[🇧🇩] Israel and Hamas war in Gaza-----Can Bangladesh be a peace broker?

[Saif]

Israel must be stopped from invading Rafah

World must end Palestine genocide without further delay

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Israel must be stopped from invading Rafah​

World must end Palestine genocide without further delay

VISUAL: STAR

We are most disturbed by the Israeli prime minister's recent vow to send ground forces into Gaza's southern Rafah city. This comes after more than five months of merciless attacks on Palestinians that have forced most of Gaza's population to seek refuge in Rafah. With more than 31,500 Palestinians already killed, Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu now seems dead set on inflicting more horrors on the more than one million displaced people who have sought shelter there.

For once, Israel's allies have urged it to not attack Rafah, especially without a plan to protect civilians. Given the huge number of civilians Israel has a record of killing even when it supposedly looks to "protect" them during its security operations, one can only imagine the extent of destruction that might be headed towards the defenceless people of Rafah. Despite sustained international pressure, and the urging of its allies, Netanyahu has vowed to ignore it all, insisting on Israel's "right to defend itself". But as we have seen repeatedly, when Israel talks about its right to defend itself, what it basically means is gaining a free reign to attack and destroy the Palestinians.

The World Health Organization chief has urged Israel not to launch a Rafah invasion, warning that "this humanitarian catastrophe must not be allowed to worsen." As many human rights organisations have alleged, Israel is deliberately starving Gazans, having unleashed what can easily be called a genocidal campaign. And because of the unconditional backing extended by the West, it has been able to get away with it so far.

But the world cannot continue to remain silent and watch the complete annihilation of the Palestinian people. Israel has been able to create the narrative that criticising Israel should be considered ipso facto antisemitic and, therefore, frowned upon. Given that the West has always been its main supporter, it's time for the Western countries in particular, and the international community in general, to take meaningful action to end Israel's aggression against Palestine and arrange for a peace agreement.​

 

[Saif]

A supplication for Gaza, and humanity

‘ALL we can do for Gaza is just offer our Du’a.’ This is an oft-repeated statement by enraged Arabs and Muslims who feel helpless...

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A supplication for Gaza, and humanity
Ramzy Baroud | Published: 00:00, Mar 18,2024

Palestinian children look at the rubble of a building after it was destroyed in an Israeli strike the night before, in the Rimal neighbourhood of Gaza City on March 16, amidst the ongoing battles between Israel and Hamas. — Agence France-Presse

‘ALL we can do for Gaza is just offer our Du’a.’ This is an oft-repeated statement by enraged Arabs and Muslims who feel helpless before the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

But is it true that only invocations and supplications are possible, as tens of thousands of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are being killed and wounded by the Israeli war machine?

No. There is much that can be done and, in fact, many people around the world are already doing it.

In the traditions of Hadith, sayings attributed to Prophet Mohammed, the most cited reference to the need for action, collectively or individually, is this one: ‘Whoever among you sees evil, let him change it with his hand. If he cannot do so, then with his tongue. If he cannot do so, then with his heart, which is the weakest level of faith.’

Du’a is an invocation, communicated by the heart; it is a Muslim’s conversation with God. It can be verbalsed, or not. In group prayers, especially during Friday sermons or throughout the holy month of Ramadan, among other occasions, Du’as can be performed collectively.

The nature of the collective Du’a highlights the priorities of any given Muslim group, community or even nation. Gaza, Palestine, Al-Aqsa Mosque are among the some of the main themes, or causes, for which Muslims beseech God’s help.

‘Oh Allah, please free the Al-Aqsa Mosque’, ‘Oh, Merciful One, stand by the children of Gaza’ or ‘Oh All Powerful, deliver Palestinians from injustice’ are only a few of an almost endless stream of Du’a that are uttered from Mecca to Medina to Jerusalem to Kuala Lumpur, to every mosque and every Muslim home throughout the world.

Du’a is the affirmation in a relationship between man and God, delineating that nothing would occur without God’s permission, and that a person, no matter how poor, beleaguered and weakened, can transcend all earthly relations to speak directly to the highest of all authorities.

‘Your Lord has proclaimed, ‘Call upon Me, I will respond to you’,’ Allah says in Surah Ghafir, verse 60.

That does not necessarily mean that Du’a is a last resort. Rather, it goes hand in hand with action. It does not supplant action, but reinforces it. Collective Du’a is a communal declaration that all Muslims are driven by similar priorities, those of peace, justice, equality, mercy, kindness and all the rest.

The dichotomy, however, arises from the fact that many Muslims feel unable to affect change regarding the horrific fate of Gaza, whether on a small or a large scale, thus the widespread notion that ‘all we can do is offer Du’a’.

I have visited South Africa several times in the past. Each time, I learned more than I could have possibly imparted. I learned that people’s power is far more effective, in the long run, than the opposing powers of state violence. I also learned that no worldly law, especially those that aim at imposing racist apartheid, can possibly stand against our innate rejection of social inequality and other evils. Finally, I also learned that when people rise, nothing can stand in their way.

The latter maxim is as true in the case of South Africa during the anti-apartheid struggle, as it is now in Palestine, particularly in Gaza. Of that, famed Tunisian poet, Abu Al-Qasim al-Shabi wrote a hundred years ago.

‘Should the people one day truly aspire to life / then fate must needs respond / the night must needs shine forth / and the shackles must needs break,’ he wrote, just before he died at the very young age of 25.

His powerful words also included a caveat, an ominous warning of terrible things to come: ‘Those who are not embraced by life’s yearning / shall evaporate in her air and vanish.’

South Africa did not make the latter choice, nor did Gaza. And every attempt at crushing these great peoples continued to fail. They remained, persisted, healed their wounds and fought back.

I always believed that South Africa will play a central role in international solidarity with Palestine. But, frankly, I had not expected that the African nation would become so intrinsic, even unparalleled, to holding Israel accountable for its crimes in Palestine to this extent.

Pretoria’s push to hold Israel and its war criminals to account at the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court continues unabated.

It was not the sheer military, economic or political power or prowess that made South Africa a factor in the Palestinian fight for justice. It was the sheer will of a nation and, subsequently, a government to translate its desire to achieve a more equitable, just and law-governed international system into meaningful action.

South Africa could have simply resorted to self-pity, highlighting its supposed insignificance in the face of more powerful US-western governments that continue to support Israel, feeding it with all the necessary weapons to sustain its genocide.

It, too, could have resorted to prayers, invocations and supplications as the ‘only thing that can be done’. It did not. To the contrary, it used its diplomatic leverage and moral authority to articulate one of the most powerful cases in favour of Palestinian freedom and against Israeli brutality ever argued before an international legal institution.

It is understandable that many may feel helpless, especially when one attempts to fathom the enormity of the crime underway in Gaza. Israel might have not used weapons of mass destruction in the Strip, but it has certainly applied all of its western-supplied weapons to inflict mass destruction, nonetheless.

But if Gaza has not given up, why should we? Even giving up is a privilege. Gaza does not have that privilege nor should we grant it to ourselves. Gaza is fighting for its very survival and we, too, must fight for the same end.

Make a Du’a for Gaza. Let it be your first act as you undertake your quest for a just world. And make another Du’a for Gaza, to beseech God to reward your selfless and well-intentioned deeds. And, if you are besieged by desperation, still make a Du’a, so that you may discover the power to make a difference, which has always been within your grasp.

CounterPunch.org, March 15. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books. His latest is ‘These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons’ (Clarity Press, Atlanta). Dr Baroud is a non-resident senior research fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs, Istanbul Zaim University.
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[Saif]

Ten biggest Zionist lies

THE core ethos of humanity is kindness and truth but this is grossly violated by genocidally racist and pathologically mendacious...

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Ten biggest Zionist lies​

Gideon Polya | Published: 00:00, Mar 19,2024

A boy sits among the rubble and scattered belongings after their home was destroyed in an Israeli strike in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on March 13. — Agence France-Presse

THE core ethos of humanity is kindness and truth but this is grossly violated by genocidally racist and pathologically mendacious apartheid Israel. Huge Zionist perversion and subversion of the west has enabled massive and false Jewish Israeli propaganda to become the dominant narrative in the west. Google Searches reveal the shocking extent of the adoption of 10 major Zionist lies about the Gaza genocide in the Zionist-perverted US and US alliance countries.

(1) ‘Israeli’ is falsely used when ‘Jewish Israeli’ would be correct. About 99 per cent of the Israeli perpetrators of the killing in this latest Gaza massacre are actually ‘Jewish Israelis’ because 99 per cent of the Israel Defence Force is Jewish and 21 per cent of Israelis are Palestinians.

(2) In the current Gaza massacre, ‘terrorist’ is vastly more applicable to Jewish Israeli and US killers than to Hamas. Terrorism is as terrorism does and the killers of about 40,000 Palestinians including about 15,000 children to date in the Gaza genocide are vastly more deserving of the descriptive ‘terrorist’ than Hamas that allegedly killed 1,200 Israelis on October 7 (with possibly most actually killed by overwhelming IDF shelling and missile fire-power).

(3) Google Searches reveal massive English-speaking world lying by omission in ignoring Palestinian exclusion from human rights. The fundamental problem in Apartheid Israel-ruled Palestine has been egregious exclusion of indigenous Palestinian from human rights. Seven million exiled Palestinians are excluded from the basic right to live in their own country. About 5.6 million occupied Palestinians are excluded from all the human rights set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. About 2.1 million Palestinian Israelis can vote for the government ruling them, albeit as third class citizens under 65 Nazi-style, race-based discriminatory laws. About 7.1 million indigenous Palestinians are 50 per cent of the subjects of apartheid Israel.

(4) The Gaza massacre has increased anti-Jewish sentiment globally but has also led to massive false Zionist claims of ‘anti-Semitism’ in response to condemnation of the Gaza genocide and other apartheid Israeli crimes. The all-European and fervently pro-apartheid Israel International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance has a definition of anti-Semitism that has been used to falsely defame critics of Jewish Israeli crimes. The alliance is anti-Jewish anti-Semitic and anti-Arab anti-Semitic (by falsely defaming anti-racist Jewish, Palestinian, Arab and Muslim critics of apartheid Israel as anti-Semites) and holocaust-denying (by ignoring all WW2 holocausts other than the WW2 Jewish holocaust).

(5) Massive western concern over 250 Israeli hostages while ignoring 5.6 million occupied Palestinian hostages under highly abusive military rule with 10,000 in military prisons (egregious Zionist lying by omission). A glaring example of current western anti-Arab anti-Semitism is massive western coverage of the 250 Israeli hostages that routinely ‘balances’ or indeed displaces reportage of the destruction and mass murder in Gaza (about 40,000 killed so far).

(6) The west falsely accuses Hamas of ‘hostage taking’ war crimes and also ‘human shield’ war crimes because it operates in one of the world’s most densely populated urban areas. Hamas’ 250 Israeli hostages are numerically negligible in relation to 5.6 million Occupied Palestinian hostages under violent and deadly military rule (now for 56 years), 10,000 of whom are highly abusively imprisoned in Israeli military prisons. As for ‘human shields’, if Hamas would gather above or below ground in uninhabited areas they would be immediately totally destroyed by Israeli bombing.

(7) The west overwhelmingly ignores the Occupied/Occupier Reprisals Death Ratio — yet in the Gaza genocide it is 65 versus the 10 ordered by Hitler. Conservatively assuming that the IDF caused 50 per cent of the 1,200 Israeli deaths on October 7, the Occupied/Occupier Reprisals Death Ratio is presently 39,178/ 600 = 65.3, 6.5 times greater than the 10 ordered by Nazi mass murderer Hitler and subsequently effected in the 1944 Ardeatine Massacre. Nazi is as Nazi does.

(8) Mainstream western journalists are too cowardly to report that Jewish Israelis in the Gaza Massacre lead the world in annual per capita killing of journalists. In May 2022 the ‘average number of journalists killed per 10 million of population per year’ was Occupied Palestine, 2.77; Mexico, 0.75; Colombia, 0.37; the World, 0.084. Since October 7 Israelis have killed 132 journalists over 5 months in Gaza, a territory with a population of 2.3 million. The ‘average number of journalists killed per 10 million of population per year’ in Gaza over the last 5 months has been 1,377, or 3,722 times more than for cartel-dominated Colombia and 16,393 times more than for the world.

(9) The Zionists and pro-Zionists falsely assert that ‘Israel has the right to defend itself in Gaza’ and that brutally subjugated Occupied Palestinians do not. Eminent international law expert and UN Rapporteur for Palestinians, Francesca Albanese, says: ‘Israel cannot claim the right of self-defence against a threat that emanates from the territory it occupies, from a territory that is kept under belligerent occupation.’ Conversely, the occupied Palestinians have the right, like any other occupied and subjugated people, to take up arms against tyranny as set out in the preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and by Article 51 of the UN Charter.

(10) Jewish Israelis in Gaza lead the world by far for annual per capita killing of children — 17 times greater than for Jewish children in Nazi-occupied Europe. At least 14,622 Gaza children were killed by Jewish Israelis in the 151-day period of October 7, 2023 — March 5, 2024, meaning 15,378 children killed per year per million of total territory population, this being 203 times bigger than the previous world’s worst, Honduras (75.7). The figure is 17 times higher than children killed per year per million of total territory population in Nazi-occupied Europe.

This ongoing Jewish Israeli atrocity in Gaza and the attendant tsunami of western-propagated Zionist falsehood is a horrible violation not just of kindness, truth and humanity but also of the wonderful humanitarian Jewish tradition from the Ten Commandments and Jesus’ ‘love thy neighbour’, through Baruch Spinoza and the Enlightenment to the great Jewish humanitarian scholars of the present era from Hannah Arendt to Howard Zinn.

Decent people around the world must (a) inform everyone they can, and (b) urge and apply Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions against genocidally racist apartheid Israel and all people, politicians, parties, collectives, corporations and countries supporting this genocidal neo-Nazi state and its horrendous and unforgivable atrocities. The world must forcibly demand immediate cessation of the killing, and an immediate end to the occupation so that the now starving and horribly deprived Gazans can be immediately given water, food, shelter, sanitation, medicine, medical care, commencement of gigantic reconstruction — and then forensically-informed international war crimes trials of genocidal Jewish Israelis for one of the world’s worst atrocities.

DissidentVoice.org, March 16. Gideon Polya taught science students at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia over 4 decades. He has published the following books Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History, US-Imposed Post-9/11 Muslim Holocaust and Muslim Genocide, and Climate Crisis, Climate Genocide and Solutions.​

 

[Saif]

Column by Mahfuz Anam: From largest open-air prison to 'greatest open-air graveyard'

Israel is using starvation as a weapon against the people of Gaza.

www.thedailystar.net

Column by Mahfuz Anam: From largest open-air prison to 'greatest open-air graveyard'​

Israel is using starvation as a weapon

Palestinians gather to receive free food as Gaza residents face crisis levels of hunger, during the holy month of Ramadan, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on March 19, 2024. PHOTO: REUTERS

The heading is a reference to the comments of EU's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell at the opening of an EU conference on humanitarian aid for Gaza in Brussels on March 17. "In Gaza we are no longer on the brink of famine but in a state of famine affecting thousands of people." The EU has accused Israel of using starvation as a weapon. The UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, which formally declares famine, said two of its three criteria have already been met. It believes that the third, the number of deaths by starvation, may already be in effect. After the killing of 32,000 Palestinians, of which 13,500 were children, the rest are being starved to death. Their health stands already damaged enough that they may never return to a normal, healthy life.

However unjust the world has been with its discrimination, exploitation, repression, and killings, we have never before seen anything close to the barbarity that Israel is now inflicting upon unarmed Palestinians. The only imagery that comes to mind is what the Nazis did to the Jews during the Holocaust. Where is the difference in what Israelis are doing to Gazans now?

Make a mental picture of what's going on. The Gaza Strip is 41 km long and 6-12 km wide, with a total area of 365 sq-km which is comparable to Dhaka's area of 306.4 sq-km. (But of course, hosting a vastly lower population). Now, imagine that all the population of north Dhaka was forced, under threat of being killed, to gather in the southern half and then is indiscriminately bombed day and night. Imagine that almost all the buildings of north Dhaka stand destroyed and nearly half of those in the south are razed to the ground. Those that remain are unsafe. All the roads are unusable. There is no electricity and no water. And the whole place is filled with the stench of the dead buried under the rubbles. Those who survived the initial bombing and remained trapped died, one day at a time; shouting, then crying, then whispering to loved ones above who could not remove the rubble and save them due to lack of equipment. Can anyone live a normal life after seeing their loved ones die within reach of themselves, pleading for water and help while they could do nothing? This is the reality—now far worse and getting worse still—that every Palestinian in Gaza is having to live with.

Imagine also that all the hospitals in Dhaka were bombed. Doctors were killed, assaulted, and picked up as pro-Hamas suspects. Consider that in the whole of Dhaka, there is no hospital to go to, there is no supply of medicine or medical aid. There is nothing to treat the injured who inevitably have to die literally in their loved one's arms. Imagine also that there is a total ban on the supply of everything, including food, water, and other essentials.

​

Will the world just watch and utter some appropriate platitudes from time to time? Are we to remain silent as we see all the values, morals, and ideals that our civilisation represents being torn to bits by the blood-thirsty regime of Netanyahu? South Africa has set a laudable example by taking Israel to the International Court of Justice. We see massive outpouring of protest in faraway countries in South America, we see heartwarming gatherings of hundreds and thousands in many capitals of Europe. But we do not see similar protests in Africa and Asia, including South Asia. What is most disappointing is the role of the Arab countries.​

After weeks of total ban, a trickle of food and essentials were allowed. When starving Palestinians gathered in line to collect some food, they were gunned down. This was an event that we did not cover much in Bangladeshi media—the slaughter of 115 starving Palestinians who had lined up for flour and water on February 29 in the southeast of Gaza city and were machine-gunned by Israeli soldiers. Popular US commentator Judge Andrew Napolitano said to Nobel Prize-winning economist Jeffrey Sachs in a recent interview: "This has got to be one of the most reprehensible and public slaughtering that they've [Israeli soldiers] engaged in."

Consider the brutality, the utter inhumanity in shooting down people waiting in line for food. The Israeli narrative, that much of the West swallowed, is that Palestinians started rioting and Israeli troops started firing when they felt threatened. Is it possible that emaciated food seekers suddenly become so strong and organised as to become a threat to those who are heavily armed, well-protected, and stationed in heavily guarded bunkers? The well-established Western media, instead of tearing this untenable and fact-defying narrative to bits, gave it currency.

Last Sunday, Unicef reported that 13,000 children have been killed till date, which its Executive Director Catherine Russell told CBS News was "astronomical" and "horrifying," adding that many children affected by malnutrition "don't even have the energy to cry." She said how "thousands [of children] have been injured. They may be stuck under rubble. Thousands have lost one or both parents… they are just by themselves managing their younger siblings."

Dr Jeffrey Sachs said, "Israel has deliberately starved the people of Gaza. Starved. I'm not using an exaggeration. I am talking literally starving a population. Israel is a criminal, is in non stop war crime status now. I believe, in genocidal status…"

Take the latest situation in Rafah, a small Gazan border town with Egypt where more than a million and half of the two million Gazans have gathered as a result of Israeli bombing. The Israeli military, on March 15, approved plans to invade Rafah and the Israeli prime minister announced on March 17 that no amount of international pressure will stop him from doing so.

What does ground invasion of Rafah mean? Again, using the example of Dhaka, imagine that in some corner of the city about 15 lakh people—helpless, homeless, starving—have gathered under the open sky. They are waiting to be invaded within days by what can be termed as one of the most brutal armies in the world. Not to mention lethal bombs will rain on them from planes and drones.

Scenes from the bombing of Tokyo, London, and Dresden during World War II, and even the bombing of Vietnamese and Cambodian villages during the Viet Nam war, surface in our minds. But they were wars, and the fighting was between sovereign countries or well-established guerilla outfits. Not a country, armed to the teeth, against a civilian population.

First, the indiscriminate bombing and invasion of Gaza, and now planned ground assault on Rafah against 1.5 million defenceless refugees. It will be nothing short of mass slaughter turning Gaza into the biggest graveyard in the world. This attack will be carried out by soldiers who have been totally desensitised against Palestinians, who have been taught to think of them as non- humans and belonging to some lower species who do not deserve the minimum dignity that a human being does.

Will the world just watch and utter some appropriate platitudes from time to time? Are we to remain silent as we see all the values, morals, and ideals that our civilisation represents being torn to bits by the blood-thirsty regime of Netanyahu? South Africa has set a laudable example by taking Israel to the International Court of Justice. We see massive outpouring of protest in faraway countries in South America, we see heartwarming gatherings of hundreds and thousands in many capitals of Europe. But we do not see similar protests in Africa and Asia, including South Asia. What is most disappointing is the role of the Arab countries.

It is the same people. It is happening in their own backyard and has been happening for so long. The history is clear. Over the years, Arab countries have lost more clout and the reverse is true for Israel, whose power and influence has become unchallengeable. The only solution is through negotiations and not war. But the Arab countries are losing their negotiating power with each passing day. If Israel is able to inflict such barbaric actions on Palestinians, what respect will be left for the Arab countries?

A similar question comes upon us. Why have we not had massive public demonstrations condemning what Israel is doing? Why have we been so restrained in expressing our solidarity with the people of Gaza? As a political leader and head of government, our PM has made some very bold statements. But why haven't we, as a people, done as much? Why haven't our intellectuals, the academia, writers, and artists spoken out more? Only in the social media space have we seen vocal protests, for which I praise our young. We, the media, have covered the events but haven't done enough either. We should have done much more.

With each Palestinian who is killed, Israel loses its legitimacy, the West its moral standing, and the rest of us, remaining silent, our humanity.​

---

Mahfuz Anam is the editor and publisher of The Daily Star.​

 

[Saif]

Russia, China veto US Security Council bid on Gaza 'ceasefire'

Russia and China on Friday vetoed a US-led draft resolution at the Security Council on a ceasefire in Gaza, with Moscow accusing Washington of a "hypocritical spectacle" that does not pressure Israel

www.thedailystar.net

Russia, China veto US Security Council bid on Gaza 'ceasefire'​

Photo: AFP/File

Russia and China on Friday vetoed a US-led draft resolution at the Security Council on a ceasefire in Gaza, with Moscow accusing Washington of a "hypocritical spectacle" that does not pressure Israel.

The United States, Israel's main ally which has vetoed previous ceasefire calls, put forward the resolution which for the first time would have supported "the imperative of an immediate and sustained ceasefire" and condemned the October 7 attack by Hamas.

Russia and China exercised their vetoes, Algeria also voted against and Guyana abstained. The other 11 Security Council members voted in favor, including permanent members France and Britain.

Russia's ambassador, Vasily Nebenzia, said that the United States was doing nothing to rein in Israel, mocking Washington for speaking of a ceasefire after "Gaza has been virtually wiped off the face of the Earth."

"We have observed a typical hypocritical spectacle," he said.

"The American product is exceedingly politicized, with the sole purpose being to play to voters and throw them a bone in the form of some kind of a mention of a ceasefire in Gaza," he said.

The resolution will "ensure the impunity of Israel, whose crimes are not even assessed in the draft."

The draft links a ceasefire to ongoing talks, led by Qatar with support from the United States and Egypt, to halt the war in return for Hamas releasing hostages.

The US ambassador, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, called the Russian and Chinese vetoes "not just cynical" but also "petty."

"Russia and China simply did not want to vote for a resolution that was penned by the United States," she said.

"Let's be honest -- for all the fiery rhetoric, we all know that Russia and China are not doing anything diplomatically to advance a lasting peace or to meaningfully contribute to the humanitarian response effort," she said.​

 

[Saif]

Israel’s Trojan Horse

PIERS allow things to come in. They allow things to go out. And Israel, which has no intention of halting its murderous siege of Gaza...

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Israel’s Trojan Horse
Chris Hedges | Published: 00:00, Mar 21,2024

Israel’s Trojan Horse. — by Mr Fish

PIERS allow things to come in. They allow things to go out. And Israel, which has no intention of halting its murderous siege of Gaza, including its policy of enforced starvation, appears to have found a solution to its problem of where to expel the 2.3 million Palestinians.

If the Arab world will not take them, as secretary of state Antony Blinken proposed during his first round of visits after October 7, the Palestinians will be cast adrift on ships. It worked in Beirut in 1982 when some eight and a half thousand Palestine Liberation Organisation members were sent by sea to Tunisia and another two and a half thousand ended up in other Arab states. Israel expects that the same forced deportation by sea will work in Gaza.

Israel, for this reason, supports the ‘temporary pier’ the Biden administration is building, to ostensibly deliver food and aid to Gaza — food and aid whose ‘distribution’ will be overseen by the Israeli military.

‘You need drivers that don’t exist, trucks that don’t exist feeding into a distribution system that doesn’t exist,’ Jeremy Konyndyk, a former senior aid official in the Biden administration, and now president of the Refugees International aid advocacy group told The Guardian.

This ‘maritime corridor’ is Israel’s Trojan Horse, a subterfuge to expel Palestinians. The small shipments of seaborne aid, like the food packets that have been air dropped, will not alleviate the looming famine. They are not meant to.

Five Palestinians were killed and several others injured when a parachute carrying aid failed and crashed onto a crowd of people near Gaza City’s Shati refugee camp.

‘Dropping aid in this way is flashy propaganda rather than a humanitarian service,’ the media office of the local government in Gaza said. ‘We previously warned it poses a threat to the lives of citizens in the Gaza Strip, and this is what happened today when the parcels fell on the citizens’ heads.’

If the US or Israel were serious about alleviating the humanitarian crisis, the thousands of trucks with food and aid currently at the southern border of Gaza would be allowed to enter any of its multiple crossings. They are not. The ‘temporary pier,’ like the air drops, is ghoulish theater, a way to mask Washington’s complicity in the genocide.

Israeli media reported the building of the pier was due to pressure by the United Arab Emirates, which threatened Israel with ending a land corridor trade route it administers in collusion with Saudi Arabia and Jordan, to bypass Yemen’s naval blockade.

The Jerusalem Post reported it was prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu who proposed the construction of the ‘temporary pier’ to the Biden administration.

Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant, who has called Palestinians ‘human animals’ and advocated a total siege of Gaza, including cutting off electricity, food, water and fuel, lauded the plan, saying ‘it is designed to bring aid directly to the residents and thus continue the collapse of Hamas’s rule in Gaza.’

‘Why would Israel, the engineer of the Gaza famine, endorse the idea of establishing a maritime corridor for aid to address a crisis it initiated and is now worsening?’ writes Tamara Nassar in an article titled ‘What’s the Real Purpose of Biden’s Gaza Port?’ in The Electronic Intifada. ‘This might appear paradoxical if one were to assume that the primary aim of the maritime corridor is to deliver aid.’

When Israel offers a gift to the Palestinians you can be sure it is a poison apple. That Israel got the Biden administration to construct the pier is one more example of the inverted relationship between Washington and Jerusalem, where the Israel lobby has bought off elected officials in the two ruling parties.

Oxfam in a March 15 report accuses Israel of actively hindering aid operations in Gaza in defiance of the orders by the International Court of Justice. It notes that 1.7 million Palestinians, some 75 per cent of the Gaza population, are facing famine and two-thirds of the hospitals and over 80 per cent of all health clinics in Gaza are no longer operable. The majority of people, the report reads, ‘have no access to clean drinking water’ and ‘sanitation services are not functioning.’

The report reads: ‘The conditions we have observed in Gaza are beyond catastrophic, and we have not only seen failure by Israeli authorities to meet their responsibility to facilitate and support international aid efforts, but in fact seen active steps being taken to hinder and undermine such aid efforts. Israel’s control of Gaza continues to be characterised by deliberate restrictive actions that have led to a severe and systemic dysfunctionality in the delivery of aid. Humanitarian organisations operational in Gaza are reporting a worsening situation since the International Court of Justice imposed provisional measures in light of the plausible risk of genocide, with intensified Israeli barriers, restrictions and attacks against humanitarian personnel. Israel has maintained a ‘convenient illusion of a response’ in Gaza to serve its claim that it is allowing aid in and conducting the war in line with international laws.’

Oxfam says Israel employs ‘a dysfunctional and undersized inspection system that keeps aid snarled up, subjected to onerous, repetitive and unpredictable bureaucratic procedures that are contributing to trucks being stranded in giant queues for 20 days on average.’ Israel, Oxfam explains, rejects ‘items of aid as having ‘dual (military) use,’ banning vital fuel and generators entirely along with other items essential for a meaningful humanitarian response such as protective gear and communications kit.’ Rejected aid, ‘must go through a complex ‘pre-approval’ system or end up being held in limbo at the Al Arish warehouse in Egypt.’ Israel has also ‘cracked down on humanitarian missions, largely sealing off northern Gaza, and restricting international humanitarian workers’ access not only into Gaza, but Israel and the West Bank including East Jerusalem too.’

Israel has allowed 15,413 trucks into Gaza during the past 157 days of war. Oxfam estimates that the population of Gaza needs five times that number. Israel allowed 2,874 trucks in February, a 44 per cent reduction from the previous month. Before October 7, 500 aid trucks entered Gaza daily.

Israeli soldiers have also killed scores of Palestinians attempting to receive aid from trucks in more than two dozen incidents. These attacks include the killing of at least 21 Palestinians, and the wounding of 150, on March 14, when Israeli forces fired on thousands of people in Gaza City. The same area had been targeted by Israeli soldiers hours earlier.

‘Israel’s assault has caught Gaza’s own aid workers and international agencies’ partners inside a ‘practically uninhabitable’ environment of mass displacement and deprivation, where 75 per cent of solid waste is now being dumped in random sites, 97 per cent of groundwater made unfit for human use, and the Israeli state using starvation as a weapon of war,’ Oxfam says.

There is no place in Gaza, Oxfam notes, that is safe ‘amid the forcible and often multiple displacements of almost the entire population, which makes the principled distribution of aid unviable, including agencies’ ability to help repair vital public services at scale.’

Oxfam blasts Israel for its ‘disproportionate’ and ‘indiscriminate’ attacks on ‘civilian and humanitarian assets’ as well as ‘solar, water, power and sanitation plants, UN premises, hospitals, roads, and aid convoys and warehouses, even when these assets are supposedly ‘deconflicted’ after their coordinates have been shared for protection.’

The health ministry in Gaza said Monday that at least 31,726 people have been killed since the Israeli assault began five months ago. The death toll includes at least 81 deaths in the previous 24 hours, a ministry statement said, adding that 73,792 people have been wounded in Gaza since October 7. Thousands more are missing, many buried under the rubble.

None of these Israeli tactics will be altered with the building of a ‘temporary pier.’ In fact, given the pending ground assault on Rafah, where 1.2 million displaced Palestinians are crowded in tent cities or camped out in the open air, Israel’s tactics will only get worse.

Israel, by design, is creating a humanitarian crisis of such catastrophic proportions, with thousands of Palestinians killed by bombs, shells, missiles, bullets, starvation and infectious diseases, that the only option will be death or deportation. The pier is where the last act in this gruesome genocidal campaign will be played out as Palestinians are herded by Israeli soldiers onto ships.

How appropriate that the Biden administration, without whom this genocide could not be carried out, will facilitate it.

ScheerPost.com, March 17. Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for 15 years for the New York Times.
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Conflicts of interest and Palestinian crisis

DOES the United States have a conflict of interest in the Palestinian crisis? Or is the concept irrelevant to this global conflict? Although...

www.newagebd.net

Conflicts of interest and Palestinian crisis
Obaidul Hamid | Published: 00:00, Mar 23,2024

A Palestinian boy rides a donkey on the rubble of destroyed houses in the Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip on March 21 amidst ongoing battles between Israel and Hamas. — Agence France-Presse/Mohammed Abed

DOES the United States have a conflict of interest in the Palestinian crisis? Or is the concept irrelevant to this global conflict? Although my knowledge of world politics and diplomacy is modest, I believe that the US declaration of its conflict of interests may show a way out of the long political and humanitarian crisis in Palestine.

Conflicts of interest are barriers to the fair and rule-based delivery of public services and operations. Organisations address such impediments as a high priority to ensure that their missions and objectives are not affected by these hidden phenomena.

I have some familiarity with conflicts of interest in academia. For example, a couple of my family members are also affiliated with the institution where I work. Every semester, I have to complete a conflict-of-interest form. This is part of the management process, which seeks to ensure that my decisions or actions do not have a direct bearing on my family members at the institution.

Organisations invest in employee awareness and literacy around conflicts of interest. At my workplace, I undertake mandatory training so I have a clear understanding of different kinds of conflicts of interest and what I should do as an employee in a given situation. Such interests would go against my integrity in performing my role. Effective management of conflicts of interest also helps the institution maintain its integrity and public trust.

One specific site of potential conflicts of interest in academic life is research and publication. Every time I submit an article to a journal for publication or am invited to review an article, I have to answer questions related to potential conflicts of interest. Such interests can be related to the funding of research, authorship attribution, and peer review processes. Publishers aim to maintain the integrity of knowledge production by managing conflicts of interest that may be presented by knowledge workers.

If conflicts of interest are taken so seriously in the academic world, they should be taken many times more seriously by entities that directly impact people and their lives. This simple logic has prompted the questioning at the beginning of the present article.

The current spate of violence against Palestinians has unfolded in real time and geography in Gaza for the past six months. It has thus far killed thousands of Palestinians, including children and women, and injured many more. This brutal killing mission is largely remote-controlled from outside the region. The actions of the Western nations in general and the US in particular are direct inputs into the genocidal output. Therefore, asking the question of conflicts of interest between the West in general and the US in particular may be imperative.

But how is a conflict of interest credibly defined?

Essentially, it refers to clashes of interests or stakes that can’t be reconciled. At the individual level, this is a situation where an employee’s vested interest in something may render them unqualified to make fair and unbiased decisions about certain critical matters. The characterisation of conflicts of interest in Investopedia is pertinent here:

‘A conflict of interest occurs when a person’s or entity’s vested interests raise the question of whether their actions, judgement, and/or decision-making can be unbiased’.

In relation to the Palestinian crisis, we can consider the US as the ‘entity’ and take into account its actions, judgements, and decisions, such as exercising its veto power in the UN Security Council, providing billions of dollars of (military) aid to Israel, equipping this apartheid nation with sophisticated arms and weapons, standing beside Israel under all circumstances, being the chief guarantor of Israel’s security, condemning Palestinians for every stone thrown into the other side of the fence, and never seriously asking Israel to stop its apartheid policy, colonial expansion and territorial control, and mass killings. These US actions point to deep and enduring relationships between Israel and the US at all levels — economic, political, religious, social, strategic, and others. Often, we hear Israeli authorities asserting that Palestinians (read Muslims) are common enemies of Judeo-Christian values.

This may suggest that Israel represents the West in a non-Western part of the world. This transplanted state is an extended arm of the West in the heart of the Arab world. It’s a satellite state that was illegally and wrongfully installed by the West to maintain its surveillance of the region and sustain its geopolitical interests.

Such abiding and unfailing relationships between the US and Israel explain why the former uses its veto power in the UN Security Council to unjustly favour the latter. In any other organisation, a member with such conflicts of interest would not be allowed to take part in voting. For example, I would have to withdraw from a recruitment committee in my workplace if a friend or relative of mine were to be interviewed by that committee for a job.

Predictably, the withdrawal of the US from UNSC voting would have made a significant difference in managing the crisis in the Middle East.

Surprisingly, despite its glaring interests at all conceivable levels, the US also presents itself as a peacebroker between Israel and Palestine. This peace-negotiating role is ridiculous because the US is not a neutral player in the crisis. It is unqualified to make fair and acceptable brokering between the two parties. Its repeated vetoing in support of Israel is the clearest evidence of its disqualification.

The fact of the matter is that the US is unlikely to advance any solution to the Palestinian crisis. The end of this crisis may mean the end of many other crises in the world. A crisis-reduced world will not serve US interests because it won’t be able to sell weapons. Moreover, a stable and peaceful world will compromise US power and hegemony.

The Palestinian crisis will probably drag on so long as the US is its main arbiter. There are sufficient grounds to indicate that all its ways and strategies of trying to solve the problem are actually ways of keeping it unresolved. Therefore, as far as the suffering of Palestinians is concerned, the US is part of the problem, not the solution.

This brings us to the crux of the argument in this essay: that giving peace a chance in Palestine demands that the US declare its conflicts of interest in the region. Such a declaration may be one critical step in the right direction to end the Palestinian crisis.

Obaidul Hamid is an associate professor at the University of Queensland in Australia. He researches language, education, and society in the developing world.
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