https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yThxR3NKX6c
Monday, December 2, 2024
Without Including Biden And Blinken, International Criminal Court Arrest Warrants Are A Sham
https://popularresistance.org/without-including-biden-and-blinken-international-criminal-court-arrest-warrants-are-a-sham/
By Ajamu Baraka, Black Agenda Report. November 30, 2024
The International Criminal Court finally indicted Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, but this action is merely performative.
If arrest warrants do not include war criminals like Joe Biden and other U.S. officials, they are ultimately empty attempts to maintain a semblance of legitimacy.
After months of procedural stalling, allegations of sexual harassment against the lead prosecutor and systematic threats from the United States and its Western allies, it did not appear that the International Criminal Court (ICC) would even execute the final phase of the criminal indictment process and Israeli impunity would continue. But on November 20, 2024, six months to the day after Karim Khan, chief prosecutor for the court, submitted his request for the indictments of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant and Hamas leaders Mohammed Deif, Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh, the court finally indicted Netanyahu, Gallant and threw in Mohammed Deif, who Israel claims to have assassinated, as they did to Sinwar and Haniyeh.
There was sincere rejoicing around the world after the arrest warrants were issued. Finally, it was thought, there would be some accountability for the brutal savagery of the Israeli settler-colonial apartheid state’s horrific crimes against the Palestinian people. For some, it also meant that just maybe the days of the ICC acting as a convenient instrument of Western white power might actually be over.
However, there are two elements to this indictment that reaffirm the biases and double standards of the ICC.
First, while many around the world proclaimed that the indictments confirmed what major international human rights groups, human rights lawyers and scholars and the general public could plainly see, and that was the reality that Israel was perpetrating an active genocide, the indictments were not based on the issue of genocide but on war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Reflected in the language of the indictment , it was clear that Netanyahu and Gallant “each bear criminal responsibility for the following crimes as co-perpetrators for committing the acts jointly with others: the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.”
It goes on to say, the court “also found reasonable grounds to believe that Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant each bear criminal responsibility as civilian superiors for the war crime of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population.”
But the question then becomes, if it is clear that Israel is using starvation against a specific ethnic group with the intention to murder numbers of that group and deploys other “inhumane acts” that Israeli authorities directed toward the “civilian population”, why, and this is the second element, wouldn’t the ICC at least go as far as other legal scholars and international human rights organizations and call it for what it is – genocide?
Let’s look at some of the “inhumane acts” mentioned in the indictments:
The court said that “both individuals intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water, and medicine and medical supplies, as well as fuel and electricity, from at least 8 October 2023 to 20 May 2024. This finding is based on the role of Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant in impeding humanitarian aid in violation of international humanitarian law”
Moreover:
“By intentionally limiting or preventing medical supplies and medicine from getting into Gaza, in particular anaesthetics and anaesthesia machines, the two individuals are also responsible for inflicting great suffering by means of inhumane acts on persons in need of treatment. Doctors were forced to operate on wounded persons and carry out amputations, including on children, without anaesthetics, and/or were forced to use inadequate and unsafe means to sedate patients, causing these persons extreme pain and suffering. This amounts to the crime against humanity of other inhumane acts.”
And now let’s look at the definitions of genocide reflected in the United Nations’s Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide :
Article II
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: Killing members of the group;
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
It appears from the language of its indictment that there were both genocidal consequences and more importantly, intent!
Operating from the context of the Genocide Convention, Francesca Albanese, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories directs our attention to the fact that “genocide is defined as a specific set of acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.”
“Specifically, Israel has committed three acts of genocide with the requisite intent: causing seriously serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, and imposing measures intended to prevent birth within the group.”
Furthermore, “the genocide in Gaza is the most extreme stage of a long-standing settler colonial process of erasure of the native Palestinians.”
So, why does it appear that the ICC avoided including this interpretation in the indictments of Netanyahu and Gallant when the evidence of genocide is clear? Perhaps there is an explanation of the omission. Article III section (e) of the Genocide Convention says quite clearly that complicity with genocide is also a punishable crime.
Having to be forced to indict the leadership in Israel in order to retain any shred of credibility after years of obsequious service to the West, the court had gone far enough and was loath to engage in the next logical step – having to identify and charge the genocide enablers – the United States of America.
The ICC prosecution and judges probably concluded it was wise to pass that on to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that eventually will have to render a judgement on the South African case charging Israel with genocide along with the court’s own preliminary judgement demanding that Israel cease engaging in any actions that might lead to the conditions of genocide. Israel completely ignored that demand and the U.S. fought and is fighting to pre-empt the court rendering a judgement unfavorable to Israel.
It will be interesting to see how the court handles this issue, especially the issue of genocidal complicity once it is forced to render the obvious, that Israel is conducting a genocide in Palestine.
The position of human rights defenders and anti-colonial and anti-imperialist forces around the world must be unequivocal, without an indictment of U.S. president Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and even Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, any analysis of Israeli behavior that does not result in a judgement against Israel and prosecution of all of the responsible parties will be seen as more evidence that all of the post-war structures set up by Western imperialism must be completely abandoned and new ones must be constructed.
But we cannot wait for bureaucratic practices of anachronistic international structures reflecting the international balance of power in 1945. The world is very different today, which the defenders of global European white supremacy find impossible to accept. That is precisely why the U.S. along with their European allies and the comprador nations aligned with the dying Western order and imploding U.S. empire are prepared to use whatever means necessary to escape their inevitable loss of global hegemony.
The fantasy that Israel, a colonial project set-up at the beginning of the end of classical colonialism in 1948 could continue its crude colonial racist apartheid system into the 21st century is a case in point. The psychopathology of white supremacy is reflected in the narcissism and disconnection from reality that can result from being the boss for so long.
What Must Be Done?
Now is the time to throw off all hesitations, open up new fronts of struggle and to launch every protest, demonstration, and anti-imperialist action – from the ballot box to the barricades – as an act to deepen the crisis of imperialism.
Every protest against police and white civilian murder of our people, every mass mobilization to demand the end to the cruel, bloody economic war against Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Iran, Korea and Russia must be seen as our part to turning the imperialist wars into wars against imperialism!
– Omali Yeshitela , Chair of the Black is Back Coalition and member of Uhuru 3, just recently convicted in Federal court for conspiracy)
The Western world in its present form is finished. But it will not go quietly into the night. It must be crushed, its power stripped away and neutralized in a way that it can never be the threat to collective humanity that it poses today.
That is going to take a horrific fight. Palestinians are making the sacrifices that are required when the fight is about individual and collective dignity. The people of Lebanon are also going to have to make decisions regarding what they are willing to sacrifice just as the Vietnamese, the Koreans, Chinese, Algerians, and South Africans have done, and the colonized peoples of the U.S. must do.
As Francesca Albanese correctly and courageously said “colonial amnesia of the West has condoned Israel’s colonial settler project”, adding that “the world now sees the bitter fruit of the impunity afforded to Israel. This was a tragedy foretold.”
What is also foretold is that if we do not defeat the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination our sojourn on this planet will come to an abrupt and final end much more quickly than any of us realize.
Therefore, our task is clear and must be clearly articulated.
Over 800 Euro Banks Invest In Companies Supporting Illegal Settlements
https://popularresistance.org/over-800-euro-banks-invest-in-companies-supporting-illegal-settlement/
By News Desk, The Cradle. November 30, 2024
The Don’t Buy into Occupation coalition names 58 businesses and 822 European financial institutions complicit in Israel’s illegal Jewish settlement enterprise.
The Don’t Buy into Occupation (DBIO) coalition has issued its 2024 report highlighting the international companies and financial institutions that are actively involved with illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The DBIO coalition is a joint project between 24 Palestinian, regional, and European organizations.
The newly released report shows that over the past three years, “822 European financial institutions (including banks, asset managers, insurance companies, and pension funds) had financial relationships with 58 companies that are actively involved with illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT).”
Among the most prominent of the 58 companies named in the report are:
Airbnb, Booking Holdings, Carlsberg, Carrefour, Caterpillar, Cisco Systems, Elbit Systems, Expedia Group, Heidelberg Materials, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), Hyundai Heavy Industries, International Business Machines Corporation (IBM), Motorola Solutions, RE/MAX Holdings, The Coca-Cola Company, TKH Group, Tripadvisor, and Volvo Group.
“During this period, $211 billion was provided in the form of loans and underwriting to these companies. As of August 2024, European investors also held $182 billion in shares and bonds in these companies,” the report adds.
The 10 European financial institutions with the largest investments and loans in companies doing business in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are:
BNP Paribas, HSBC, Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Société Générale, Santander, Crédit Agricole, UniCredit, Standard Chartered, and ING Group.
The $182 billion refers to the total financial investments in and loans to these companies, which conduct the majority of their business outside the illegal settlements.
However, the report notes that any investment in such companies supports their business activities in the occupied West Bank as well.
Without the services of these businesses and the financial institutions backing them, it would not be possible for illegal Jewish settlement to continue in the West Bank.
Such companies are crucial for providing the infrastructure that undergirds settlement building, such as building roads, telecommunications networks, home construction and financing, and so forth.
The DIOB writes that “Israeli, European, and international business enterprises, operating with or providing services to Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise, play a critical role in the functioning, sustainability and expansion of the illegal occupation, including the settlements.”
Investing in and doing business in illegal settlements is particularly lucrative because the land used to construct real estate or operate businesses has been stolen from Palestinians and thereby acquired without cost.
Israel invaded and occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza, and the Syrian Golan Heights in 1967 during the Six-Day War. Israel has refused to return these conquered lands and has built settlements to house hundreds of thousands of Jewish Israeli settlers ever since.
DBIO notes in its report that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an advisory opinion in July 2024 stating that Israel’s entire presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including its military occupation and settlements, is unlawful and must be brought to an end as soon as possible.
Since Israel began its genocide against Palestinians in Gaza on 7 October 2023, Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank has accelerated.
Israeli Jewish settlers have established 25 new illegal “outposts,” while the government has stolen 24,193 dunams in the West Bank by declaring them as “state land,” DIOB reports.
Israeli authorities have also approved the establishment of five new settlements and the retroactive “legalization” of three “outposts” as “neighborhoods” of existing settlements.
In May 2024, the Israeli government also took steps to begin the annexation of the West Bank under Israeli law.
The annexation of the West Bank is a declared goal of several ministers in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet, including National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
In late August 2024, Israel also launched its biggest military assault on the West Bank since the end of the Second Intifada over 20 years ago.
DIOB recommends that the financial institutions mentioned in the report “Take action to end financial support for companies that are active in the illegal settlement enterprise or that otherwise provide goods or services that support the settlement enterprise.”
DIOB recommends that businesses operating in the West Bank “responsibly cease all activities and relationships that help to establish, expand or maintain illegal Israeli settlements or the settlement enterprise in general” and “immediately end all sales and transfers, including via third states, of arms or military technology and dual-use items to Israel.”
No More ‘Deals’: What Palestinians Want And Will Fight To Achieve
https://popularresistance.org/no-more-deals-what-palestinians-want-and-will-fight-to-achieve/
By Ramzy Baroud, Counter Punch. November 30, 2024
A major problem in American thinking in the Middle East is the utter rejection of the notion that Palestinian rights are fundamental, if at all relevant, to the coveted peace and stability.
Long before Donald Trump’s first ‘Deal of the Century’ was officially revealed on January 28, 2020, successive US administrations attempted to ‘stabilize’ the Middle East at the expense of Palestinians.
Earlier plans, or deals, rested on the premise of total marginalization of the Palestinian people and their cause. They included the Roger Plan of 1969 and Roger Plan II in the early 70s, which culminated in the Camp David Accords later that same decade.
When all had failed to subdue Palestinians, Israel and the US began investing in an alternative Palestinian leadership that would be compliant with Israeli will, often in exchange for money and a minimal share of power. The outcome was the Oslo Accords in 1993, which initially segmented Palestinians politically, yielding competing classes, but eventually failing to defeat the Palestinian quest for freedom.
Numerous other initiatives and plans, mostly by the US and other western entities, tried to conclude the Palestinian struggle in favor of Israel without having to deal with the inconveniences of pressuring Israel to respect international law. They all failed.
Trump’s so-called ‘Deal of the Century’ was another failed attempt. It was situated in previously thwarted Israeli plans centered around Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s so-called ‘economic peace‘ in 2009. For Israel, the new ‘deal’ was meant to represent a win-win scenario: ending Israel’s regional isolation, amassing wealth, making the Israeli military occupation permanent, avoiding any accountability under international law, thus permanently defeating Palestinians.
The ongoing Israeli war and genocide in Gaza, the destabilization of the whole region and the ongoing Palestinian steadfastness and resistance are the final proof that there can never be real peace in the Middle East without justice for Palestinians and other victims of Israeli brutality. No number of future US-western deals and initiatives can ever alter this fact.
The same inference applies to those operating at a less official capacity, but still committed to the same perusal of creative ‘solutions’ to the so-called ‘conflict’. Such notions may suggest that the lack of solutions reflects the lack of imagination, resolve or the dearth of legal text that makes a just end to the ‘conflict’ impossible.
However, a solution is readily available. Indeed, the solution to military occupation, apartheid and genocide is ending military occupation, dismantling the racist apartheid regime and holding Israeli war criminals accountable for their extermination of Palestinians.
Not only do we have enough international and humanitarian laws and court orders to guide us through the process of holding Israel accountable, but more than the needed critical mass of international consensus that should make this ‘solution’ possible. The main obstacle is the stubborn and unconditional US support of Israel, which has allowed it to flout international law and consensus for decades.
International law regarding Palestine is not an outdated resolution, but a robust and growing legal discourse that refuses to entertain any Israeli or US interpretation of the war crimes, including the crime of genocide underway in Gaza and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories.
Last February, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) began holding hearings that allowed representatives of over 50 countries to articulate their political, legal and moral stances on the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
While the acting legal adviser at the US State Department argued that the 15-judge panel at the Hague should not call for Israel’s withdrawal from the occupied West Bank, China’s Foreign Ministry’s legal adviser, Ma Xinmin, contended that Palestinian ‘use of force to resist oppression is an inalienable right’.
Later in July, the ICJ issued a landmark ruling that the Israeli occupation in all of its expressions is illegal under international law, and that such illegality includes the occupation of East Jerusalem, all Israeli Jewish settlements, annexation attempts, theft of natural resources, and so on.
In September 2024, international consensus again followed, as the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution demanding Israel to end “its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” within 12 months.
This is but a footnote in the massive body of international law regarding the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Yet more is constantly being added to the already clear discourse, including the latest arrest warrants by the International Criminal Court (ICC) of top Israeli leaders, including Netanyahu.
With such clarity in mind, why then should Palestinians, Arabs and the international community entertain or engage in any new deals, plans and solutions that operate outside the realm of international law and standards?
The issue is obviously not the lack of a roadmap to a just peace, but the lack of interest or will, namely on the part of the US and a few of its western allies. It is their relentless backing of Israel and financing of its war machine that makes a just solution in Palestine unattainable, at least for now.
As far as Palestinians are concerned, there can only be one acceptable ‘deal’, a deal that is predicated on the full implementation of international law, including the Palestinian people’s right of return and right to self-determination.
Continued US-Israeli attempts at circumventing this fact will never impede Palestinians from carrying on with their struggle for freedom.
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