Monday, December 2, 2024
Oxford Union Declares Israel An ‘Apartheid State Responsible For Genocide’
https://popularresistance.org/oxford-union-declares-israel-an-apartheid-state-responsible-for-genocide/
By Middle East Eye. November 30, 2024
Union president denounces Israel’s war on Gaza as a ‘holocaust’ at a fiery event.
A pro-Israel speaker was ejected for harassing Palestinian student.
The prestigious Oxford Union voted by an overwhelming majority that Israel is an “apartheid state responsible for genocide” at a fiery event in which the society’s president denounced Israel’s war on Gaza as a “holocaust”, and a pro-Israel speaker was ejected from the debating chamber.
The exclusive debating society, founded in 1823, held an unprecedented debate on Thursday night on the motion: “This house believes Israel is an apartheid state responsible for genocide”. The motion was carried with a thumping majority of 278 to 59.
The packed debate on Thursday evening, observed by Middle East Eye and largely attended by Oxford students, was often raucous and heated, with nearly every speaker interrupted several times by students raising objections.
At one point, the debate became so fiery that opposition speaker Yoseph Haddad, an ardent supporter of Israel, was told to leave the chamber.
Haddad, who produced several props and posters during his speech, wore a T-shirt displaying a photo of killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrullah and the caption: “Your terrorist hero is dead! We did that.”
At one point during Haddad’s speech, a Palestinian student who grew up in Gaza stood up and said he felt personally insulted, asking the union president that Haddad be removed. Haddad responded by shouting at him and was issued a warning.
The Palestinian student, who said he studies mathematics and physics, later volunteered to give an impromptu speech to the chamber in an intermission between the scheduled speeches.
Another student, a young Palestinian woman, also gave an impromptu speech in which she explained that she was a cousin of Maisara al-Rayyes, a Palestinian doctor recently killed in an Israeli air strike on Gaza.
Both speeches received long-standing ovations. But afterwards, Haddad was seen waving posters near the young woman’s face, at which point the president ordered him to leave the chamber, and he was escorted out by two security guards as audience members shouted, “shame!” and “collaborator” and “wanker.”
On Friday, Haddad took to the social media platform X to post that he was “removed from a hostile event surrounded by anti-Israel rioters because I wasn’t willing to accept the humiliation of the Israeli hostages!”
Israel supporter calls students ‘Terrorists’
Further chaos erupted during another opposition speech, delivered by Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of a Hamas leader who provided information to Israel’s Shin Bet for 10 years before fleeing to the United States.
Yousef demanded to know if the audience would have exposed the Hamas-led attack of 7 October 2023 if they had known of it beforehand. Many in the crowd seemed confused, and only some people raised their hands.
Yousef claimed that the majority of students in the chamber were “terrorists”, triggering apparent outrage.
He further said that he was no longer Palestinian, that Palestinians do not exist and that the Oxford Union has been “hijacked by Muslims”.
There were other unconventional moments during the debate. Mohammed El-Kurd, a prominent Palestinian poet and activist who spoke in favour of the motion, left the chamber straight after giving his own speech.
Israeli-American activist and author Miko Peled, who also spoke in favour of the motion, described the 7 October 2023 attack as “heroic” – leading to uproar among opposition speakers and many in the audience.
Union president denounces Israeli ‘Holocaust’
In an added twist, Ebrahim Osman-Mowafy, the union’s elected president – who was chairing the debate – stepped down towards the end to give a speech in favour of the motion.
He stood in for prominent American academic Norman Finkelstein. The audience was told that he had been scheduled to speak but could not come.
The president spoke about 19-year-old Shaban al-Daloum, who was burnt alive in October after an Israeli air strike on northern Gaza’s Al-Aqsa hospital.
Osman-Mowafy said Daloum’s death was part of Israel’s “holocaust” of Gaza.
Prominent Palestinian-American author Susan Abulhawa also spoke for the proposition.
And Natasha Hausdorff – a member of the pro-Israel lobby group, UK Lawyers for Israel – spoke against the motion, arguing that it constituted “blood libel”.
The debate comes days after the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP), a UK-based group, launched a formal complaint on Tuesday with the Charity Commission against Oxford’s All Souls College, which has an endowment of over $600m and was founded in 1438 by King Henry VI.
The revelation follows a series of freedom of information requests made in July and August 2024, which revealed the college maintains over $1m worth of investments in four companies listed by the United Nations as being involved in Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.
ICJP alleged in its complaint that these investments violated not just international but also domestic British law.
MEE contacted the college for comment but did not receive a response.
The debate was held just days after MEE reported that All Souls College was referred to Britain’s charity regulator for having over $1.26m worth of investments in illegal Israeli settlements.
The Geopolitical Dimensions Of The US BOLIVAR Act
https://popularresistance.org/the-geopolitical-dimensions-of-the-us-bolivar-act/
By MisiĆ³n Verdad, Orinoco Tribune. November 30, 2024
Awaiting approval by the US Senate, the bipartisan bill titled “Banning Operations and Leases with the Illegitimate Venezuelan Authoritarian Regime Act,” known by its forced acronym “BOLIVAR Act,” represents a milestone in the institutionalization of illegal sanctions against Venezuela.
This law aims to—under a legislative and bipartisan framework—perpetuating the executive orders that have operated as the core of the economic and financial coercion policy against Venezuela over the past ten years.
Within the law, the definition of the term “person” as a legal object establishes an expansion of the scope of sanctions, covering everything from individuals and private entities to governmental bodies and their extensions, thereby creating a vast catalog of potential targets on an international scale.
PERSON: The term “person” means: A natural person, corporation, company, business association, partnership, trust, or any other entity, organization, or non-governmental group.
Any governmental entity or its extension.
Any successor, subunit, parent or subsidiary entity of, or any entity under common ownership or control with, any entity described in subparagraph 1 or 2.
Although it does not explicitly mention secondary sanctions, they are implied by including entities under “common ownership or control” with Venezuela.
This introduces a notable geopolitical dimension to the bill, in pursuit of facilitating actions of financial, economic, and international pressure against Venezuela with the aim of affecting both private sector intermediaries and state entities that orbit around the multipolar alliances to which Venezuela subscribes.
A recent example of this is the arrest of a Turkish citizen, accused of facilitating the transportation of Venezuelan oil in an alleged “violation of the sanctions enforcement.” This illustrates how the US institutional framework, including the Department of the Treasury and the Department of Justice, acts as a weapon that combines intimidation, harassment, and covert operations.
The mention of this element is important. The geopolitical orientation of the BOLIVAR Act is also accentuated by the incorporation, in the bill, of intelligence mechanisms under the aegis of the 1947 National Security Act, a decision that justifies the execution of covert operations aimed at regime change.
In fact, according to Venezuela’s Permanent Representative to the UN Samuel Moncada, coercive measures of this kind have a dual component: they are open in their formulation but covert in their execution, using threats and pressures to deter potential international allies of Venezuela.
The act pursues economic as well as geopolitical objectives, which reflects a clear intention to unilaterally condition not only the commercial and energy mechanisms of the Venezuelan state but also its interactions with international factors in a broad sense. It seeks to disrupt the broadening of Venezuela’s ties with the rising multipolar axis.
Sanctions as a geopolitical tool
Gradualism is an inherent characteristic of the US policy of unilateral sanctions because it is natural for the target country to seek alternative mechanisms of international cooperation while facing increasing pressure.
The economist Agathe Demarais, in her book Backfire: How Sanctions Reshape the World Against US Interests (2022), comments that the United States noticed that the sanctions regime on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was insufficient. It hindered the fluidity of Pyongyang’s trade relations with other countries; nevertheless, the DPRK government, based on its legitimate right to self-determination, managed to evade US coercion.
As for Iran, the US initiated a scheme of secondary sanctions that prohibit its oil trade to third countries or companies, a mechanism that it continues to export to other countries.
The experience of sanctions against these countries shows how the United States adapts its coercive policy and shifts from direct measures to secondary sanctions, whose main objective is to erode the target countries’ economies and disrupt their trade dynamics.
However, the notion of gradualism also creates a space for adaptation for the target countries, which develop alternative mechanisms in terms of trade, finance, and geopolitical alliances, as has been the case with Venezuela.
Therefore, after exerting sufficient pressure and not achieving the set objectives, the US government is feeling the strain of applying sanctions. Consequently, it is adjusting its approach to refine its application, as outlined in the BOLIVAR Act, which represents a new push to disrupt Venezuela’s growing prominence in the BRICS axis, resulting in a qualitative leap in the dynamization of Venezuela’s trade relations with key multipolar powers, namely, Russia, China, and Iran.
In the case of Venezuela, the sanctions have fostered a strategic rapprochement with emerging powers and allied countries. An example of this is Venezuela’s recent signing of 17 agreements with Russia during the 18th Meeting of the High-Level Intergovernmental Commission, aiming to increase Venezuelan exports to Russia by 453% and strengthening bilateral trade. In addition, there are advances in agreements with Iran, which include more than 80 approved projects and a dozen new agreements under negotiation. These alliances strengthen a system of cooperation aimed at mitigating the impact of sanctions and diversifying Venezuela’s commercial options.
In addition, last year the bilateral relationship between Venezuela and China reached a new level with the establishment of a “All-Weather strategic partnership,” which consolidates a framework of cooperation that transcends the economic to encompass technological, energy, and geopolitical areas. This strengthening of Sino-Venezuelan ties comes in the backdrop of a regional context where Chinese influence is rapidly growing and filling the gaps left by the United States in Latin America.
The growing presence of China in Latin America, with significant cooperation frameworks and tangible investments such as the Chancay port in Peru or the BYD plant in Brazil, exposes the lack of strategic projects led by Washington that could generate a significant regional impact with concrete geopolitical gains.
The institutionalization of illegal sanctions through the BOLIVAR Act seeks to test not only Venezuela’s resilience but also to disrupt the solidity of emerging alliances that aim to counteract US hegemony.
Venezuela’s strategic relations with the multipolar world have been generating increasingly significant results. In response to this “urgency,” the BOLIVAR Act aims to derail the deepening of these ties before it is too late for the US.
Amazon Workers Strike From Black Friday To Cyber Monday
https://popularresistance.org/amazon-workers-strike-from-black-friday-to-cyber-monday/
By Michelle Del Rey, Portside. November 30, 2024
‘Make Amazon Pay Day’ is becoming a global act of resistance against Amazon’s abuse of power.
Amazon workers are planning to strike from Black Friday through Cyber Monday to hold the company accountable for “labor abuses, environmental degradation and threats to democracy,” organizers say.
The “Make Amazon Pay” protest, organized by UNI Global Union and Progressive International, will take place in 20 different countries and major cities in the United Kingdom, United States, Germany, Japan and Brazil.
“Amazon is everywhere, but so are we. By uniting our movements across borders, we can not only force Amazon to change its ways but lay the foundations of a world that prioritizes human dignity, not Jeff Bezos’ bank balance.” said Varsha Gandikota-Nellutia Progressive International Co-General Coordinator.
The event could impact the biggest shopping weekend of the year, though it’s not clear how many Amazon workers would be participating. Thousands are thought to be going on strike in Germany alone. Unions and allied tax justice, anti-poverty and garment worker rights groups will be part of the protest.
A spokesperson for Amazon told ABC News: “This group is being intentionally misleading and continues to promote a false narrative…The fact is at Amazon we provide great pay, great benefits, and great opportunities.”
Amazon spokesperson Eileen Hards told Fox News: “The fact is, at Amazon we provide great pay, great benefits, and great opportunities — all from day one. We’ve created more than 1.5 million jobs around the world, and counting, and we provide a modern, safe, and engaging workplace whether you work in an office or at one of our operations buildings.”
It’s the fifth year the organizers have held the “Make Amazon Pay” campaign.
The group took issue with Amazon’s work in the political arena. Amazon underreported its lobbying expenditures across Europe by millions, the group said, adding Amazon refused to participate in public hearings, prompting the European Parliament to ban the company’s lobbyists.
In the US, organizers worry Amazon’s challenging the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Board will threaten protections for American workers. In Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom, Amazon has been accused of intimidating workers to prevent unionization efforts.
“Amazon’s relentless pursuit of profit comes at a cost to workers, the environment and democracy,” said Christy Hoffman, General Secretary of UNI Global Union. “Bezos’s company has spent untold millions to stop workers from organizing, but the strikes and protests happening around the world show that workers’ desire for justice – for union representation – can’t be stopped.
“We stand united in demanding that Amazon treat its workers fairly, respect fundamental rights, and stop undermining the systems meant to protect us all. ‘Make Amazon Pay Day’ is becoming a global act of resistance against Amazon’s abuse of power.”
The Independent has asked Amazon for comment.
Cleveland Police Commission Pushes Through Drone Policy
https://popularresistance.org/cleveland-police-commission-pushes-through-drone-policy/
By Catherine Henchek, Liberation News. November 30, 2024
Despite public outcry.
Community members packed Cleveland’s Community Police Commission meeting on Nov. 20 to oppose a new police drone policy. The policy, spearheaded by Commissioner Piet van Lier, included sections which provide Cleveland police arguments to use drones over protests under the guise of other police operations.
After public outrage and a contentious meeting, two authorized drone uses in the policy which could target protesters were removed. However, the policy that was approved by the Commission still included concerning language, such as the following in the Operational Procedures: “[Drone] operators shall not fly over large crowds unless exigent circumstances exist or unless absolutely necessary for law enforcement purposes and approved by the onsite command officers.“
“There are so many problems with this drone policy. It needs to be immediately rewritten,” said Commissioner Teri Wang, an opponent of the policy. “The Commission was not provided sufficient time and access to review the policy before it was presented for a vote. It is still unclear to me how this policy was even written and who was involved. Certainly the public was not properly engaged.”
On Nov. 24, a police drone was spotted over a pro-Palestine protest. Five individuals were cited at the protest for protected First Amendment activity. Chief of Police Dorothy Todd was present at the protest and told Wang the drone was used for “training.”
Multiple commissioners have said the drone policy is still waiting on approval from the Department of Justice.
The rush for a police drone policy
The policy was first introduced and voted upon at a committee meeting on Nov. 11. Wang, who is listed as a committee member on the CPC website, was not informed of the meeting ahead of time. The committee voted in favor of bringing the policy to the full Commission.
After another committee meeting on Nov. 18, there was an exchange between Wang and van Lier related to the drone policy. Wang filmed herself asking van Lier why he misled the Commission about whether the drone policy had been reviewed by Constitutional experts.
“When I questioned Piet, he spun around, approached me with a menacing glare, yanked my cell phone out of my hand, and then threw it,” Wang told Liberation News. Footage of the exchange appears to corroborate the claims of Wang. A report was made by the police following the incident, in which Wang alleges battery.
At the Nov. 20 CPC meeting, numerous community members spoke out against the drone policy during public comment.
One speaker was Shejuti Wahed, a student at Case Western Reserve University and a pro-Palestine advocate on campus. “[This] is a clear violation of First Amendment rights, and an increase in state control of the people. While this policy is based on the drone policy from Oakland, [California] that policy prohibits drone use during protests,” said Wahed.
Numerous students at CWRU have raised concerns of surveillance and retaliation for Palestinian advocacy in the past year. The U.S. Department of Education recently opened a Title VI investigation into the university following allegations of discrimination against Palestinian, Arab and Muslim students.
Crystal Knight, a community organizer who provides support to individuals falsely accused by Cleveland police, also spoke out against the policy. “What’s more concerning to me is that [the drones] are in the hands of some of the most vile, corrupt people,” said Knight. “The Commission has done nothing but collaborate with, excuse, praise and protect these officers.”
The proposed drone policy has similar language to the policy adopted by the Massachusetts State Police, a policy the ACLU has claimed was used to monitor Black Lives Matter protesters in 2020: “[T]he MSP, in partnership with local police, used drones to surveil Black Lives Matter protests across the state. Under the guise of ‘crowd control, traffic incident management and temporary perimeter security,’ the MSP was actively surveilling people exercising their First Amendment rights.”
The move to expand the surveillance technology available to Cleveland’s police follows a year of protests against the U.S.-sponsored genocide in Palestine.
Protest movements are expected to grow under the Trump administration. A coalition of Cleveland community organizations have announced a protest for Jan. 20, 2025 to inaugurate a fight back against Trump’s extreme-right billionaire agenda. Organizers say the increased repression will only breed more resistance.
Farmers And Workers In India Unite Against Neoliberal Assaults
https://popularresistance.org/farmers-and-workers-in-india-unite-against-neoliberal-assaults/
By Abdul Rahman, People's Dispatch. November 30, 2024
The protesters also registered their opposition to growing corporate and sectarian nexus.
Which has been influencing the policy making under BJP led central government in the country.
Thousands of farmers and workers took to the streets in India on Tuesday, November 26 demanding minimum support price for their farm produce and preservation of labor rights in the country against the assaults from the pro-corporate government.
The protests were called by all a joint platform of central trade unions and Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), a joint platform of farmers groups formed during the 2020-21 farmers’ agitation against the three pro-corporate farms laws.
The central demands of the protesters include repeal of four labor codes introduced by the ultra right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during its second term in 2020 and a legally guaranteed minimum support price (MSP) for all farm products as promised by the Modi government during the 2020-21 agitation.
Thousands of farmers had surrounded the capital New Delhi for over a year in 2020-21 demanding the repeal of three farm laws brought by the Modi government. The SKM had claimed that those laws were brought in to favor big corporate houses in the agricultural sector at the cost of the millions of farmers. The government had initially resisted and refused to withdraw the laws but was later forced to do so. It was also forced to agree to bring in a law guaranteeing MSP for all crops which it has failed to do so till date.
The Modi government introduced four labor codes, in 2020 replacing all existing laws related to workers. It claimed the codes would simplify the legal regimes related to labor in India and promote greater investments. However, all major central unions in the country have opposed the laws claiming they curtail basic labor rights including eight hours working day, social security and right to collective bargaining. Because of the opposition the government has failed to implement those laws four years after they were passed in the parliament. Workers have demanded their complete withdrawal.
Vijoo Krishnan, general secretary of the left-wing All India Kisan Sabha, a major constituent of the SKM told Peoples Dispatch that “workers and peasants came together in massive protests across more than 500 districts centers” in India “opposing the BJP-led NDA government’s aggressive pursuit of neoliberal economic policies and drive towards privatization.” He underlined that the four labor codes “snatch all hard won rights of the working class” and therefore must be withdrawn immediately.
National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is a broad alliance of right-wing parties led by the BJP in power.
Other major demands include, “a minimum wage of Rs. 26,000 per month, loan waiver for farmers, assured remunerative prices at C2+50% (50% above cost of production), 200 days of work with at least Rs. 600 per day as wages, social security pensions, food security, controlling price rise and other livelihood issues,” Krishnan pointed out.
SKM along with trade unions had campaigns across all districts in India for weeks in the run up of the protests on Tuesday. SKM had issued a leaflet detailing the overall economic and social condition in the country. It has claimed that the majority of workers and farmers in the country are forced to live in distress due to pro-corporate policies adopted by the Modi led government in India.
The Hindu supremacist BJP government has been accused by the left parties of collaborating with big corporate houses such as Adani and Ambanis in the country and making policies in their favor as “kickbacks.” These corporates are in turn backing BJP and its mother organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in their pursuit to impose a Hindu majoritarian polity in the country and dividing the working classes on religious and sectarian lines.
Noting BJP government’s sectarian character, Vijoo Krishnan, who is also a central committee member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) emphasized that the “united worker-peasant protest” was also against “the corporate-communal nexus” which runs the present Modi government endangering the secular polity in the country.
Krishnan told the press that if the government fails to take appropriate action to correct its ways in time such protests will continue and intensify in future.
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