positions even as they know that no amount of bombing will change its position.

People in other Arab countries, while seemingly calm, are enraged over Israel's genocidal behavior in Gaza. Their leaders try to keep their distances from the wars but at some point may well be forced to take sides in it.

Meanwhile the U.S., the alleged superpower, is hapless and helplessly trying to achieve results that are way beyond its abilities.

See for one example the last attempt by a U.S. envoy to prevent a further escalation with Lebanon:

US presents new blueprint to push Hezbollah away from Israeli border - Ynetnews, Feb 4 2024

U.S. President Joe Biden's Middle East envoy Amos Hochstein outlined the key elements of a political settlement to deescalate tensions between Israel and Hezbollah during his visit to the Jewish state on Sunday.
The plan consists of two phases: In the first, Hezbollah would cease hostilities actions along the border with Israel and will retreat between eight to ten kilometers north from the border.

Israeli residents will return to their homes, and a significant deployment of the Lebanese army and UNIFIL peacekeeping forces will maintain stability in southern Lebanon and along the border.

In the second phase, Israel and Lebanon will begin negotiations to demarcate the land border, including discussions on 13 points on disputes along their shared boundaries. Simultaneously, the U.S. and the international community will explore offering "economic incentives" to Lebanon.

Hochstein received the green light from the Lebanese government for his proposal, though it remains unclear whether Hezbollah agrees with the arrangement.

The envoy, who recently met with President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Minister Benny Gantz urged Israel to give his plan a chance.


Nice plan. But what can you do to implement it?

How in hell will the U.S. be able to make Hezbollah to cease hostilities actions along the border with Israel and to retreat between eight to ten kilometers from the border?

Hizbullah fighters at the border are living in the border towns. They were born there. They want to die there. How the f*** does the U.S. think they can be pushed out? And why would Hizbullah agree to a ceasefire when the murdering of Palestinians in Gaza continues to be the major project of Israel?

The U.S. has no means, none, to press Hizbullah into a ceasefire or to push it to retreat from the border line.

The Lebanese government supports that move? Sure, verbally, as long as you cough up some money. But Hizbullah is part of that government. It is also the superior military power in Lebanon. Neither the Lebanese army nor the U.N. forces have the ability to fight it.

Step one is thereby meaningless. Step two, a promise for negotiations between Israel and Lebanon, makes likewise no sense as Israel is notoriously unwilling to make any concessions.

If baseless fantasies like the above are all the U.S. can come up with it is truly at the end of its abilities.

A chance of a war between Israel and Hizbullah in Lebanon is increasing daily. While there are already daily clashes these are limited by certain red lines and targets. Both sides still avoid to cross those.

But Israel's government needs a victory. Its war aims in Gaza are clearly not achievable. Losses are mounting. Its population, especially the settlers from the north who had to flee their homes, are unruly.

Alastair Crooke thinks (vid) that Israel will start a full out war with Hizbullah simply because the Israeli government needs a victory. He thinks that Netanyahoo still thinks he can achieve one. Others though have their doubts. Hizbullah today is far better equipped and trained than it had been during the 2006 war with Israel. That war ended in a draw or, as some see it, with a defeat of Israel. I know of no expert in that area who thinks that Israel today would fare any better than that.

I'd say let them try. The may well learn from it.

But why the Biden administration even thinks that it can stop such a clash by presenting plans it has no means to press for is beyond me.

Posted by b on February 5, 2024 at 15:29 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/02/i ... l#comments

*******

“The Paris Proposal is an Israeli Proposal in Contradiction with the Demands of the Resistance”
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on FEBRUARY 5, 2024
Zoe Alexandra

Image
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, Israel, January 9, 2024. Photo: State Department

The latest diplomatic efforts by the United States, Egypt, and Qatar have produced a widely unpopular deal which would not even secure a permanent ceasefire.

In the last weekend of January, intelligence officials from Israel, the United States, and Egypt, along with Qatari authorities met in Paris, France, to discuss a proposal for a truce between Israel and the Palestinian resistance.

The possibility of a pause in Israel’s non-stop bombing of Gaza, which in the past four months has killed over 27,000 people, including 10,000 children, has been met with cautious optimism by many who have watched Israel carry out innumerable atrocities, with what seems like complete impunity.

However, a deeper look at the details of the proposal paints a much less optimistic picture. As contradictory news reports emerge of the proposal and its future, it is crucial to understand what is on the table and what implications it has for the people of Palestine.

The proposal

The Paris proposal is not a ceasefire agreement, but a humanitarian pause broken into three phases.

The first phase would see a 45-day pause in all hostilities along with the release of all Israeli hostages in Gaza who are under the age of 19 or wounded, in exchange for an agreed-upon number of Palestinian prisoners.

The number of days of the pause in the second phase has not been determined, but it envisages the release of Israeli military personnel, in exchange for an agreed-upon number of Palestinian prisoners, and an increase in the amount of aid flowing into Gaza. According to a report in Al Akbar, there has also been talk of the second phase including the withdrawal of Israeli forces from dense residential areas, the creation of a no-fly zone in Gaza, and a guarantee for the return of displaced Palestinians in Rafah to Northern Gaza and Gaza city.

The focus of the third phase is to be on the exchange of bodies of the dead for the release of more Palestinian prisoners. This phase would also include a provision to begin dialogue to potentially reach a permanent ceasefire.

Apprehensions

The Paris proposal has been met with apprehension from people across Palestine and supporters of the Palestinian cause. Mahmoud*, a Palestinian left leader told me, “First and foremost, we have to name (sic) that the Paris proposal is an Israeli proposal in contradiction with the demands of the resistance.”

The demands which have been outlined by Hamas spokespersons over the past four months and ratified by the other Palestinian resistance factions, have been completely disregarded in this proposal. The most essential of these are a permanent end to the Israeli aggression in Gaza, the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, the lifting of the 18-year siege on Gaza, and for the unlimited entry of aid, including for the enclave’s rebuilding. Following the fulfillment of these demands, they call for a negotiation for the “all for all” prisoners swap.

For Mahmoud, not only are these demands not addressed in the proposal or left undefined, as is the case with the entry of aid and the number of Palestinian prisoners to be released in each phase, but some of the terms would actually see Israel “trying to achieve politically and diplomatically, what they couldn’t achieve militarily.”

For instance, while the agreement would possibly provide for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from major roads and urban areas, they would remain in other areas. “This means that they’re going to maintain control over positions inside the Gaza Strip that they plan to turn into a buffer zone,” Mahmoud explained.

He emphasized, “This proposal would be a huge loss for the Palestinian people. Four months of fighting, the killing of more than 30,000 people, and the destruction of tens of thousands of homes and infrastructure to just reach a temporary ceasefire without freeing the prisoners, or changing or improving the conditions that Palestinians lived under prior to October 7 — I don’t think that such an agreement would be accepted by the majority of the Palestinian parties or people, and it will be met with resistance.”

Israel faces pressure

Netanyahu’s war cabinet is currently reviewing the proposal to determine some of the undefined provisions and the future of its war on Gaza. Meanwhile, Israeli officials have had varying responses to their own proposal, with some far-right ministers publicly rejecting it and for that matter, any pause in the country’s military campaign.

The reality is that Israel is facing a tremendous amount of pressure to end its genocidal war. At the international level, more and more world leaders are joining humanitarian organizations and the United Nations in condemning Israel and calling for an immediate ceasefire. Israel is also facing regional pressure, as Yemeni, Lebanese, and Iraqi resistance groups have been launching different types of operations against it in solidarity with the Palestinian people. The regional dynamic of the war is likely to escalate with the United States conducting retaliatory strikes against these groups.

While Netanyahu and other ministers are defiant in the face of the ruling of the International Court of Justice and resolutions of the United Nations calling for a ceasefire, the Israeli government also faces significant challenges domestically. A key source of pressure are the families of the hostages who have demanded that Netanyahu’s government reach a prisoner exchange deal at any cost.

Added to this is the fact that despite the destruction and bloodshed which it has unleashed, Israel has still failed to achieve its military objectives in Gaza — the complete destruction of the resistance and infrastructure, and the return of the hostages without negotiations and through a military operation.

“Four months later, they haven’t realized any of these goals and their forces are exhausted,” Mahmoud told me. He explained, “All of these reasons are pushing the Israelis through allies to actually engage in dialogue and reach an agreement that would enable them to be victorious at a certain level. Whatever they couldn’t achieve through the military operation, they are now trying to achieve through political avenues.”

Pressure from the United States, Israel’s biggest political and financial backer, to end fighting in Gaza, is also a significant part of the calculation. Joe Biden’s administration has been under heavy criticism from broad sections of society, including traditional supporters of the Democratic Party, for its stubborn support to Israel. Many analysts predict that Biden’s response to the genocide in Gaza could even cost him reelection in November.

On January 29, just a day after the Paris proposal was first drafted, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, during a joint press conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, said, “I believe the [Paris] proposal is a strong one and a compelling one that, again, offers some hope that we can get back to this process. But Hamas will have to make its own decisions.”

What’s next?

The Paris proposal is still being reviewed and discussed by both parties and it is likely that in the coming days, they will make announcements regarding the viability and future of the document. As US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to visit the region and has “reiterated the importance of securing a humanitarian pause that includes the release of hostages held by Hamas,” it is likely there will be increased pressure for some version of this proposal to move forward.

However, as Mahmoud stated firmly, “Palestinians are not going to accept any truce if it doesn’t ensure the ending of the siege, if it doesn’t ensure the freedom of our political prisoners, and bettering the conditions inside of Gaza. People on the ground in Gaza and Palestine and the Arab region will not celebrate such a deal that is only about a temporary ceasefire without the [fulfillment of] other demands that the resistance and the Palestinian people rallied behind since the beginning of this battle.”

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2024/02/ ... esistance/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10848
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Wed Feb 07, 2024 12:07 pm

ATTRITION WAR — HOW ISRAEL IS LOSING ON THE ECONOMIC FRONT

Image

by John Helmer, Moscow @bears_with

The Axis of Resistance — that’s the Arab militaries with Iran and in the background, Russia – knows how to wage economic warfare against the US and its proxy, Israel. The Houthi sanctions on shipping, for example, are showing more effectiveness in stopping Israel-bound or Israel-linked vessels in the Red Sea than US sanctions have been to block Russian oil shipments.

In attrition war, on the economic front just like the Gaza and other fire fronts, the Axis of Resistance wins by maintaining its offensive capacities and operations for longer than the US and US-backed Israeli forces can defend. Like troops, tanks, and artillery pieces, the operational goal is to grind the enemy slowly but surely into retreat, then capitulation.

How to measure if this is happening now to the Israelis in the international money markets?

An international currency and bond trader answers by providing, first, a primer for each of the market indicators, and how to read them; and then a ready reckoner for the damage being done to Israel’s economic resources as those who operate in the money markets gauge their opportunity.

For making money, you see, the opportunity of capitalizing on Israel’s defeat may soon be more profitable than investing in its success. When the markets see this chance at profit-making, usually long before the politicians and their captive media acknowledge it, there is an inflection point in the flow of money. That does its damage, not by hitting the Israelis and Americans in their bunkers with bullets and bombs, but by moving the money the US-backed Israeli entity needs out of reach, and cutting them off, both the US and Israel, from market confidence that they can win their war, genocide or not.

The writer of this primer and money-market assessment has requested anonymity to protect against retaliation from the US, Israel or their allies.


Primer for the money markets

Understanding market indicators is crucial during prolonged conflicts. To forecast the outcome of the conflict, you need a gauge for how financial markets respond to the evolving geopolitical situation.

Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the foreign exchange (forex, currency) markets are the first markets to look at. There are the safe haven currencies: issuers from the strongest military countries – RUB (Russian Ruble), USD (United States Dollar), CNY (Chinese Yuan), and the currencies of the trading and financial hubs, CHF (Swiss Franc), GBP (British Pound), AED (United Arab Emirates Dirham). You can add others when they are appropriate in the circumstances of the war you are waging, defending, or betting on.

Then there are warzone or associated currencies: you must monitor the currencies of countries directly involved in or closely tied to the conflict. Currency depreciation may also signal economic problems developing under the fog of war – the EUR (European Union Euro), TRY (Turkish Lira), and ILS (Israeli Shekel). I don’t include the UAH (Ukrainian hryvnia) as it is entirely dependent now on life-support by the US and EU (with the risk of hyperinflation). The market bids up the currencies of countries which are winning their wars, and bids down the currencies of those which are losing.

THE COLLAPSE OF UAH TO USD SINCE THE WAR BEGAN

Image
Source: https://www.xe.com/

Not everyone has access to the Reuters or Bloomberg databases which traders use. Do your own research to select your data feeds but this information has become widely available. The real-time data-feed providers charge premium prices. If you can live with delayed quotes or secondary market makers, much of the longer trend data is available today for free on the internet.

The intraday charts are more for professionals or traders having to move large positions. You should note the time of day when the bid/ask spread is the narrowest. That is when most traders are active on both sides of the trade. Weekends, after-business hours, or when decisive news from the battlefield is anticipated, the bid/ask spread widens or there are no prices being made. Let the buyer beware when there is no confidence in what will happen next. Astute traders exploit the arbitrage opportunities between the various markets which view the battlefield from different points of view and with different sources of information; in this game you must have big money and low transaction costs to play.

The longer time period charts show underlying trends more clearly, as well as the currency support and resistance levels.

The forward market gives prices at fixed time intervals into the future; these are indeed wagers on the future. The spot market gives the parties two business days to settle the trade. Popular longer time periods are straight one week, one month, three months, six months, nine months, and one year.

Forward contract pricing is based on interest rate differences between the two markets. This is why you should start looking at the forex spot market first.

Many money market traders prefer to start with government bond markets. Russia and China are net creditor countries so their bonds are relatively thin or even not available due to sanctions. In order to move from one market to another (even in bonds) traders will have to move through the forex market, so I recommend starting here first. This is where most of the liquidity is.

Non-deliverable forwards (NDFs) . are the handy tool operated offshore to get around trading restrictions. NDFs are executed as swaps and are cash settled for the differences instead of the nominal amounts. In Europe most of these are settled in USD or EUR. For more info see this.

Next up is the bond market.

Government bonds: follow the yield the spread between short and long term rates. Government bonds are bought when other more risky assets are sold. This is to reduce third-party risk (if the money is on a bank account, the bank owes you the money — if you buy a government bond, the government owes you). Governments are insensitive to changes in market conditions. They will borrow as and when they need to, as well as to roll over previously issued debt. New issues, their amounts, and other details are usually published well in advance. Take note if the government you are following is borrowing in a foreign currency. This is acceptable in certain situations but is often a sign of weakness.

For a country in war, the more uncertain the outcome, the sharper the drop in the yield curve into the future. In the case of the Ukraine, as it loses its war, the more desperately it needs to borrow funds, and the shorter the period of time in which buyers of Ukrainian bonds will invest in order to make their profit. Note when the yield increases, the bond prices decline. UAH yields have had to increase sharply as the war progressed. Without the sharp yield increase the UAH bond would have been toilet paper. It still might become that.

Image
Source: https://www.investing.com/

When there is uncertainty in the markets, there is a flight to safety. Increased demand for safe-haven assets mean rising bond prices and lower yields. A sharp drop in yields is a signal that money is moving out of the declining, riskier market. It may be moving offshore into another currency. Large transactions are often spread out over time to keep a low profile, and mask the calculations of the big-money players from the smalltime bettors.

Corporate bonds: by monitoring the spreads between corporate and government debt you may be able to follow the way the market is calculating the risk between corporations and between corporations and governments. Defaults are a sign that businesses are struggling to sustain their revenues and meet their costs and debts. This is usually the signal for more market intervention from central banks, later from governments acting with fiscal instruments or regulatory and legal measures. The bond markets should be followed first because they are considerably bigger than stock markets, and harder in which to conceal expectations or rig values.

The stock market is best followed by a volatility index (VIX). This is also called the fear index — it measures the level of volatility in stock prices for the thirty-day period ahead. This is the foundation of derivatives pricing. Increasing volatility often means that many traders will have decided to leave the market. This then increases the price spread and reduces number and quantity of bids/offers. Such markets can be “pushed” (manipulated) often through derivative contracts.

VIX REACTS TO THE START OF THE UKRAINE WAR

Image
Analysis at source: https://www.schroders.com/

Conflict stocks are military, weapon, and ammunition suppliers which see higher demand during a prolonged war. If there is a shortage of a particular product or service needed by one of the belligerents and their suppliers refuse or cannot expand production /service, then you know the conflict is lost. This is actually the case for missile, tank, and artillery, as well as for 155-mm artillery shell manufacturers in the collective West. Following these stocks will show you the market sentiment on how the battlefield is going for one side or the other. Chinese and North Korean military providers are almost all state owned. They are difficult to follow and next to impossible to trade.

SHARE PRICE TRAJECTORIES OF THE MAJOR US, EUROPEAN ARMS MAKERS OVER THE COURSE OF THE UKRAINE WAR

Image
KEY: grey=Rheinmetall; green=BAE; orange=Northrup-Grumman; yellow=Raytheon (RTX). Source: https://markets.ft.com/

Commodities: All economies depend on energy. Geopolitical power is based on who controls it. Supply disruptions (Houthis) or concerns for global economic growth (EU deindustrialization) can lead to volatility in oil and gas markets (and then buyer’s markets).

Gold and precious metals: Often seen as safe-haven assets, the prices are often manipulated by derivative contracts. Statistics are not reliable (no audited statements from key players like the Federal Reserve). Refineries remelt bullion into different size bars. If they produce more measured in ounces or in kilograms for good delivery, you can guess whether the flow is west (collective West) or east (Russia, China). Mining and refining companies are often very well informed (it’s their business).

Trade Balances: Changes in trade balances indicate relative strengths often based on military muscle providing insight into how global commerce is affected by the conflict. Steel, aluminum, and concrete top the war indicator list. Strategic metals are the Achilles Heel for many purchasers. Shipping rates are also a good leading indicator.

PMI (Purchasing Managers’ Index): A decline in PMI may indicate economic contraction, influenced by the disruption caused by the prolonged war.

Sentiment surveys of these types will confirm whether the markets are calculating differently about the course of war than the general sentiment, fed as it always is by propaganda from all sides. Money market traders think that profitable trading ideas are usually the opposite of the general sentiment. They bet against conventions, but they don’t bet in the dark. So what you see the traders doing is often a glimpse of what the future of the war will turn out to be – who will win, who will lose, and at what cost.


Ready reckoner for Israel now and coming

Israel is a small place with just over nine million population.

The forex chart for the Israeli shekel (ILS) shows a slow but steady devaluation against the dollar until the beginning of the Hamas offensive on October 7; that’s when the decline in value accelerated sharply. This signals that the Jewish diaspora was sending US dollars to assist Israeli family members out of work or out of cash, and countrymen looking to leave the country. The shekel is very thinly traded and easy for the Israeli warfighters to manipulate, masking the real market impacts of the war.

DEVALUATION OF THE SHEKEL AGAINST THE DOLLAR

Image
Source: https://www.xe.com/

But beware of shekel rigging by the Israeli government and the Jewish diaspora in the US! This is how it was done in the very first days, primarily by Israel’s Central Bank.

Note that in October 2023, options traders saw a near-70% probability that the shekel would weaken to 4 per dollar in a month — a level unseen since 2015 — compared with only an 18% chance the day before the Hamas operation. Intervention has brought the shekel down from a peak of just over 4 to 3.67 this week. The shekel is one of the biggest losers this year among a basket of 31 major currencies tracked by Bloomberg.

The Tel Aviv 35 Index (TA-35) closed on February 1 at 1817.83. This amounts to a recovery from the collapse of stock value in the first four weeks of the Hamas operation, when the index hit a low of 1605.20 on October 26. While this market is also easy for the Israeli government and the diaspora to rig, the rise in value indicates how much confidence has been generated by the Israel Defence Forces operations in Gaza, and by market sentiment that Israeli is winning its war against Hamas; genocide has been positive for the shekel and for the TA-35.

TRAJECTORY OF ISRAELI STOCK MARKET PRICE INDEX, TA-35

Image
Source: https://www.google.com/

The Israeli bond market is heavily dependent on US state and local governments for 75% of their issue (about $150 million out of a total issue of $200 million) as of last October. This isn’t a bond market as traders understand it, because US government policy, backed by the media, and enforced by the Israel lobby and Jewish communities around the US, ensure there is no loss of confidence in the value to maturity of the bonds. This is market rigging with a difference – it is religious and ideological, as well as political. Even in the relatively short history of the Vatican banks, there has never been a time or an example of an international religion, combined with state governments and their military forces, to insist that the value of their money is backed by their god, or G-d as they report his spelling. By definition and faith, G-d cannot default; but the Israeli state can.

The Israel 5-year sovereign credit default swaps (CDS) are measured and reported to indicate market sentiment on the likelihood of a default, and the premium required for upfront payment in case default occurs. In recent time this reached a maximum value in early 2009. The immediate impact of the start of war last October was the small uptick visible in the chart and the flat line from then until mid-January. Since then, however, with the growing demonstration of the Ansarallah (Houthi) capacity to blockade Israeli shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, the increase of operational strikes on the northern (Hezbollah) front, and the impact of new Arab and Iranian offensive operations in the west (Syria, Iraq, Jordan), the perception of default risk has been returning to the October peak.

Image
Source: https://macrovar.com/

Reaction to these charts and values on the part of the international ratings agencies has been, first to put Israel debt issues on negative outlook, and then, second, on downgrades. Negative ratings from the agencies raise the cost of servicing Israel’s state and corporate bonds, and put pressure on the state budget. A ratings downgrade is a signal to the markets to go negative against the issuer – this usually follows a change in trader sentiment.

In Israel’s case, however, there has been an exceptional delay between negative outlook and downgrade. The last Fitch report on Israel was dated October 17; Moody’s followed on October 19; Standard & Poors (S&P) on October 24. There has been no new ratings report from Fitch, Moody’s, and Standard & Poor’s since then.

This indicates that enormous pressure is being applied to the ratings agencies and individual analysts not to notice the steady deterioration of the IDF’s military positions in Gaza and Lebanon; the collapse of shipping into and out of the port of Eilat; and the escalation of the regional war against US bases supporting Israel, including US and allied military operations around the Arabian peninsula, bombing and missile attacks across Syria and Iraq.

Image
Source: https://www.fitchratings.com/
For analysis of the rating reports in October, click to read. https://johnhelmer.net/the-gods-are-goi ... -pentagon/

Reuters and the Israeli press have reported that Israel acknowledged a budget deficit of 22.9 billion shekels in October, a leap from 4.6 billion in September; this pushed up the budget deficit over the prior 12 months to 2.6% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The deficit should increase as war damage accumulates. According to Reuters reporting in December, Israeli officials were admitting then it was “not possible to plan for the possibility that the war against Gaza’s Palestinian Hamas Islamists would stretch into March or beyond.”

By the end of December, the budget deficit had risen to 4.2% of GDP. By the end of January, the projection for this year had risen to 6.6%.

Image
Bezalel Smotrich, left, is Israel’s finance minister. Source: https://en.globes.co.il/

ISRAEL’S BUDGET DEFICIT AS PERCENTAGE OF GDP

Image
The all-time negative budget deficit/GDP ratio was recorded at 16.1% in 1981. Source: https://tradingeconomics.com

As real estate and other tax collections collapse, Israel will have to make a large cash call on the US. This is going to come in the near future, just as the government in Kiev has been forced into calling on Congress as the Ukraine war is being lost. The longer both wars are protracted, the more obviously the loss of confidence expresses itself in the US Congress.

The Axis of Resistance retains its military capacities for escalation on all fronts. But for the time being, the Arab states and Turkey have yet to introduce a blockade of their export shipments to Israel, and back a worldwide boycott along the lines of the anti-apartheid campaign against South Africa from 1959 until 1994.

ARAB STATE AND TURKISH GROWTH OF TRADE WITH ISRAEL SINCE 2020

Image
Source: https://thecradle.co/

Image
Source: https://thecradle.co/

And so it comes to pass that the war of attrition is not just between Israel and the Palestinians, but between Israel and the US and the Arab states, Iran and the Islamic states. The extent of the battlefield is only now taking shape.


https://johnhelmer.net/attrition-war-ho ... more-89315

******

Houthis hit British and American ships in the Red Sea
February 6, 14:15

Image

The Houthis reported that they hit the American bulk carrier Star Nasia, which was sailing in the Red Sea under the flag of the Marshall Islands, with a missile.
A little earlier, the Houthis reported that they had hit the British ship Morning Tide, which was damaged but was able to maintain its course.
Both vessels were hit by ballistic anti-ship missiles.

US and British airstrikes in Yemen, as expected, have not led to a decrease in the frequency of Houthi strikes in the Red Sea, except that the Houthis are now deliberately targeting ships associated with the US and Britain.
We can expect both new strikes on Yemen and new attacks on ships in the Red Sea. So far, the Houthis are confidently winning at the operational-strategic level, inflicting multibillion-dollar damage on their opponents.

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/8943478.html

Google Translator

*******

Yemen launches fresh attack on merchant ships in defiance of US raids

US-led airstrikes across war-torn Yemen have done little to deter Sanaa from continuing to target US, UK, and Israeli-linked vessels

News Desk

FEB 6, 2024

Image
(Photo Credit: AFP via Getty Images)
Yemen's armed forces spokesman, Brigadier General Yahya Saree, announced on 6 February that two successful military operations were conducted against US and UK merchant vessels transiting the Red Sea.

Saree confirmed the attacks directly hit the Marshall Islands-flagged Star Nasia bulk carrier ship and the Barbados-flagged Morning Tide cargo container.

#معركة_الفتح_الموعود_والجهاد_المقدس pic.twitter.com/e2nGrGwUh6

— العميد يحيى سريع (@army21ye) February 6, 2024


London-based Furadino Shipping Ltd confirmed the Morning Tide displayed deck damage following an explosion during the early hours of Tuesday.

Morning Tide is owned by Furadino Shipping, and Greece-based Star Bulk SA owns Star Nasia.

Sanaa's latest military operation on western commercial vessels transiting the Red Sea came hours after US warplanes conducted a new round of airstrikes against “explosive uncrewed surface vehicles (USVs)” in Hodeidah province.

CENTCOM Self-Defense Strikes

On Feb. 5, at approximately 3:30 p.m. (Sanaa time), U.S. Central Command forces conducted a strike in self-defense against two Houthi explosive uncrewed surface vehicles (USV).

U.S. forces identified the explosive USVs in Houthi-controlled areas of… pic.twitter.com/WMntzJOnw6

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) February 6, 2024

The US and the UK have launched at least a dozen air raids across Yemen since mid-January in an attempt to deter the armed forces' actions in support of Palestine.

Sanaa says it has no intent of scaling back its campaign despite pressure from US and UK attacks.

On Sunday, Ansarallah spokesman Muhammad Abdul Salam stressed that the western strategy will “not achieve any goal … but rather increase their dilemmas” in the region.

“Yemen’s decision to support Gaza is firm and honorable and will not be affected by any attack. [Our military capabilities] are not easy to destroy and have been rebuilt during years of harsh war,” the official said via social media, adding that Washington and London “should submit to international public opinion, which demands an immediate halt to the Israeli aggression [in Gaza].”

https://thecradle.co/articles/yemen-lau ... f-us-raids

******

‘Sides Not Solutions’: Zionist Propaganda in UK Schools
05-02-2024
Alex Turrall

If you are a teacher in the UK then you will already be familiar with the ‘Prevent Duty’ (or simply, Prevent) and the associated mandatory training that must be refreshed each year. The aim of Prevent, per its statutory guidance, is ’to stop people from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism.’1 In the abstract, this policy appears to most educators as an appropriate counterpart to their broader safeguarding duties, with any serious concerns being referred to ‘Channel’, a rehabilitation programme. But, in practice its application has been anything but objective. A report by the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) highlights that Muslims – less than 10% of the UK’s population – comprised 60% of Channel referrals. Whereas far-right extremists made up only 10% of Channel referrals, despite 31% of young people ‘believing Muslims are taking over England’. This discriminatory bias has led to a two-year-old being referred to social services for singing ‘Allahu Akbar’ and, presciently, a schoolboy being accused of ‘terrorist-like views’ for possessing a Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) leaflet, with ‘Free Palestine’ badges being considered ‘extremist’. It is worth noting that 80% of Channel referrals were rejected between 2006 and 2013, validating MCB’s assessment of Prevent, ‘that children are being viewed through the lens of security and practitioners are finding threats where none exist in many cases.’2


A general critique of Prevent aside, when completing the training for teachers myself I was curious if the so-called ‘Israel-Palestine conflict’ would feature. There was nothing particularly prominent, until the ‘Promoting Best Practice’ section. In its summary, the training listed ‘Educate Against Hate’ as its sole source of useful classroom resources, and the first on that list is the organisation ‘Solutions Not Sides’ (SNS).3 Upon further inspection, I discovered that the SNS training package provides misleading and disingenuous ‘both sides’ messaging which perniciously supports the legitimacy of Israeli occupation, and that their wider funding and partner network consists of a conspicuous coalition of major Zionist groups.


The Propaganda War on Children

‘No one can be in the world, with the world, and with others and maintain a posture of neutrality. I cannot be in the world decontextualized, simply observing life.’

– Paulo Freire4


SNS was founded in 2009 by Sharon Booth, former PA to the British Defence Attaché in Jordan, and claims to provide ‘a critical approach to education on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,’offering a wide range of ‘teacher guides’ and ‘student-led learning resources.’ There are too many to analyse in full, but an exploration of their key terms, guide to ‘conspiracy theories,’ and overall message lay bare a disturbing exercise in Zionist propaganda.


The key definitions provided by SNS to supposedly aid its audience’s understanding of ‘the situation’ of Israel’s occupation characterise the organisation’s broader worldview.5 They give some historical background to the word ‘Apartheid’ and note its designation as a ‘crime against humanity’ by the UN. But nowhere do they mention its application by Israel in Palestine. Painting a both-sides narrative here would of course be folly, since even leading Israeli political figures have categorised it precisely in those terms.6 Though SNS acknowledge that the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign (BDS) is comparable to ‘tactics used to help end Apartheid in South Africa,’ they suggest that because some unnamed ‘particular individuals’ have targeted Jewish rather than Israeli shops, the campaign could be a vehicle for anti-Semitic actions. They also argue that Jews are particularly sensitive to boycotts as they could elicit ‘terrible memories and fears for Jewish people’ who were subjected to them in Nazi Germany. No mention is made of Israel blocking Palestinian goods, such as in occupied East Jerusalem in 2016,7 or its 16-year siege of Gaza.8 Colonialism, we are told, is a system ‘of domination, land, economic and population control by one country, power, or empire, over another, in the latter’s indigenous land, to the detriment, exploitation, and abuse of the indigenous population.’ Although Israel’s violent expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians ‘undoubtedly required drastic changing of the demographics’ (Israel’s founding is not labelled colonial),9 the term colonialism is said to be ‘misapplied in the context of modern international agreements, as Israel is now a fully recognised and legitimate state, rather than a temporary foreign power.’ While appealing to the authority of international law is plainly fallacious, following a logic that could be applied to all colonial configurations in history, the idea that Israel was not or is no longer a colonial state is also widely disputed, even by Israeli academics.10 SNS substantiate their claim by stating, despite numerous historical accounts to the contrary,11 that ‘some Israelis are themselves indigenous to the land, as their families have been in the land for many generations.’ In fact, as Steven Salaita notes, this is a claim made by Zionists to appropriate the sense of ‘access, belonging, biology, culture, jurisdiction, and identity’ that true indigeneity connotes.12 By endorsing these Zionist claims to legitimacy while whitewashing Israel’s overtly settler colonial origins, SNS is both explicitly and implicitly defending its historic and continued occupation of Palestine.


On the Holocaust, SNS say that historical comparisons can help contemporary understanding, but ‘the occupation of the Palestinian territories is in no way similar to the Holocaust.’ It is true that the industrial extermination committed by the Nazis is different to the 75-year process of the Nakba, nevertheless, ‘the fate of the Palestinians,’ wrote Holocaust survivor Israel Shahak, ‘should be discussed together with the Holocaust!’ If not just for the fact that Nazi expressions like ‘thinning out’ or ‘making clean [of Palestinians]’ are common Israeli expressions, Shahak argues that asserting the ‘uniqueness’ of the Holocaust as a crime solely against Jews not only ignores its other victims, but more importantly, encourages an attitude of indifference and wilful disregard for systematic violations against other human groups in the past, present, or future.13 And finally, while the Nakba is described as a time of ‘utmost devastation for Palestinians,’ the SNS material claims that some Israelis associate ‘Nakba’ with the establishment of Israel (quite correctly, of course), and therefore ‘feel upset or threatened by the term.’ The implication here is that mentioning the Nakba could elicit emotional responses from both Palestinians and Israelis, and each side should receive equally compassionate treatment regarding those responses. Again, such logic obscures the rationale and motivations behind each of these interpretations, painting each side as equally traumatised, thus obscuring the historical reality of who the perpetrators and victims of the Nakba were. Indeed, it seems fitting that the SNS timeline resource lists Deir Yassin as the sole massacre carried out by Israel,14 despite it being just one in a long history of such atrocities.15


The SNS guide to ‘conspiracy theories’ deliberately includes some patently ludicrous ideas such as ‘Did Jews fake the Holocaust so they could create Israel?’ and ‘Did Muslims start the Holocaust?’ with questions related to some inconvenient truths such as ‘Did Israel create ISIS?’ SNS claims that this conspiracy theory ‘serves to disregard and downplay the active threat that the group [ISIS] continues to advocate for the murder of people in the West and Jewish people.’16 It is striking that this is their concern given that it is Muslims who constitute the vast majority of terror-related fatalities.17 But it also belies well-documented Israeli collaboration with like-minded groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria,18 as well as Israeli support for ISIS from a geostrategic perspective.19 Appropriately, for those who want to fact-check any of SNS’s claims in this regard, it recommends Bellingcat,20 a veritable hive of former western military and intelligence officers with a history of spreading disinformation.21


The stated purpose of this programme, visualised by a spectrum analogous to horseshoe theory, is to channel any anti-Israel/Palestine conversations, which are considered ‘lose-lose,’ towards a neutral position, which in reality is a two-state solution. You cannot be pro- one side. No. You should aim to be ‘pro-solution,’ a wholly nebulous ‘win-win’ scenario, only achieved through non-violence, and with a single caption: ‘Emotions: Hope, empathy, respect, empowerment.’22 A student-led resource on ultranationalism is particularly pernicious. With big pictures of Milosevic, Stalin, and Hitler23 it states that ‘extreme nationalism promotes the interests of one state or people above all others,’24 implying to children that support for a single-state solution for Palestine, the establishment of a democratic state for all, and the end of occupation is akin to the ultranationalism of Hitler and an unspeakably heinous proposal.


Since its establishment, SNS has worked with over 400 schools and 60,000 students. But an SNS report of school tours from 2017 is instructive for understanding their actual goals. Despite stating that the 2,079 student participants came from ‘a mix of backgrounds,’ the report demonstrated a strong focus on areas with proportionally higher Muslim populations (Manchester, Leicester, and two tours of Bradford). In each tour they admit that most students were Muslims, and for the Midlands they even stated that ‘to the best of our knowledge, we did not work with any Jewish students during the week.’25 In fact, in a document entitled ‘Solutions Not Sides Business Plan,’ which has now been removed from its website, SNS stated that their main targets were ‘areas [of Britain] with the largest populations of Jews and/or Muslims.’26 As this clearly does not square with the majority of students they are engaging with, it is apparent that SNS view Muslim children through the lens of security, and thus provide total continuity with the British government’s broader Prevent strategy which disproportionately targets Muslim children.


It is not surprising that an organisation would take the opportunity to occupy a place in the UK’s £1.4 billion teacher training market,27 and doing so would clearly require said organisation’s agenda to dovetail with that of British national interests. In the case of Israel, and in the context of 80% of Conservative MPs being members of Israeli lobby group Conservative Friends of Israel,28 this would mean disseminating information in such a way as to demonstrate tacit support for Israel and affirming ‘western values’. In fact, a 2015 SNS donor brochure underscores this well, with members of the ‘Occupy’ movement ‘wearing the Palestinian scarf and raising the Palestinian flag,’ being equated with the English Defence League ‘raising the Israeli flag.’29 To be clear, SNS does not deny that it receives funding from the British state, but the following section reveals an organisation that arose within the interests of a profoundly Zionist political milieu.


Solutions Not Sides: Origins


SNS was originally conceived as a flagship school programme by OneVoice Europe (OVE).30 OneVoice (with branch names OneVoice International, OneVoice Israel, and OneVoice Palestine) was founded in 2002 by billionaire Daniel Lubetzky. Its stated aim is focusing on leveraging a critical but largely untapped resource within the Israeli and Palestinian public: the centrist mainstream who support resolution of the conflict through a negotiated and mutually-acceptable two-state solution.’31 It is worth noting that Lubetzky sits on the advisory council for the Zionist lobby group, Israel Policy Forum,32 and is a director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL),33 a long-time collaborator with American imperialism in the suppression of social movements.34


OneVoice previously had on its board ‘State Department Special Advisor Dennis Ross, former Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Efraim Sneh, and former Israeli military ruler of the occupied West Bank General Danny Rothschild.’35 This has now changed but for a convoluted, but later revealing, reason. From 2013-2014, the United States funded OneVoice Israel (OVI) and OneVoice Palestine (OVP) with over $300k in the run up to the 2015 Israeli elections.36 OVI then merged with V15, a new ‘grassroots’ group advised by Barack Obama’s former national field advisor Jeremy Bird.37 V15 then merged with OVI and they were both subsequently absorbed by a new organisation, Darkenu (Our Path).38


Darkenu was founded in 2016 by former executive director of OVI, Polly Bronstein,39 with the help of former IDF General and Deputy Minister of Defense, Ephraim Sneh, and former IDF pilot and now businessman, Kobi Richter.40 Darkenu and Commanders for Israel’s Security organised the annual ‘Rabin Rally’ in 2017, inviting six former IDF chiefs of staff,41 and boasting speakers such as former Mossad chief, Shabtai Shavit,42 and retired Major General, Amnon Reshef.43 Indeed, One Voice International still exists as a separate entity, and has provided funding to the tune of $15 million since 2015 for its two major partners in Israel and Palestine, Darkenu and Zimam respectively.44 Darkenu’s current board members include former Brigadier General of the infamous Golani Brigade (who recently carved the Star of David into a park in Gaza),45 Baruch Spiegel, former paratrooper Yizhar Shai, and original founder of the One Voice Movement in Israel, Assaf Halachmi. Its stated mission is to ‘organise, amplify, and empower the moderate majority of Israelis, both Jewish and Arab, to exert influence on government policy and on the public discourse, ensuring our nation acts in line with … the spirit of Zionism.’46


The so-called non-partisanship at the heart of Darkenu’s mission is clearly non-existent, but how does this relate to SNS? On its current webpage, SNS emphatically reject the claim that it is funded by OneVoice: ‘SNS has received no funding from OneVoice since becoming an independent charity [in 2019], and even prior to that, all SNS funding was separately raised and held as restricted funds.’47 SNS received £90k of ‘net assets from OneVoice Europe’ according to their 2020 financial statement.48


Interestingly, the Wayback Machine internet archive shows that the FAQ section for SNS, and the question of OneVoice funding, was added after November 2nd, 2023. Their FAQs were previously listed elsewhere. Their statement on funding also specifies that they do not ‘share an office’ with OneVoice. It seems likely that the page was updated following a viral tweet from activist and rapper Lowkey (Kareem Dennis) on November 17th, who suggested that they share an office on Primrose Hill.49 Similarly, in response to an FAQ about funding by the British state, the 2022 SNS website stated that they do not ‘receive funding from the government of any other country or from individuals or organisations in any other country – all its funding for its work in the UK is from British sources.’ This has now been removed and replaced with a vague assertion that ‘other SNS funding comes mainly from grants by trusts and foundations and contributions from schools.’


Per financial reports from 2016 to 2021, with the stated aim of ensuring ‘that young people are more aware of the nuances behind the conflict in Israel and Palestine,’50 the British government granted SNS £350k.51 SNS funding from the British government is not in question, and they admit as much on their website, though they caveat that ‘there has never been any governmental input or interference.’ But why would they have to interfere if SNS is providing the same ‘balanced’ view of Israeli occupation as the British state?


Among its list of partners, SNS has received £120k from the Alan and Babette Sainsbury Charitable Fund, which lists former Conservative MP and President of the Conservative Friends of Israel (1997-2005) Timothy Sainsbury as a trustee.52 SNS also received £310k between 2018 and 2021 from the Pears Foundation.53 The Pears Foundation, in collaboration with Britain and Israel, provided £1.4m to establish the Britain Israel Research and Academic Exchange Partnership (BIRAX), a project specifically designed to undermine calls for an academic boycott of Israel in British universities. Its executive chair, Trevor Pears, sat on the board of the Conservative Friends of Israel and major Israel lobby group, BICOM.54


Given the litany of Zionist financial backers, it is odd that SNS categorically deny such a relationship with OneVoice. In fact, the notable absence of OneVoice in their list of partners twinned with such a strong ‘separation’ statement implies the relationship is no longer active. This begs the question as to why SNS still list Darkenu, a later evolution of OneVoice Israel, as a key partner, and one whom they use to platform Israeli speakers in British schools?

Sides Not Solutions


From ‘Solutions Not Sides’ course materials to its origins and partnerships, it is evident that, contrary to the name, it has firmly chosen a side. With the support of the British state, it is enacting an insidious propaganda campaign to subtly deceive children and educators across the UK.


By presenting Palestinian and Israeli needs as equally understandable and valid, SNS has sacrificed pedagogical integrity at the altar of spurious ‘impartiality,’ and its covert promotion of a two-state solution is essentially campaigning for the continuation of Israeli occupation, and with it the daily brutality meted out against the Palestinians.


As Paulo Freire warns, the promise of neutrality in education should be a red flag for all critically conscious parents and educators, for ‘Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.’

References at link.

https://www.ebb-magazine.com/essays/sides-not-solutions

******

Rise in Israeli Citizens Attacks on Christians -Bishop Emeritus

Image
Two Jewish settlers attacked a Christian cleric in occupied East Jerusalem on Sunday, spitting on him and insulting him. Feb. 5, 2024. | Photo: X/@Kohaislame

“There are more and more attacks on Christians and Christian holy sites by Israeli extremists,” said Munib Younan.


The Palestinian bishop emeritus of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Munib Younan, denounced on Monday an increase in attacks by citizens of Israel against Christians in occupied East Jerusalem.

Speaking to the press, Younan said that the Israeli government is failing to take seriously the accountability of the perpetrators, while "there are more and more attacks on Christians and Christian holy sites by Israeli extremists."

“If one person is punished, this will be a deterrent,” said the bishop emeritus, who warned that the attacks will continue in the event that the perpetrators are not held accountable.

On that occasion, Younan referred to the spitting and insults that two Jewish settlers uttered on Sunday against a Christian cleric in occupied East Jerusalem. The two settlers were placed under house arrest pending an investigation.


The tweet reads, "Munib Younan, Bishop Emeritus of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land: "Attacks on Christians and Christian holy sites by Israeli extremists are multiplying."

In this regard, he stated that the Israeli police do not react to attacks against Christian clerics. “House arrest is not a deterrent,” the bishop said, noting that “the continued attacks are an indication of the incitement taking place in Jewish religious schools.”

Israeli occupation forces have killed 27,450 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and injured 66,835 others since October 7, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

In the occupied West Bank, 381 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive, while 4,400 others have been injured and 6,512 have been detained in the same period.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Ris ... -0012.html

*******

Iran Intelligence Forces Identify ‘Tens’ of Mossad Spies in 28 Countries
FEBRUARY 5, 2024

Image
The logo of Iran’s Intelligence Ministry (R) and the national flag of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Photo: PressTV.

Iran’s Intelligence Ministry says its forces have identified a significant number of spies linked to the Israeli Mossad spy agency in 28 countries across the world.

In a statement on Friday, the ministry announced what it described as the “largest combined intelligence and counter-intelligence operation” against the Israeli regime’s espionage and security organizations.

The statement underlined that the “venturesome” operation was conducted in the form of a series of intelligence-counterintelligence, offensive-defensive actions, and through the use of various methods of intelligence gathering, which led to obtaining a “unique” and “unprecedented” collection of information.

“In addition to intelligence and security findings, obtaining special information related to some of the most important secret military facilities, weapons factories, and strategic civilian industries of the usurping Zionist regime is also among the achievements of the ministry’s large and multi-stage operation,” the statement added.

Iran’s Intelligence Ministry stressed that the combined project resulted in spotting “tens of spies and terrorist elements” affiliated with the Israeli regime in 28 countries across the world and in three continents of Asia, Africa and Europe.

Stopping short of naming the countries involved in the operation, the statement said, “A number of spies in Tehran and several provinces of the country” were identified and dealt with legally or kept under security surveillance. “Also, several Iranian spies residing abroad were identified.”



Iran’s Intelligence Ministry said the particulars of foreign spies active in countries with which the Islamic Republic maintains relations will be provided to their respective intelligence bodies for due measures, including punitive and intelligence.

Pointing to the background and records of the identified spies, the statement said some of them “voluntarily” cooperated with the Mossad and committed treason against their countries, adding that the Israeli agency “forced” them to carry out various treacherous operations against the interests of their respective countries.

The ministry also underlined that the Israeli regime tapped into various methods and abused social media platforms as well as immigration and job-seeking sites to identify and communicate with the victims.

The statement said investigation and obtaining further information regarding the spies would continue.

On Monday, four individuals convicted of working for the Israeli spy agency and plotting a bomb attack in the country’s central province of Isfahan were executed in Iran.

In December last year, four main members of a sabotage team affiliated with Mossad were also executed in the northwestern Iranian province of West Azarbaijan after being convicted of acting against the country’s security.

Iran’s Intelligence Ministry has over the past years foiled numerous terrorist attacks by Mossad and its affiliated stooges against the country, also arresting and bringing to justice many terrorist members linked to Daesh and separatist outfits.

(PressTV)

https://orinocotribune.com/iran-intelli ... countries/

******

Israeli bombing of Gaza leaves 110,000 dead, wounded, missing

The death toll in Gaza has reached 35,096, including 12,345 children and 7,656 women, along with 309 health workers, 41 civil defense members, and 121 journalists

News Desk

FEB 5, 2024

Image
(Photo Credit: AFP)
According to a report from Geneva-based Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, some 110,000 Palestinian civilians have been reported killed, injured, or missing since the start of Israel's bombing campaign on the Gaza Strip since 7 October.

Figures from the 4 February Euro-Med report indicate that the death toll in Gaza has reached 35,096, of which 32,220 are civilians. This includes 12,345 children and 7,656 women, along with 309 health workers, 41 civil defense members, and 121 journalists. The report indicates that Israel's attacks in Gaza have left thousands suffering from permanent disabilities.

Israeli human rights violations persist despite a recent preliminary decision by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which mandated that the Israeli government implement all feasible action to avert genocide against the inhabitants of Gaza.

The human rights organization added that the Israeli military has killed 1,048 civilians since the ICJ ruling, in a direct violation of the 1948 Genocide Convention. Euro-Med further urged the international community to implement the "binding executive decision on the ICJ's ruling" as it would "guarantee the safety of civilians and their return to their homes."

Since 8 October, around 85 percent of Gaza's population has been displaced, while Israel's prolonged bombing of the enclave has destroyed over 79,000 housing units and partially damaged an additional 207,000.

The ICJ ruling on South Africa's genocide case against Israel on 26 January ordered Tel Aviv to take measures to prevent acts of genocide in the Gaza Strip and to allow humanitarian aid to enter the enclave.

Israel must submit a report to the ICJ within a month detailing its efforts to comply with the provisional measures. Judge Joan Donoghue emphasized that the decision imposes "international legal obligations" on Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the decision of the ICJ, claiming that "Israel's commitment to international law is unwavering."

In contrast, the State of Palestine hailed the judges of the ICJ, saying, "The State of Israel now stands accused of destroying an entire population, facing charges of genocide."

https://thecradle.co/articles/israeli-b ... ed-missing

Lebanon rejects demands to push Hezbollah away from southern border

Lebanon’s caretaker foreign minister said Beirut will not accept ‘partial solutions’

News Desk

FEB 6, 2024

Image
(Photo Credit: Council on Foreign Relations)

Lebanese caretaker Foreign Minister, Abdallah Bou Habib, voiced on 6 February the nation’s rejection of recent Israeli and international demands seeking to push Lebanese resistance group, Hezbollah, north of the Litani River, saying Beirut will not accept ‘partial solutions’ to resolving the cross-border conflict.

“Western countries demand the retreat of Hezbollah for about eight to ten kilometers north of Litani,” Bou Habib said in an interview with Nida al-Watan. “This is a formula that Lebanon rejects. [Beirut] will not accept ‘partial solutions’ that do not bring the desired peace and do not secure stability but will lead to the renewal of the war again and again.”

Instead, the foreign minister called for a “comprehensive implementation of UN Resolution 1701.”

UN Resolution 1701 was issued following the 2006 Israel–Hezbollah war, which called for, among other things, respect for the Blue Line, a border drawn up by the UN in 2000.

Bou Habib expressed Lebanon’s demands in relation to the liberation of Shebaa Farms and the Kfarchouba hills, saying, "What we hear from some foreign ministers of the Western countries is that Israel is not in the question of this withdrawal, and our answer was that Lebanon will only accept a complete solution to all border issues with Israel, and half solutions do not work and will not [be accepted].”

He also demanded that part of a potential deal be for Israel to “stop the air, land and sea violations that have exceeded 30,000 violations since 2006."

On 5 February, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said that “time is running out” in relation to a diplomatic solution with Lebanon, adding to his French counterpart Stephane Sejourne during her visit to Israel that “if we do not reach a diplomatic solution on Lebanon, we will move militarily to return the residents of Israeli towns on Lebanon’s borders,”

Hezbollah has recently released statistics showing that over 230,000 settlers had evacuated because of their operations since 8 October.

US special envoy Amos Hochstein paid a visit to Israel to speak with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in an attempt to develop a plan to de-escalate the crossfire between Lebanon and Israel.

Gallant requested for Hezbollah to be pushed back 8–10 kilometers from the border, an increase of UN forces and Lebanese army in the area, and the means to return settlers to the northern settlements.

Hezbollah's Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah said during a recent speech in reference to Israeli threats and negotiation talks, “we don’t fear war, and there are no talks before the war on Gaza ends.”

https://thecradle.co/articles/lebanon-r ... ern-border
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10848
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Wed Feb 07, 2024 11:08 pm

Resistance Says No Deal Without Permanent Ceasefire
FEBRUARY 6, 2024

Image
Smoke rises following an Israeli bombardment in the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern occupied Palestine, Sunday, Feb. 4. Photo: AP.

Sources tell Al Mayadeen that the Palestinian Resistance has received a ceasefire proposal that does not go with its vision for ending the war and would enable “Israel” to continue its hostilities.

Negotiations are taking place over a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and a complete withdrawal of the Israeli occupation forces, sources told Al Mayadeen on Sunday.

The stipulations of the agreement being drawn up include the issues of the ceasefire, withdrawal, prisoner exchange, reconstruction, displaced people, the entry of aid, and the lifting of the siege imposed on Gaza.

Intelligence obtained by Al Mayadeen indicates that the Paris Agreement touched on the prisoner exchange but completely neglected the ceasefire and the withdrawal from Gaza, whereas the Resistance’s agreement highlights those issues as pivotal.

There is no clause confirming a ceasefire after the truce ends, and there are no regional or international guarantees that the Israeli occupation would not resume hostilities after it; there also are not enough details regarding the essential issues of the Resistance and Gaza in and of itself, the sources said.

The Paris Agreement also offered no guarantees about an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza as Israeli officials claim that they want to establish a buffer zone within the blockaded Strip.

“The Resistance is concerned that Israel intends to remain in Gaza and complicate the reconstruction efforts in a bid to drive a wedge between the people of Gaza and the Resistance,” one source told Al Mayadeen.

Additionally, there are apparently no solid grounds for the reconstruction effort nor the provision of temporary housing for displaced peoples amid the concerns that the Israeli occupation might seek to impede said efforts.

“Hamas is engaging in consultations with Palestinian factions and its allies from parties and regional forces,” the sources said, revealing that the agreement was brought up for discussion within the movement’s upper echelons.

It was revealed to Al Mayadeen that there would be a meeting in Cairo, Egypt, within days, which would be attended by representatives from several other countries, including Qatar.

The meeting is said to include a deep and comprehensive discussion set to be followed by Hamas’ leadership before a final response is granted.



While regional parties attempted to assure Hamas that the agreement would practically lead to a ceasefire and that the Israeli occupation could not continue the war, the Resistance underlined that it wanted genuine guarantees and mechanisms that would effectively lead to a ceasefire and the occupation’s withdrawal from Gaza and prevent the Israeli occupation from resuming hostilities.

“The Resistance cannot hand over its trump card, the military captives, without a guaranteed ceasefire, a withdrawal of the Israeli occupation forces, and an agreement on reconstruction and lifting the siege,” the sources underlined.

A leading figure from the Palestinian Resistance factions said earlier in the week that no agreement around a ceasefire deal had been reached yet.

The remarks come after news outlets reported that Hamas had approved in principle the most recent ceasefire proposal made by Qatari officials. The official described the statement made by the Qatari Foreign Ministry as rushed and inaccurate.

The official explained that the party he represents had “received a message from the Hamas leadership regarding the framework paper that was presented based on the Paris meeting.”

It is worth noting that the meeting came up with a momentary ceasefire proposal, which included a three-stage prisoner exchange deal. The meeting was attended by William Burns, the Central Intelligence Agency director, and top Egyptian, Israeli, and Qatari officials.

The leading figure said, “There is no agreement on the framework yet, and Hamas has important remarks (regarding the proposal).”

Hamas officials had announced earlier that its representatives would submit a unified response in Cario, Egypt, that represents all Palestinian Resistance factions.

“To date, no delegation from the Hamas leadership has traveled to Cairo, and no date has been set for meetings yet,” the top official noted.

As reiterated on previous occasions, the official said the Paris Document is currently being studied “based on the agreed-upon national constants.”

“The priority will be for a comprehensive cessation of aggression, a complete withdrawal of occupation forces from Gaza, securing shelters for the displaced, and completing a serious exchange process,” the official explained.

He further stressed that “Zionist media outlets are dissipating fabricated and false news to stir up public opinion about the negotiations.”

Finally, the official said Egypt and Qatar have unified mediation efforts.

A Qatari official had also told Reuters, “There is no deal yet. Hamas has received the proposal positively but we are waiting for their response.”

Meanwhile, the media advisor to the head of the Hamas political bureau told Reuters that the group received the Paris truce proposal for a ceasefire and release of hostages in Gaza, but “we haven’t given a response to the Gaza truce proposal,” adding, “It is still being studied.”

“We can’t say that the current stage of negotiation is zero and at the same time we cannot say that we have reached an agreement,” Taher al-Nono said.

https://orinocotribune.com/resistance-s ... ceasefire/

Scores of Gazans Killed After Qatar Says Israel Approved Ceasefire Plan
FEBRUARY 6, 2024

Image
A Palestinian man looks devastated after a building in Khan Yunis in Gaza was demolished by an Israeli airstrike on 6 November, 2023. Photo: AFP.

Scores of Palestinians have been killed in overnight Israeli aggression in the besieged Gaza Strip, after mediator Qatar said Tel Aviv had approved a proposal to pause its war on the besieged territory.

The health ministry in Gaza said 105 people were killed overnight from Thursday to Friday, as Israeli raids and shelling of Khan Younis continued.

The southern Gaza’s main city has recently become the epicenter of relentless strikes and intense fighting between Palestinian resistance combatants and Israeli forces.

One of the Israeli strikes targeted a residential building near the European Hospital in Khan Younis overnight, officials said.

Nearly four months of the Israeli invasion have rendered Gaza “uninhabitable”, according to the UN, while an Israeli siege has led to dire shortages of food, water, fuel and medicines.

The humanitarian crisis, coupled with soaring civilian casualties, has spurred increasing international calls for a ceasefire.

Qatar said Thursday that a truce proposal made in Paris “has been approved by the Israeli side and now we have an initial positive confirmation from the Hamas side”.

A source close to Hamas, however, was quoted as saying that there was no agreement on the framework of the agreement yet.

“The factions have important observations and the Qatari statement is rushed and not true,” AFP quoted the unnamed source as saying.

Israel’s minister of military affairs Yoav Gallant said Friday the regime’s forces will continue their Gaza invasion to Rafah, despite the huge numbers of Palestinian civilians there who have no where else to go.

“We will continue until the end, there is no other way,” he said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

More than 27,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October 7 as Israel intensifies its strikes on the besieged strip.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (RCS) said the Israeli military continues to encircle al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis.

Raed al-Nems, a spokesman for the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, said Israeli forces are still “targeting every moving object in al-Amal Hospital, which houses 100 medical staff and nurses in addition to 7,000 displaced people.”

He noted that bodies are lying outside the hospital, while medical staff can’t carry them because of the siege.

According to the RCS, Naeem Yusuf Hasan, 49, was killed by an Israeli sniper while he was attempting to help a wounded volunteer near the southern gate of the hospital.



Officials said the hospital is completely encircled from all sides, with Israeli special forces and snipers positioned on the roofs of nearby buildings.

Amid the siege on al-Amal hospital, the RCS said Thursday there are “critical shortages in medical supplies, medications, and fuel” as well as a “severe shortage of available food for staff, patients, and displaced individuals, leading to reducing meals to one per day to preserve remaining supplies.”

On Wednesday, RCS medical teams performed funeral prayer at al-Amal Hospital after a 75-year-old woman and a 45-day-old girl died because of a lack of oxygen at the hospital.

The health ministry in Gaza says more than 30,000 displaced Palestinians in schools near Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis have no food or water.

The ministry urged the United Nations and its institutions to urgently intervene to provide aid to the displaced people.

‘Situation in northern Gaza increasingly dangerous’
To the north of Gaza, the Middle East Eye reported that the situation is becoming increasingly dangerous.

“The situation in the north is very difficult, it is very miserable, many areas have become very dangerous,” the news outlet’s correspondent said.

According to the report, Palestinians have crowded into the al-Sahaba area, al-Darraj and Shujaeyya and the Zaytoun neighborhoods.

“It is a very scary situation, and there is also a communications blackout,” it said.

According to the report, Israeli forces are conducting raids on homes in northern Gaza on foot.

https://orinocotribune.com/scores-of-ga ... fire-plan/

******

Hamas presents three-stage truce deal, demands full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza

The resistance group has called on Egypt, Qatar, Turkiye, Russia, and the UN to act as guarantors of the truce deal, stressing that its demands cannot be 'compromised' and that any obstacles can be 'ironed out' after negotiations start

News Desk

FEB 7, 2024

Image
(Photo Credit: Majdi Fathi/TPS)

Hamas, on 6 February, responded to a ceasefire offer presented by Qatari and Egyptian mediators with a counterproposal that calls for a 135-day truce that includes a three-step prisoner exchange process, the cessation of all military operations by the warring sides, the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, the unrestrained entry of humanitarian aid to the strip, and an end to violent settler incursions into Al-Aqsa Mosque.

"This agreement aims to stop mutual military operations between the parties, reach a complete and sustainable calm, exchange prisoners between the two parties, end the siege on Gaza, rebuild, return residents and displaced people to their homes, and provide shelter and relief for all residents in all areas of the Gaza Strip," the Hamas statement reads.

The proposal calls on Egypt, Qatar, Turkiye, Russia, and the UN to act as guarantors of the agreement.

Divided into three 45-day stages, the prisoner exchange deal would first see the release of all Israeli women captives, males under 19, the elderly, and the sick. The remaining male captives would be freed during the second phase, and the remains of those killed in fighting would be exchanged in the third phase.

The resistance group also wants the release of 1,500 prisoners, a third of whom would be selected from a list of Palestinians handed life sentences by Israel.

During the first stage, Hamas calls for increasing humanitarian aid deliveries to meet the needs of Gazans; the reconstruction of hospitals, homes, and facilities; a repositioning of Israeli forces "far outside" the populated areas in Gaza to allow for the safe transfer of prisoners; and a stop to aerial reconnaissance operations by Tel Aviv.

Before the second stage can start, Hamas says indirect discussions must continue with the aim of returning "to a state of complete calm." During these 45 days, Israeli troops would need to withdraw "far outside the borders of all areas of the Gaza Strip" while the reconstruction of homes and vital infrastructure is expected to expand.

"[The third] stage aims … to continue the humanitarian procedures for the first and second stages, in accordance with what will be agreed upon in the first and second stages," the Hamas statement reads.

Other demands in the addendum to the proposal include guarantees from Israel to refrain from re-arresting released Palestinian and Arab prisoners for the original charge of their detention, to improve living conditions in Israeli prisons, to ensure freedom of movement for all citizens in Gaza and the reopening of all crossings into the strip, to allow the delivery of tens of thousands of temporary homes and shelter tents, and to allow the resumption of all humanitarian services in Gaza – in particular by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

Hamas has also explicitly called for an end to violent settler incursions into Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem and "returning the conditions in Al-Aqsa to what they were before 2002."

Speaking to Al-Jazeera on Wednesday, Muhhamed Nazzal, a senior member of Hamas' political bureau, said nothing within the proposal can be "compromised."

"The Israeli killing machine must be brought to a halt. We wish to see Israeli occupation forces withdraw from the Gaza Strip entirely. Our response is realistic, and our demands are reasonable," Nazzal said. "We expect a negotiation to start. Once it starts, any obstacles can be ironed out along the way to reach a final agreement, whereby we can dot the Is and cross the Ts," he added.

In response to the comprehensive proposal, Israeli officials told Ynet on Wednesday that "they cannot accept an end to the war." For its part, the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the Times of Israel that Tel Aviv "does not have a response to Hamas' demands beyond its statement last night indicating that it was studying the proposal."

Netanyahu is set to meet with US State Secretary Antony Blinken, who arrived in Israel after visiting Saudi Arabia and Egypt, on Wednesday.

https://thecradle.co/articles/hamas-pre ... -from-gaza

US, Israel committing 'crime of starvation': Expert

Gazans are 'eating grass and drinking polluted water' as famine looms

News Desk

FEB 6, 2024

Image
Displaced Palestinians queue for food donations in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah, on November 30, 2023. (Photo credit: Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images)

A leading expert on the subject of famine says Israel and the US are committing the “war crime of starvation” in Gaza.

Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University and author of Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine, told the Democracy Now news program that unless Israel’s armed campaign is stopped, “Gaza will be in famine.”

De Waal says the war crime of starvation is defined as “using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including wilfully impeding relief supplies.”

This includes destroying food, foodstuffs, hospitals, medical care, sanitation, shelter, etc.

De Waal explains that “Israel is knowingly creating these conditions, because it has been warned, and warned repeatedly, and yet it has continued. And so that makes it culpable. And regardless of the intent, the crime is being committed.”

“And those who are arming Israel, supporting Israel and undermining the relief capacity, which is particularly the UNRWA, are complicit in this,” he added, referring to US military and diplomatic support for Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.


The US has also spearheaded the effort to cut funding to UNRWA, the only relief organization capable of providing food aid to Gaza.

The US and other countries have cut funding to the relief group amid unfounded accusations by Israel that 12 UNRWA employees had participated in the 7 October attack on Israeli military bases and settlements by the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing.

The US and others went ahead with the funding cuts despite having been warned that famine in Gaza is looming, including through a recent International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling.

On 6 February, CNN interviewed several Palestinians in Gaza regarding their difficulty in finding food for themselves and their children.

Parents must spend much of their days searching for food despite the danger of being killed by Israeli bombardment.

Hanadi Gamal Saed El Jamara, a 38-year-old mother of seven kids, told CNN that she spends her days begging for food in the muddied streets of Gaza.

“They are weak now, they always have diarrhea, their faces are yellow,” Jamara said. “My 17-year-old daughter tells me she feels dizziness, my husband is not eating.”

The family, originally from northern Gaza, was displaced by the bombing to a tent city in Rafah on the Egypt border.

“We are dying slowly,” reflected Jamara. “I think it’s even better to die from the bombs, at least we will be martyrs. But now we are dying out of hunger and thirst.”

Mohammed Hamouda, a physical therapist displaced to Rafah, told CNN how his colleague, Odeh Al-Haw, was killed trying to get water for his family.

Haw was waiting in line at a water station in Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza when he and dozens of others were struck by Israeli bombardment, Hamouda said.

“Unfortunately, many relatives and friends are still in the northern Gaza Strip, suffering a lot,” Hamouda, who has three children, said. “They eat grass and drink polluted water.”

Another woman, Gihan El Baz, says her children wake each day “screaming” for food.

“In the shelters, there is not enough food, the sun sets on us, and we haven’t even had any lunch,” El Baz, who lives with ten relatives inside a weather-worn tent in Rafah, told CNN.

“There are no drinks, no clean water, no clean bathrooms, the kid cries for a biscuit and we can’t even find any to give her.”

https://thecradle.co/articles/us-israel ... ion-expert

Iraq says 'no contact' with US after latest attack

Iraq’s prime minister has been focused on efforts to secure a US withdrawal from the country

News Desk

FEB 7, 2024

Image
(Photo credit: Iraqi Prime Minister's Office)

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said on 7 February that Baghdad has had no contact with Washington since a violent US air attack targeted Iraq and Syria at the start of this month.

“We do not have any contact with America after the recent attack,” Sudani said in comments to Al-Arabiya and Shafaq.

The prime minister added that a “formula” has been reached to de-escalate tensions.

“A formula has been reached for the factions to stop their attacks in exchange for stopping the American response,” he said.

Several Iraqi resistance factions banded together after the start of the Hamas–Israel war in October, forming the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI) coalition. In solidarity with Gaza and rejection of US support for Israel, the IRI began near-daily operations against US bases in Iraq and Syria, as well as Israeli targets.

The attacks on US bases in Iraq also served to hasten the withdrawal of US troops from the country.

One of the Iraqi resistance attacks killed three US soldiers near the Syrian–Jordanian border last month, prompting a deadly response from Washington on 3 February. The US has vowed further responses.

The escalation came as the Iraqi government was continuing efforts to diplomatically facilitate a withdrawal of US combat forces from Iraq and a transition of the US presence there to an “advisory role.” Last month, talks on the matter took place between Baghdad and Washington.

However, the US has pushed back and publicly said the talks are not aimed at bringing about a US withdrawal.

"Ending the mission of the [US-led] international coalition to fight ISIS aims to remove all justifications for attacks on its advisors … Any military attack on the territory of Iraq must be rejected by all parties," Sudani said on Wednesday.

Sudani has repeatedly condemned the presence of both armed factions and US troops in Iraq.

The US coalition in Iraq “began with an Iraqi request and will also end with an Iraqi request,” he said.

The prime minister also claimed that the Iraqi Kurdistan Region (IKR) is involved in the talks to secure a US withdrawal. The IKR is known to serve as a hub for foreign intelligence agencies, including the CIA and Mossad.

Iraq issued a formal request for US military assistance against ISIS in 2014.

In 2020, following the assassination of Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, Iraq’s parliament voted in favor of expelling the US from Iraq, with the resolution specifically demanding the cancellation of Iraq’s formal request for US assistance.

Washington rejected the resolution and threatened to impose sanctions on Baghdad.

https://thecradle.co/articles/iraq-says ... est-attack

Netanyahu praises 'great friend' Milei for moving Argentinian embassy to Jerusalem

Argentina's far-right leader traveled to Israel in his first official foreign visit since being sworn into office

News Desk

FEB 7, 2024

Image
(Photo Credit: X)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Argentinian President Javier Milei on 7 February, thanking the newly elected leader for moving his nation's embassy from Tel Aviv to occupied Jerusalem.

“I’m delighted to welcome you, President Milei, and your delegation to Israel. You’re a great friend of the Jewish state. We are delighted with your decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move your diplomatic post there, and also, of course, an embassy,” Netanyahu said.

"We know that the greatest challenge to peace in our area, but also in yours, is Iran. And we appreciate the cooperation that we are doing with you in security and diplomacy … Your stalwart support for Israel in so many forms is deeply, deeply appreciated. Welcome to Jerusalem. Welcome, friend,” the Israeli premier added.

Milei arrived in Israel on Tuesday, pledging to move Argentina's embassy to occupied Jerusalem and highlighting Buenos Aires' support for Israel's “right to self-defense” in Gaza, where the Israeli army has massacred over 27,000 Palestinians – nearly two-thirds of whom are women and children.


“I have been committed since day one to making sure that my first diplomatic visit as president would be to the State of Israel. Here I am, keeping my promise now,” Milei said upon his arrival to Tel Aviv, adding that his visit is a “concrete testimony to the commitment we’ve had from the very first day of the terrorist attack by Hamas on 7 October.”

Argentina had “not only condemned the terrorist actions by Hamas,” he continued, “but also expressed our solidarity with the State of Israel and have continued to support Israel’s right to legitimate self-defense in this context.”

Milei also pledged to list the Palestinian resistance group Hamas as a “terrorist organization.”

In response to his comments, Hamas issued a statement condemning the Argentinian leader, calling the move of the diplomatic mission “a violation of the rules of international law, considering Jerusalem to be occupied Palestinian territory.”

Hamas also urged Milei to reverse this decision, saying it is “unjust and wrong” and places Argentina “as a partner of the Zionist occupier in its violations against our people and their rights.”

Argentina has joined the US, Guatemala, Honduras, Kosovo, and Papua New Guinea in recognizing occupied Jerusalem as the Israeli capital.

https://thecradle.co/articles/netanyahu ... -jerusalem
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10848
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Thu Feb 08, 2024 12:49 pm

Israel’s Claims Against UN Relief Agency Lack Evidence
February 6, 2024

The Daily Beast also obtained a copy of the Israeli dossier and —similar to Channel 4 — reported Tuesday that it “includes little evidence to back up” Israel’s allegations against UNRWA employees.

Image
Palestine’s Riyad Mansour at U.N. meeting in New York for UNRWA representatives and donor countries of the Palestine relief agency, Jan. 30. (UN Photo/Mark Garten)

By Jake Johnson
Common Dreams

An Israeli dossier that more than a dozen countries have cited to justify cutting off funding to the United Nations’ Palestinian refugee agency “provides no evidence” that a small number of the key U.N. aid body’s employees were involved in the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack, according to an investigation released Monday by the British outlet Channel 4.

The dossier merely states that

“from intelligence information, documents, and identity cards seized during the course of the fighting, it is now possible to flag around 190 Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist operatives who serve as UNRWA employees.”

“More than 10 UNRWA staffers took part in the events of [Oct. 7],” reads the six-page dossier, which Israel provided to UNRWA donor countries — including the agency’s top contributor, the United States — shortly after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) handed down an interim decision ordering Israel to take concrete steps to prevent genocide in the Gaza Strip.

The ICJ instructed the Israeli government to ensure that sufficient humanitarian assistance flows to desperate and starving Gazans, but Israel’s allegations against UNRWA employees led at least 16 countries to suspend funding for the agency, the most critical aid body operating in the Palestinian enclave.

Around a million displaced Gazans are currently sheltering at facilities run by UNRWA, which has 13,000 employees across the strip.

The UNRWA is reportedly set to lose $65 million by the end of February as donors’ funding cuts take effect, imperiling the agency’s operations in Gaza and across the Middle East.


Channel 4 noted Monday that all 13,000 of UNRWA’s Gaza employees’ names “have been checked against the U.N. terrorism list and, as recently as last May, were vetted and approved by Israel.”

The UNRWA quickly fired nine of the employees named by Israel. On Monday, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres established “an independent review group to assess whether the agency is doing everything within its power to ensure neutrality and to respond to allegations of serious breaches when they are made.”



The Daily Beast also obtained a copy of the Israeli dossier and — similar to Channel 4 — reported Tuesday that it “includes little evidence to back up” Israel’s allegations against UNRWA employees.

Ashish Prashar, a spokesperson for Gaza Voices, said in response to the new reporting that “we now know that the document used to suspend funding to UNRWA ‘provides no evidence.'”

“This is the latest campaign in a decades-long attack on UNRWA by Israel and a subset of the broader campaign to eliminate the Palestinian refugee issue,” said Prashar.

“People in Gaza are starving, and because of spurious allegations made in a dodgy dossier, they will experience worse hunger. This scandal should lead to resignations from officials in the U.S., U.K., Germany, and elsewhere who all suspended funding to a besieged people experiencing a genocide as a result of a baseless accusation by the génocidaires themselves.”

Jeremy Scahill, a senior correspondent at The Intercept‘s criticized the Biden administration and The Wall Street Journal for characterizing the dossier as “some smoking gun.”

During a press conference last week, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the allegations in the dossier “highly, highly credible.”

The same day as Blinken’s remarks, the Journal ran a story stating that around 10 percent of UNRWA’s Gaza employees “have ties to Islamist militant groups,” pointing to an “intelligence dossier.”

But questions about the reliability of the purported intelligence cited in the Israeli dossier have been swirling since the details of its contents began to trickle out in the press late last month. Citing one unnamed senior Israeli official, Axios reported that “the intelligence is a result of interrogations of militants who were arrested during the Oct. 7 attack.”

Israeli forces have repeatedly been accused by U.N. experts and human rights groups of using torture to extract forced confessions from Palestinian detainees.

“The fact that the U.S., U.K. and several other Western governments instantly attacked UNRWA on the orders of a genocidal foreign government (based on bogus claims) should make you very worried about your own democracy,” Craig Mokhiber, a former U.N. official who resigned over the global institution’s failure to stop Israel’s assault on Gaza, wrote Tuesday.

https://consortiumnews.com/2024/02/06/i ... -evidence/

*******

MBS Says John Kirby Needs Some Mouth Wash

Saudi Arabia isn't happy with claims made by NSC spokesperson John Kirby:

On-the-Record Press Gaggle by NSC Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby - White House, Feb 6 2024

Q Hey, Kirby. Thank you so much for doing this. When America is talking about a hostages deal, is it part of a bigger deal of normalization with Saudi Arabia, or are we talking about two different paths here?
MR. KIRBY: No, these are two different things. [...]
...
At the same time, we were, before the 7th of October, and are still now having discussions with our counterparts in the region, Israel and Saudi Arabia — obviously, the two key ones — about trying to move forward with a normalization arrangement between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

So those discussions are ongoing as well. We certainly received positive feedback from both sides that they’re willing to continue to have those discussions. But that is a separate track and not related specifically to trying to get this extended humanitarian pause in place. Both are really important though.

---
Kirby says US received ‘positive feedback’ on Israel-Saudi normalization talks - Times of Israel (via Reuters), Feb 6 2024

The Biden administration has received positive feedback that Saudi Arabia and Israel are willing to continue to have normalization discussions, White House National Security spokesman John Kirby tells reporters today. ...


The Saudis disagreed with that characterization:

Foreign Ministry 🇸🇦 @KSAmofaEN - 0:09 UTC · Feb 7, 2024
A Statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding the discussions between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United States of America on the Arab-Israeli peace process.


Image

From the statement:

...
The Kingdom has communicated its firm position to the U.S. administration that there will be no diplomatic relations with Israel unless an independent Palestinian state is recognized on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capitol, and that the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip stops and all Israeli occupation forces withdraw from the Gaza strip.
...
Added comment:

asad abukhalil أسعد أبو خليل @asadabukhalil - 2:04 UTC · Feb 7, 2024
This Saudi foreign ministry statement is unusual and it announces that Gaza will form an earthquake in Arab politics. MbS in his policies on Palestine disregarded Saudi and Arab public opinion. This statement tells us that he is retrenching and adjusting. Kushner on hold.


Just to make it clear. I am not saying it is a good statement. But before Gaza MbS merely asked for “easing the lives of Palestinians”. Nothing else.

Posted by b on February 7, 2024 at 6:43 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/02/m ... .html#more

The Picture Shows One Man And One Zionist

Younis Tirawi | يونس @ytirawi - 11:52 UTC · Feb 5, 2024
Rimal Neighborhood, Gaza city |

Israeli soldier Yosee Gamzoo publish a picture showing him torturing a Palestinian civilian in West Gaza city.

Image

After some research. I have located the area.
This is a Christian kindergarten and school called “@GazaCollege”. It is east of Rimal Neighborhood but is in fact on Jala Street near Barbari gas station. Found more documentation
...
He was apparently injured by shrapnel from a bullet but the hit was not that deep.
video
...
The soldier has deleted the pictures and his insta profile
...
According to local sources. He is name is Hamza from Shujjaiya Neighborhood, East Gaza city.

Before his arrest in the footage above, Israeli military killed his father, his brother’s wife and his two nephews (infant and a child 2 yo), his brother was also killed back in 2014.


Posted by b on February 6, 2024 at 15:00 UTC | Permalink

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2024/02/t ... l#comments

******

ZAKA: Israel’s ‘White Helmets’
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on FEBRUARY 6, 2024
William Van Wagenen

Image
Masquerading as a humanitarian organization, military-linked ZAKA has revealed itself as a propaganda tool for Israel’s war on Gaza, akin to the White Helmets in ‘rebel’-held Syria.

ZAKA, the Israeli volunteer-based religious organization that gained notoriety for its role of collecting bodies after the events of 7 October, is once again under the spotlight. An explosive report by Haaretz last week exposed the group’s “cases of negligence, misinformation, and a fundraising campaign that used the dead as props.”

More notably, the report provided new details suggesting ZAKA might not be a genuine volunteer organization, but rather a front for the Israeli army. It is believed to have played a part in concealing the truth that Israel caused the deaths of potentially hundreds of its own civilians in accordance with the Hannibal Directive.

Exploiting the dead

The 31 January Haaretz report begins by detailing how ZAKA members, who claim to be devoted to preserving the dignity of the dead, used corpses as stage props for videos and calls for fundraising.

A Haaretz investigation into an Israeli organisation found cases of negligence.

Some volunteers from Zaka, an ultra-Orthadox organisation that was involved in the recovery of bodies after the 7 October attacks, shot fundraising videos alongside the deceased, the report said pic.twitter.com/aVkajQe97a

— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) February 3, 2024




One volunteer from another rescue group told the Israeli outlet, “It was just bizarre that there was a corpse right there next to them, and they were sitting around, eating, and smoking,” rather than transferring the body into an ambulance or the refrigerated truck parked across the road.

“They opened a war room for donations there,” said another witness to the event. “Two weeks later, I saw them acting similarly in Be’eri [another 7 October conflict site] as well – sitting and making videos and fundraising calls inside the kibbutz.”

Haaretz reported further that in an effort to gain media exposure, ZAKA representatives “spread accounts of atrocities that never happened, released sensitive and graphic photos, and acted unprofessionally on the ground.”

In a video posted to ZAKA’s social media account, a volunteer tearfully described finding a 30-year-old woman lying face down in a pool of blood.

“We turned her over in order to place her into the bag. She was pregnant,” the volunteer said, stopping to hold his breath. “Her stomach was swollen, and the baby was still attached by the umbilical cord when it was stabbed, and she was shot in the back of the head. I don’t know if she suffered and saw her baby murdered or not.”

However, the newspaper noted that the horrific incident “simply didn’t happen.” It was “one of several stories that have been circulated without any basis.”

Justifying genocide

Fabricated claims spread by ZAKA representatives were then cited by Israeli leaders as justification for their brutal military assault on Gaza, which has killed over 11,000 Palestinian children, many of them burned alive or decapitated by US-supplied bombs.

Even US President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken shared some of ZAKA’s false atrocity stories, citing them as justification for expediting weapons shipments to Israel, even long after the effects of 2,000 lb bombs on children in Gaza became clear.

As The Grayzone detailed in December, Yossi Landau, ZAKA commander for the southern region, fabricated the most salacious and widely promoted stories claiming Hamas had committed unthinkable atrocities on 7 October.

In turn, the publicity these stories generated quickly earned the near–bankrupt organization millions of dollars in donations.

MASSACRE MARKETING
or the tendency to make the bad worse in order to generate headlines, clicks, funding or attention.

There were “decapitated babies” that the shady rescue service ZAKA had invented in order to generate more funding.https://t.co/qFkLYoYXRz

— Michael Kobs (@MichaKobs) February 6, 2024


Controversies and corruption

As journalist Brad Pearce has detailed, it is unclear where these donations will go. ZAKA has for years been plagued by accusations of corruption and fraud, while its founder has long been known as a serial child rapist.

In 2019, Israel’s Channel 13 reported that ZAKA was suspected of using shadow organizations to funnel millions of dollars in donations for private use, even as the organization faced bankruptcy.

The organization’s reputation was further damaged in 2021, when another Haaretz investigation revealed that ZAKA’s founder, Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, had sexually assaulted women and raped children for decades.

Yedioth Ahronoth reported soon thereafter that residents of Meshi-Zahav’s neighborhood were not surprised to learn about the accusations and that “community leaders even considered castrating him once.”

One man from the neighborhood told the popular Israeli newspaper that the accusations were “the tip of the iceberg,” and labeled Meshi-Zahav “the Haredi Jeffrey Epstein.”

In 2022, another Haaretz investigation found the organization claimed to have over 3,000 volunteers, and received state funding on this basis. In reality, the group had no more than 1,000 volunteers.

Despite this background, Pearce notes that ZAKA enjoyed endorsements from powerful figures in Israel’s political echelon, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and MK Danny Dannon.

The Yellow Vests

On 7 October and after, ZAKA served as a front for the Israeli army to launder false Hamas atrocity propaganda.

The Haaretz investigation revealed that during the first days of the war – when the Israeli narrative concerning the nature of the Hamas operation was crucial to establish – uniformed soldiers from the Israeli army’s Home Front Command made many media appearances.

“But over their uniforms, they wore non-IDF vests on which the name ‘ZAKA’ was emblazoned. Military officers who were informed about this blaring detail could not account for it,” the paper found.

This gave the impression that claims coming from the Israeli army, an obviously biased source of information, were coming from a neutral third-party source.

While even Israeli journalists were skeptical of claims by army commanders, including the false storyline that Hamas hung seven dead babies from a clothesline, the equally implausible claims made by Yossi Landau and other allegedly selfless ZAKA volunteers were largely reported uncritically in the US, UK, and Israeli press.

Links with the occupation army

The close relationship between ZAKA and the Israeli army is further illustrated by Haim Outmezgine, who is the head of ZAKA’s “special forces” and also a reservist in the Home Front Command’s rescue unit.

Outmezgine was one of several senior officials who made frequent press appearances wearing the yellow ZAKA vest. But he didn’t only play a media role; Haaretz notes further that according to some sources, “he also played a central role in the association” between ZAKA and the Israeli army.

He was “in command of several sites starting from the evening of the attacks,” including the site of the Nova music festival in Re’im and the settlements (kibbutzim) of Kfar Aza and Be’eri.

Outmezgine’s dual role in the army’s Home Front Command and ZAKA apparently led to the decision to deploy untrained, amateur ZAKA volunteers to collect bodies at these sensitive sites rather than army soldiers already well-trained for this purpose.

The only soldiers the Home Front Command chose to use alongside ZAKA were from the Military Rabbinate’s southern search unit, stationed at the Shura military base.

Several army officers involved in the operation at the Shura base told Haaretz they had “no explanation” for why the additional soldiers were not allowed to assist in the mission.

One officer at Shura said that the inexpert way ZAKA volunteers collected the bodies “made the identification process very difficult.”

A volunteer who worked at Shura said: “There were bags with two skulls, bags with two hands, with no way to know which was whose.”

But why were amateurs from ZAKA deployed to the most sensitive sites with the most bodies on 7 October, rather than highly trained soldiers from the army?

One possibility is corruption. As both a member of ZAKA and the Home Front Command, Haim Outmezgine may have arranged for ZAKA to be deployed to Nova, Be’eri, and Kfar Azza to ensure the organization was at the center of events, and able to gain media attention and millions in donations.

Concealing war crimes

However, another possibility is that higher-level officials in the army, intelligence services, or Netanyahu’s cabinet wanted ZAKA deployed to these sensitive sites to make any investigation into the hundreds of Israeli deaths there as difficult as possible. This was crucial because it was the Israeli army itself that killed large numbers of its own civilians.

To prevent Israelis from being taken captive by Hamas, the Israeli army issued the Hannibal Directive and unleashed overwhelming firepower from Apache attack helicopters, armed Zik drones, and Merkava tanks.

In this way, the army killed Israelis who were barricaded in their own homes with Hamas fighters in Be’eri, Kfar Azza, and elsewhere, and killed many others traveling across the open fields to Gaza in cars, on foot, and even in golf carts and tractors with Hamas fighters.

As a result, many of the corpses found on 7 October were badly burned or dismembered due to heavy weapons unleashed by Israel. Bodies were found crushed under collapsed homes in the kibbutzim and strewn among the fields near the Gaza border.

The Israeli army then passed the blame for all these horrific deaths on to Hamas. Fighters from the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, and other resistance factions, certainly killed some Israeli civilians on 7 October. However, Israeli officials falsely claim that Al-Qassam fighters deliberately massacred all 1,200 Israelis – mostly civilians – who died that day, burning many alive while torturing and raping many others.

By failing to properly collect and document the state of the bodies, ZAKA enabled the Israeli army to attribute potentially hundreds of killings of Israelis carried out by the occupation army to Hamas.

Israel’s ‘White Helmets’

The “Yellow Vests” of the ZAKA volunteers are reminiscent of the “White Helmets” worn by members of the so-called Syria Civil Defense, which was established and funded by western intelligence agencies in 2014, at the height of the US-led regime change war on Syria.

As journalist Vanessa Beeley has extensively detailed, western media and intelligence agencies used the alleged rescue organization as ‘primary sources’ in spreading fake stories of Syrian army atrocities, including staging scenarios to blame the army for chemical attacks against civilians.

By doing so, narratives were manipulated and a scene was carefully set to justify western military intervention to topple the Syrian government led by Bashar al-Assad.

This raises questions of whether ZAKA, like the White Helmets, is a cut-out used by the Israeli army and intelligence services to justify Tel Aviv’s massive military campaign in Gaza that many view as genocide, rather than an authentic volunteer rescue organization.

Such a view is strengthened by the fact that, as Brad Pearce notes, ZAKA’s long-time Chief Operating Officer, Mati Goldstein, says on his LinkedIn profile that he is a 25–year veteran of the Israeli army, a current commander in the reserves, and someone who “took part in many major undercover missions,” meaning he has been a trained spy.

This connection could explain the praise ZAKA receives – despite its past controversies – from top levels of Israel’s military and political class, which positions it strategically in obscuring the truth of the 7 October events.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2024/02/ ... e-helmets/

*******

Iraqi army blasts US for 'sowing instability' after latest targeted assassination

A US drone strike in Baghdad killed Kataib Hezbollah commander Abu Baqir al-Saadi, despite the faction pledging to stop attacks on US bases

News Desk

FEB 8, 2024

Image
(Photo credit: X)

Iraqi army spokesman Major General Yahya Rasoul on 8 February condemned the targeted assassination of Kataib Hezbollah leader Abu Baqir al-Saadi, calling out Washington for continuing to sow instability in the country.

The strike on Wednesday night was carried out “in a manner that disregarded the lives of Iraqi civilians or international laws,” Rasoul said, adding that the US “repeatedly commits acts that undermine the understandings and the start of bilateral dialogue.”

Earlier this month, Kataib Hezbollah became the only member of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI) umbrella group to announce the suspension of anti-US operations, reportedly under pressure from Baghdad.

The head of Iraq’s Security Media Cell and spokesman for the Joint Operations Command, Major General Tahseen al-Khafaji, also condemned Wednesday's drone attack on a member of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU).

"This new aggression weakens all understandings after it was confirmed that the US targeted a vehicle belonging to the PMU with a drone," he said.

"This targeting is a clear aggression and a violation of Iraqi sovereignty and dragging the region into dangerous repercussions. We also hold the US and the coalition forces responsible for the repercussions of these dangerous actions that threaten the security and safety of the country and damage all talks that are taking place between both sides," he added.


Soon after the strike, Iraqi citizens took to the streets to protest the US aggression.


The drone strike came hours after Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani announced that Baghdad severed contact with Washington after 3 February, when the US army targeted 85 locations across the country, killing 17 and injuring over two dozen, including civilians.

The attack came in response to the Iraqi resistance’s killing of three US soldiers near the Syria-Jordan border last month.

Baghdad has been exerting diplomatic pressure to facilitate a withdrawal of US combat forces from the country. However, the US has pushed back and publicly said the talks are not aimed at bringing about a US withdrawal.

The Asaib Ahl al-Haq resistance faction leader, Kais al-Khazali, called after the attack for all Iraqis to unite against Washington.

https://thecradle.co/articles/iraqi-arm ... assination

Fighting rages in south Lebanon as US pushes ‘one-sided’ border deal

Lebanese officials have rejected a new US proposal to de-escalate the southern Lebanese front

News Desk

FEB 7, 2024

Image
(Photo credit: AP)

Hezbollah announced the deaths of two more of its members on 7 February, following continued Israeli bombardment on the south of Lebanon and ongoing crossfire between the resistance group and the Israeli army on the border.

The Lebanese resistance’s media page announced on Wednesday that Muhammad Jaafar Assaili and Hussein Muhammad Shamas died as “martyrs on the road to Jerusalem.”

The deaths were announced after Israeli bombardment of several villages in south Lebanon.

Israeli jets and artillery struck several villages later on Wednesday afternoon as well, coinciding with Hezbollah’s announcement of attacks on the Zebdin and Ramia military sites.

The continued clashes come two days after Hezbollah’s announcement earlier this week that the resistance group has carried out nearly 1,000 operations against the Israeli army since the start of the war in October.

The announcement also revealed that a minimum of 230,000 Israeli settlers have been displaced from their homes in Israel’s northern settlements as a result of Hezbollah’s attacks.

As the southern front remains highly volatile, the US and other western powers continue to push for a Hezbollah withdrawal away from the border.

French officials, among others, have, in the last few months, pushed for Lebanon’s implementation of Resolution 1701. The resolution was drafted after the 2006 war between Hezbollah and calls for the group to withdraw from areas south of the Litani River. The resolution also calls for a deployment of the Lebanese army and UNIFIL forces to this area.

The group has, since 2006, established a strong presence in this area in response to years of Israeli encroachments and violations of both Lebanese sovereignty and Resolution 1701. Western nations, however, have not called on Israel to implement the agreement itself.

Senior White House Advisor Amos Hochstein recently discussed with Israeli officials a new US proposal to de-escalate Lebanon’s southern front.

The first step of this proposal is an eight to 10-kilometer withdrawal of Hezbollah forces from the border area. The second step calls for an increase in UNIFIL forces and the Lebanese army in the area. Thirdly, Israeli residents will return to their evacuated settlements.

The US proposal is also said to include talks for demarcating a land border between Israel and Lebanon, aimed at resolving a dispute over 13 border points which Israel was supposed to withdraw from in 2006. The 13 points are located on Israeli-occupied Lebanese land.

Additionally, the proposal calls for Israel to commit to limited withdrawals of some reservist units in the border area.

Axios reported on 6 February that this deal has been approved by both Israel and Hezbollah, and includes promises of “economic benefits” for the Lebanese state, in order to “sweeten the deal.”

However, Lebanon’s Al-Joumhouria newspaper cited official sources as saying that Hezbollah’s withdrawal is “unthinkable.”

The proposed deal “only satisfies Israel and does not meet Lebanon’s fundamental demands … [It] achieves the security of the Israeli entity, but does not guarantee any security for Lebanon and its citizens, and there are no guarantees that Israel will stop violations of Resolution 1701,” the daily wrote.

“Hochstein returned to Washington without visiting Lebanon because he realizes that none of the proposals will be approved by Lebanese officials or Hezbollah.”

Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Abdullah Bou Habib rejected the US proposal on 6 February.

Hezbollah has continued to assert that a de-escalation of the southern front cannot be discussed without an end to the war in Gaza.

https://thecradle.co/articles/fighting- ... order-deal

******

War With Iran Unfeasible for the U.S.

Lucas Leiroz

February 8, 2024

Washington is forced to respond indirectly to direct attacks, since it is unable to go to war with the Persian country.

Recent U.S. bombings on the Iraq-Syria border have disappointed some pro-Western militants who long for a major war in the Middle East. The strikes hit targets supposedly linked to pro-Iranian militias, but it is possible to say that the U.S. failed in its aim of showing effective retaliation against the Persian country for the attack on an American base in Jordan.

Dozens of people were killed or injured in American attacks in Syria and Iraq on February 3. In total, 85 targets were hit, reportedly including decision-making centers, logistics and intelligence facilities. The targets were groups linked to the so-called Axis of Resistance, an Iran-led international coalition of anti-Zionist and anti-Western armed organizations.

The operation was a response to the previous attack carried out by Iranian units against U.S. positions in Jordan, which killed at least three American soldiers. Washington took a few days to make clear what its retaliatory operation would be like, generating expectations about a possible escalation in the Middle Eastern conflict.

Some public figures in the U.S. began to pressure the Biden administration to authorize a direct attack on Iran. For example, Senator Lindsey Graham, who is a politician known for his aggressive and pro-war stance, published on his social media:

“When the Biden Administration says ‘don’t’, the Iranians ‘do’. The Biden Administration’s rhetoric is falling on deaf ears in Iran. Their policy of deterrence against Iran has failed miserably. There have been over 100 attacks against U.S. forces in the region. Iran is undeterred. (…) The Biden Administration can take out all the Iranian proxies they like, but it will not deter Iranian aggression. I am calling on the Biden Administration to strike targets of significance inside Iran, not only as reprisal for the killing of our forces, but as deterrence against future aggression (…) The only thing the Iranian regime understands is force. Until they pay a price with their infrastructure and their personnel, the attacks on U.S. troops will continue. (…) Hit Iran now. Hit them hard.”

However, the responses were somewhat “well measured”. The US did not attack direct Iranian targets, but rather some positions of militias allied with Tehran. There are allegations that targets linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard had been hit, but these data have not been confirmed. Even if something did happen, it is unlikely that the move had a major impact on the Guard, as there were no Iranian retaliations in the following days.

In fact, no matter how much pressure there is from domestic pro-war sectors, the Biden government simply cannot take very radical measures against Tehran – at least not if it really wants to preserve itself from a catastrophe. The Persian country, in addition to being a relevant military power, has a complex network of allied armed groups that would intervene in its favor in the conflict, generating a situation of widespread chaos and intense battles that could be extremely harmful to the U.S.

The material unfeasibility of a war between the U.S. and Iran is an old concept in Western geopolitics. Zbigniew Brzezinski already warned about this in his writings. His advice to American officials was to seek balanced relations with Iran, trying to prevent a war scenario, as this would become catastrophic for Washington. The author stated that a U.S.-Iran conflict would force American troops to use a massive number of soldiers, given the country’s territorial dimensions and unique geography.

Recent estimates indicate that at least 1.6 million American soldiers would be needed to carry out a ground operation in Iran. In parallel, battles in the air and at sea would have to face the powerful Iranian missile, drone and mine capability, which is recognized as one of the best in the world. The conflict would be extremely exhausting for the U.S. and could lead the country to an economic collapse – in addition to representing a disaster in the global oil trade, as the Axis of Resistance’s militias could destroy the infrastructure of U.S. allies in the region.

In addition to all these factors, it is necessary to analyze the current geopolitical scenario. The U.S. is already involved in a proxy war against Russia in Ukraine and also fears an escalation in the Asia-Pacific region in the near future. Furthermore, internal tensions are growing due to an unprecedented migration crisis, which is even putting American national unity at risk. Washington is definitely not in a position to choose to engage in a high-intensity war.

All these factors led American decision makers to recognize their limits and choose targets outside Iranian territory. The conditions oblige the US to retaliate indirectly for direct attacks. While Iran targets American bases, Washington is limited to attacking Tehran’s proxies in non-Iranian soil. As “humiliating” as this may seem to some warmonger militants, this is the reality the U.S. must deal with.

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/ ... le-for-us/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

Post Reply