UK

MORNINGSTAR

Editorial:

Working people deserve better than Austerity 2.0 from Labour


Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer

UNITE leader Sharon Graham is absolutely right to demand assurances from Keir Starmer that a Labour government will not mean a continuation of austerity.

On this issue she speaks not just for her union but for the working class as a whole.

Austerity has beggared Britain over the last 13 years, impoverishing the public realm, cutting real wages for millions, and it is at the root of the cost-of-living crisis engulfing the country.

It is the expression of the drive by the capitalist class to make workers pay for the crisis which has unfolded, with pauses but without ending, since the bankers’ crash in 2008.

An end to austerity should therefore be the first and unbreakable commitment of any Labour government, as it was under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.

Yet Graham’s fears are not without foundation. Keir Starmer and shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves are missing no opportunity to assure the City and the Treasury that a Labour government would mean no significant change in public spending levels.

Starmer has pledged that there will be no “big government cheque book” and added that “we won’t be able to spend our way out of their mess.”

So, according to the Labour leader, a crisis caused in significant part by cuts in public spending cannot be addressed by increasing public spending.

This is not the logic of Thatcher or Blair as much as it is the logic of Philip Snowden, chancellor in Ramsay MacDonald’s ill-starred government of 1931.

Snowden was prepared to impose any sacrifice on the working class to keep the bankers onside, and did so all the way to the government’s treacherous collapse.

Labour now offers regional devolution as a panacea instead of increased funding. Such devolution has its own merits of course, but they are diminished sharply if unaccompanied by real resources. Devolving austerity has no attractions.

The latest of Starmer’s much-massacred 2020 leadership election pledges to fall victim to this attitude appears to be the scrapping of university tuition fees. Starmer could only waffle when asked to confirm that abolition of the burdensome charges was still Labour policy.

This all establishes once again that Starmer’s strategy for securing office rests largely on appeasing the Establishment, and assuring the elite that he can be depended on not to rock the boat.

He will eschew public ownership of failing utilities and prioritise balancing the books over alleviating the social misery which will be his inheritance.

As with the original austerity introduced by the Cameron-Clegg coalition, this is a political choice, not an economic necessity. The giveaway here is Reeves’s commitment not to introduce a wealth tax.

Were balancing the books really the priority, increasing the tax take from the wealthiest would make sense. However, not unbalancing the distribution of wealth and power is more the Starmer-Reeves manifesto.

Unions are correct to call out this Establishment appeasement. It is wrong for some leaders to pre-emptively apologise for the next Labour government not increasing public spending, just as it is wrong to make light of the ban on Labour frontbenchers supporting picket lines. Solidarity matters.

The labour movement should not be in the business of dampening working people’s expectations. Nor should it adapt its horizons to whatever the capitalist class believe to be affordable.

Working people deserve nothing less than a complete change of economic course, with ditching austerity as the essential start.

As for Starmer, he should remember 2015. Labour fought an election equivocating on austerity, and ended up with just 30 per cent of the vote.

That led in turn to Corbyn’s election as Labour leader — anger will find an out.

Thousands of Kurds march in Paris to protest unresolved killings


Kurdish activists march during a protest in Paris, Saturday, Jan. 7, 2023.

KURDS from throughout France and beyond marched in their thousands in Paris on Saturday to show their anger over the unresolved killing of three Kurdish activists in the French capital 10 years ago.

The marchers were also mourning the shooting of three people, Abdurrahman Kizil, Mir Perwer and Emine Kara, by a man outside a Kurdish cultural centre in Paris in December in what prosecutors are calling a racist attack.

Ms Kara was the leader of the Movement of Kurdish Women in France.

Organisers said at least 25,000 people took part in the rally, police put the figure at 10,000.

Kurdish activists from Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Belgium arrived in buses escorted by police and joined fellow Kurds from France in a peaceful march through the streets of north-east Paris.

More than 1,200 people also marched in the southern French city of Marseille on Saturday.

The demonstrations marked the 10th anniversary of the killings of Sakine Cansiz, Fidan Dogan and Leyla Saylemez.

Mr Cansiz was a founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which Turkey and the European Union have designated a terrorist group.

Kurdish activists accuse the Turkish intelligence service of being involved in the killing. The suspected attacker, a Turkish citizen, died in French custody before the case reached trial.

Turkish officials claimed at the time that the killings may have been part of an internal feud among Kurdish activists or an attempt to derail peace talks.

On Saturday marchers carried banners bearing the victims’ portraits, as well as flags for the PKK, which has waged a separatist insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984.

Berfin Celebm, who came from Amsterdam for the march, accused Turkey of involvement in both the 2013 and 2022 attacks.

“I want to support my struggle and I want to support Kurdish women,” she told reporters.

Ibrahim Halac, a Turk living in Paris who attended the march, said: “Today we are here to support our Kurdish friends because I am Turkish myself, and it is very important, because what is happening with the Kurdish people can happen to us as well tomorrow.”

The Turkish military has carried out a series of attacks against the Kurds in south-east Turkey and in northern Iraq that have cost the lives of hundreds of civilians.

MORNINGSTAR CPUK

Activists in Nicosia protest the Paris massacre

Kurds and their friends protested in front of the French Consulate in Nicosia condemning the murder of Sakine Cansız, Fidan Doğan and Leyla Şaylemez in Paris ten years ago.

ANF
NICOSIA
Sunday, 8 Jan 2023, 18:39

Kurds and their friends took to the streets in Nicosia, capital of Cyprus, on Sunday to mark the 10th anniversary of the triple murder in Paris of PKK founding member Sakine Cansız (Sara), KNK Paris representative Fidan Doğan (Rojbîn) and Kurdish youth movement member Leyla Şaylemez (Ronahî) on 9 January 2013.

Anarchist, ANTIFA Nicosia, Ramon and IWW youth members also attended the protest march from the Interior Ministry of Cyprus to the French Consulate.

In addition to the images of the three Kurdish women, the crowd also displayed images of Evîn Goyî, Mîr Perwer and Abdurrahman Kızıl, victims of another triple murder against the Kurdish community in Paris on 23 December 2022.

The march was followed by a rally in front of the French Consulate. The demonstration here began with a minute of silence in memory of the three female revolutionaries, after which a leaflet prepared by the Kurdish People’s Council in Cyprus was read out.

Politician Lezgin Serhat and the Co-Chair of the Kurdish People’s Council in Cyprus, Fatma Doğan, addressed the crowd and vowed to keep the struggle going.

What challenges will Brazil's President Lula da Silva face?
Thomas Milz
01/01/2023

January 1, 2023

Brazil's outgoing government leaves behind holes in the budget and social disruption. Unlike his first term, new President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva cannot count on a commodity boom and rapid growth in China.

https://p.dw.com/p/4LEqw

When left-wing politician Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva takes over as Brazilian president on January 1, 2023, he will inevitably be compared to the Lula who took over from then-President Fernando Henrique Cardoso in the very same location 20 years earlier. Cardoso, a Social Democrat, had left his successor a solid economic foundation, which allowed Lula to foster growth and reduce poverty.

Back then, Lula referred to a "cursed legacy" all the same. Cardoso had reacted to rising inflation in 2002 by raising key interest rates. "When he takes over his time, he will find out what a really cursed legacy is," Carlos Melo, a political scientist at the Sao Paulo-based Insper Institute, told DW. Right-wing populist and outgoing head of state, Jair Bolsonaro, left behind deep budget holes and a complicated relationship with parliament, he said.
Compromises needed

This time around, the challenge is much greater, Melo said, pointing out that Lula must balance the budget, "which requires a new way of dealing with parliament; because he needs money, he needs to pass new laws, and for that he needs the legislative."
Bolsonaro supporters have called for the military to step inImage: Silvia Machado/TheNEWS2/ZUMA/picture alliance

However, the right-wing camp gained in the October elections. "The Bolsonaro forces plus the so-called Centrao's center parties have the majority — that's where Lula will have to seek compromises," according to the political scientist.

How he handles parliamentary budget requests, billions of dollars of which Bolsonaro had transferred to parliamentarians in exchange for their support, will be crucial.

In the election campaign, Lula had pledged he would get rid of the non-transparent budgets. In any case he will have to negotiate with the powerful president of the Chamber of Deputies, Artur Lira. In 2015, his party colleague and successor, Dilma Rousseff, was caught up in a power struggle with Chamber President Eduardo Cunha that precipitated Rousseff's fall. Lula needs to focus on compromises with the legislative, Melo argued.


Lula 2023 is not the same as Lula 2003

The current political environment cannot be compared with that of 2003, said Marco Antonio Carvalho Teixeira, a political scientist at the Fundacao Getulio Vargas (FGV) think tank — "also because the election results are different today."

At the end of 2002, Lula received more than 61% of the vote; last October, he received only 50.9%. "In 2002, Lula was practically the consensus, the opposition we see now didn't exist," he told DW, and recalled the corruption scandals that landed Lula in prison for a year and a half in 2018. Although the sentences were annulled, they disqualify Lula in the eyes of many Brazilians. Bolsonaro supporters take to the streets daily, demanding the military intervene against Lula's inauguration.

Outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro leaves behind debt and a split societyImage: Andressa Anholete/Getty Images

"With under 2%, the outcome of the election was close, and now there are groups among the population who oppose him," said Teixeira, adding that that is something the new president will have to overcome quickly.

Lula should form a government of national unity with a wide range of political movements, he said, adding that while Lula's Workers' Party (PT) dominated the government in 2003, he is now trying to integrate forces like the right-wing Uniao Brasil party.
Lula must 'deliver quickly'

The Bolsonaro government's inaction contributed to the illegal protests, according to Carlos Melo. They deliberately turned a blind eye, he said. As soon as the new government restores order in the security apparatus, the protests will dwindle, he argued, adding that Lula will then have to deliver quickly and show success to reduce opposition to his government.

It won't be easy. "Brazil is currently experiencing an economic crisis that is worse than in 2002," the FGV's Teixeira said, conceding however that the economic situation has improved in recent months thanks to electoral gifts from the Bolsonaro government including pandemic aid and increased social benefits.

They tore such deep holes in the budget that Lula needs parliamentary approval to suspend the debt brake and a majority for the necessary tax reform. "If Lula doesn't get broad political support now, he runs the risk of starting off with a crisis," Melo said.
Foreign policy success might be easier

On the global stage, on the other hand, rapid success is possible. Bolsonaro's legacy on the environment and human rights is very poor on the international stage, so the fact of Lula's election has already given Brazil more space globally," Teixeira said, pointing out that Lula's visit to the COP27 climate summit in Egypt in November was a strong message.

Lula needs to control deforestation of the Amazon rainforest, like here near Manaus

Image: Bruno Kelly/REUTERS

Carlos Melo also sees internal challenges regarding the environment. Lula lost the vote in those districts in Amazonia where deforestation is highest. That is where Lula must take action against the destruction, all the while offering locals alternatives for the sustainable use of the forests' resources, he said. He also said Lula must get the agricultural sector involved, which is important for exports.

"Brazil's image abroad is extremely dependent on its environmental policy," Melo said, adding if there is no improvement in the sector, Lula ,might as well forget any plans to put Brazil back on the international stage.

If Lula succeeds in making rapid progress, however, Brazil can expect foreign investments in environmental protection and sustainable economic use, he said.
No commodity boom like in 2002

Stimulating growth would be important in the current difficult situation. China's phase of rapid growth, which boosted Brazil's exports during the first Lula administration, is over, he said, adding that in turn, cheap imports from China have led to a worrying degree of de-industrialization.

The country urgently needs a policy that promotes industry, Teixeira warned. "If we don't focus on technology and innovative sectors, we will return to being a purely agricultural producer that will have to import industrial goods."

"It's urgent," Carlos Melo said.

This article was originally written in German.

Iran protesters told they are ‘bringing down the patriarchy’

Thousands of protesters gathered at Marble Arch before marching through central London to Trafalgar Square for the Iran Solidarity Rally, which marked 115 days of protests.
Demonstrators march through Piccadilly Circus in London, to protest against the Islamic Republic in Iran following the death of Mahsa Amini (Aaron Chown/PA)

SUN, 08 JAN, 2023 - 18:02
LUKE O'REILLY, PA

Comedian Omid Djalili told Iranian protesters that they are “bringing down the patriarchy” at a protest in London.

Thousands of protesters gathered at Marble Arch before marching through central London to Trafalgar Square for the Iran Solidarity Rally, which marked 115 days of protests.


Organisers, including human rights organisation Amnesty International, set up a stage beside Nelson’s Column, from which the British-Iranian comedian addressed the crowd.

Demonstrators in Trafalgar Square in London protest against the 

Islamic Republic in Iran (Aaron Chown/PA)

Mr Djalili told them that they are “changing the axis of the world”.

“When British women scream and shout for the women and girls in Iran, they are not just shouting for them, they are shouting for themselves,” he said.

“They are shouting to bring down the patriarchy. That’s what we are doing.

“We are changing the axis of the world. This is why the men are joining the women of Iran, because together we know that the patriarchy hurts people.

You do not mess with women, let alone Iranian women

He added that “woe betide” the men who do not listen to women.

“And right now we see with this regime… when women speak you listen, and if you don’t listen to women, woe betide the men.

“You do not mess with women, let alone Iranian women.”

Attendees carried the country’s flag with the slogan “Freedom for Iran” written on them.

Others held banners with the faces of protesters killed by the regime.

Demonstrators march towards Piccadilly Circus in London (Aaron Chown/PA)

The banners read: “What crime were we killed for?”

The protesters also chanted slogans made popular during the protests in Iran, including “woman life freedom” and “justice for Iran”.

Among the thousands of attendees at the protest was engineer Farshid Farmani.

He said that the UK Government should treat Iran like it treats Russia.

“The UK Government can expel the ambassadors,” he said. “What they have done to Russia they can do to Iran.

Omid Djalili addressed demonstrators in Trafalgar Square (Anthony Devlin/PA)

“A lot of the relatives (of the regime) live here, and they have lots of capital here.

“They can block that capital and put pressure on them and sanction them.”

He added that the protests in Iran were for freedom.

“It’s just for freedom, basic rights,” he said.

“We are all human and we have right to live freely.”

Protesters march through London to a rally in Trafalgar Square (Aaron Chown/PA)

Writer Elika Ansari, 32 also attended the protest.

“I think it’s really important for Iranian people and everyone who supports democracy to come together to support this cause,” she said

“It’s one of the biggest protests I have been to yet.”

She said the people in the UK can show their support by signing petitions and sharing the news.

Pakistan risks ‘extraordinary misery’ without flood recovery help: UN


By AFP
Published January 8, 2023

Pakistan is still reeling from the unprecedented monsoon floods - Copyright AFP Asif HASSAN
Nina LARSON

The international community must help Pakistan recover from last year’s devastating floods and boost climate resilience, or the country will be locked in misery, the head of the UN development agency told AFP.

Pakistan is still reeling from the unprecedented monsoon floods unleashed last August which killed more than 1,700 people and affected some 33 million others.

To meet the acute needs, the country and the United Nations will on Monday co-host an international conference in Geneva seeking billions of dollars in donor pledges and other support towards a long-term recovery and resilience plan.

“The sheer destruction of these floods, the human suffering, the economic cost… turns these floods truly into a cataclysmic event,” said United Nations Development Programme administrator Achim Steiner, whose agency is helping organise the conference.

In an interview ahead of the event, he said the situation remained dire months after the monsoon rains ended.

– Needs ‘massive’ –

“The waters may have receded, but the impacts are still there,” Steiner said.

“There is a massive reconstruction and rehabilitation effort that needs to be undertaken.”

Millions of people remain displaced, and those who have be able to go back home are often returning to damaged or destroyed homes and mud-covered fields that cannot be planted.

Food prices have soared, and the number of people facing food insecurity had doubled to 14.6 million, according to UN figures.

The World Bank has estimated that up to nine million more people could be dragged into poverty as a result of the flooding.

Monday’s one-day conference, which will open with speeches by Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, aims to secure commitments of support towards the country’s $16-billion recovery and reconstruction plan.

Pakistan’s government aims to cover half that amount with “domestic resources”, including through public-private partnerships, but is looking to the international community to cover the rest.

Steiner insisted the international community had a moral duty to help Pakistan recover from a catastrophe clearly amplified by climate change.

The country is responsible for less than one percent of global greenhouse gas emissions but is one of the most vulnerable nations to extreme weather caused by global warming.

– ‘Victim’ –

Pakistan “is essentially a victim of a world that is not acting fast enough on the challenge of climate change”, Steiner said.

The enormous shocks Pakistan is facing, he said, “require the international community to step up in partnership”.

Otherwise, the country will face “an extraordinary amount of misery and suffering” in the long term, he warned.

Pakistan “will essentially remain locked into a situation where it cannot recover, and for years, maybe for decades will lag behind… its potential”.

As the world reels from multiple overlapping crises, from the Covid pandemic to the war in Ukraine and resulting food and energy price hikes, the $8 billion Pakistan is seeking might sound like a big ask.

But Steiner said the figure likely “underestimates not only the cost of what is needed, but also the potential of international support”.

He pointed out that the short-lived but dramatic and deadly floods around Ahr in Germany in 2021 ultimately cost around 33 billion euros ($35 billion).

By comparison, Pakistan saw large swaths of its territory flooded for months, with the water yet to recede in some areas in the south, leaving an unfathomable trail of destruction.

“No country in the world could really recover from this without the solidarity and support of others,” Steiner said.

Helping a climate-vulnerable country like Pakistan to rebuild in a more resilient fashion is the only way to limit the damage as global warming worsens, he said.

“I think the world has begun to realise that climate change has arrived,” he said.

“We will have to not only rethink the way our economies are run, but also how we deal with the catastrophic and almost unprecedented scale of these impacts in the years to come.”

Yemen calls on rights organizations to stop Saudi genocide

TEHRAN, Jan. 08 (MNA) – Yemen’s Ministry of Human Rights has strongly condemned Saudi atrocities against Yemeni civilians and African migrants in border regions, calling on international rights organizations to put a stop to the Saudi genocide.

The ministry said in a Sunday statement that it was “shocked” by the silence of the international community and international bodies led by the UN in face of the crimes committed by the kingdom.

“We remind the world, with all its humanitarian bodies, that the victims of the Saudi attacks, since the beginning of the armistice, have reached 2,258, including 285 martyrs in the border directorates of Sa’ada, and the death toll is still increasing,” read the statement, carried by Yemen’s al-Masirah television network.

It further lamented that artillery shells and machine guns are still raining down on the heads of civilians and immigrants, while the most severe forms of torture and abuse are being practiced against them.

According to al-Masirah, at least one civilian was killed and 11 others injured in the latest Saudi artillery attacks on the Saudi-Yemeni border areas.

Launching a humanitarian appeal, the ministry further called on the free world and rights organizations to move in accordance with their humanitarian principles to condemn such crimes and hold the perpetrators accountable.

It also renewed the call to the competent bodies and all humanitarian and international organizations to investigate Saudi crimes in border areas, including the killing and torture of citizens and the displaced people, in light of the high toll of victims and the scarcity of medical supplies, Press TV reported.

Last month, a Yemeni health official said nearly 3,000 civilians, including African refugees, lost their lives or sustained injuries in 2022 as a result of artillery and missile strikes by Saudi military forces in Yemen’s northwestern province of Sa’ada.

Abdullah Musreeh, director of Razih Rural Hospital, added that at least 907 people were killed or wounded during the UN-brokered truce that lasted six months and expired on October 2.

Saudi Arabia launched the devastating war on Yemen in March 2015 in collaboration with its Arab allies and with arms and logistics support from the US and other Western states.

The objective was to reinstall the Riyadh-friendly regime of Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi and crush the popular Ansarullah resistance movement, which has been running state affairs in the absence of a functional government in Yemen.

While the Saudi-led coalition has failed to meet any of its objectives, the war has killed hundreds of thousands of Yemenis and spawned the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

MNA/PR 

 

Taliban decrees against women paralyzing NGO work: Aid chief

• By Amu TV
• 
  

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NRC chief Jan Egeland in Kabul. Photo: Jan Egeland’s Twitter.

The Taliban’s “internal debates and extreme decrees” are paralyzing humanitarian work in Afghanistan, the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council said on Sunday after arriving in Kabul for a week-long trip.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Jan Egeland, the secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said the aim of his trip is to talk to the Taliban about reversing the ban on women working for national and international non-governmental groups (NGOs).

Egeland is the first NGO chief to visit Afghanistan for talks with the Taliban since the ban came into effect more than two weeks ago.

Following the ban, numerous aid agencies have paused activities in the country stating they are not able to conduct their operations without female staff. Aid organizations, foreign governments, and the United Nations all say women are vital for the delivery of lifesaving assistance in Afghanistan and are calling for the ban’s reversal.

Many groups have however warned of dire and deadly consequences for a population already battered by decades of war, deteriorating living conditions and economic hardship.

Egeland said that he was meeting Taliban leaders in the capital of Kabul and in the southern city of Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban movement and the base of the group’s supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada.

Egeland has already met the economy minister, who initially announced the ban and other Taliban officials. Egeland indicated that those in Kabul were more willing to contemplate women returning to work because of their crucial role in delivering humanitarian aid.

“They all say that they want us to continue work and hope we will continue without females,” Egeland said in an interview Sunday at his group’s Kabul office. “But when I say we’re not willing or able to work with males only, they (Taliban officials) realize that the population is totally dependent on international assistance at the moment, food, shelter, sanitation.”

Women are needed to contact women, including female-headed households and widows, he said. Aid agencies say it is impossible for men to do this work because of Afghanistan’s social and cultural norms as well as the Taliban’s own prohibitions against the mixing of genders.

Separately, two aid officials told AP that they were given the impression by Taliban ministers in Kabul that they want women to resume their work at NGOs but that this decision lies with the leadership in Kandahar.

Egeland said the economy minister “sent us the message given by the supreme leader that we had to discontinue all work.” He said he is traveling to Kandahar because “it is there that the ideological and religious decrees come from.”

“The (Taliban’s) internal debates and extreme decrees have paralyzed our work,” Egeland said, adding that it was impossible to meet the supreme leader in Kandahar but he hoped to influence those around him.

Two weeks after the ban, it remains unclear how comprehensive it is, and some groups have reported that they are able to continue their work.

Egeland said this raises further questions.

“Can this be a religiously activated ban if some (women) are working and some are not? It’s not thought through at all,” Egeland said. “We can’t work with males only because we can’t follow their (the Taliban’s) rules and regulations.”

The Norwegian aid chief said the group’s female staff have complied with the Taliban’s dress codes, gender segregation rules and even the need to have a male chaperone on certain occasions. The damage caused by the ban will become worse the longer it continues, he warned, saying malnutrition and death is rising and maternal health is plunging.

On his trip, Egeland is also due to meet officials from embassies of Muslim-majority countries, such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia, who retain a diplomatic presence in Afghanistan and have condemned the Taliban crackdowns on female education and employment.

Despite initially promising a more moderate rule, the Taliban have widely implemented their interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia.

They have banned girls and women from middle school, high school, and university, restricted women from most employment and ordered them to wear head-to-toe clothing in public. Women are also banned from parks and gyms.

Egeland said he was in Afghanistan shortly after the Taliban takeover in August 2021.

“All these promises were made. We were misled. What I would say is that the Taliban decrees on female workers, on education for girls is so wrong for Afghanistan, for the population, for the future, for the economy.”

He urged the West to send their diplomats back to Afghanistan to engage with the country’s new rulers because the population were the “same 40 million citizens they left behind.”

The Norwegian Refugee Council has worked in Afghanistan since 2003 and employs 470 women. It helped more than 840,000 people last year and was intending to help 700,000 this year, the group said.

APARTHEID; SAME AS IT EVER WAS

Withholding millions from PA, Smotrich says he has ‘no interest’ in its existence

$40 million in tax revenues to be transferred to relatives of terror victims as part of new government’s sanctions against Ramallah

By TOI STAFF

Today

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich holds a press conference with bereaved families at the Finance Ministry in Jerusalem, January 8, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Sunday signed a decree to block NIS 139 million ($39.6 million) in tax revenue from the Palestinian Authority and redirect it to families of terror victims, as part of punitive measures against the PA’s international legal action against Israel, decided upon by the government.

During a press conference, Smotrich was asked whether he was concerned the move could bring about the collapse of the PA, answering: “As long as the Palestinian Authority encourages terror and is an enemy, I have no interest for it to continue to exist.”

Smotrich hailed a years-long campaign to offset the PA’s regular payments to terror convicts and to families of dead Palestinian attackers, which Israel and other critics say offer a direct incentive for terror, calling it a “just struggle…not only in providing retroactive justice, but also as a deterrent.”
Israel’s Judiciary: Reform or Ruin?Keep Watching

Israel has made such deductions in the past, following 2018 legislation on the matter, but only partially upholds the policy, as officials are keenly aware that the PA is dangerously close to financial collapse.

“There is no solace for the families of those murdered, but there is justice,” Smotrich said.

The move is one of the steps approved by the government on Friday to penalize the Palestinians in retaliation for their push for the United Nation’s highest judicial body to give its opinion on Israel’s control of the West Bank. The decision highlights the tough line the new government is taking toward the Palestinians, at a time of spiking violence in the West Bank and with peace talks a distant memory.

Illustrative: Police and security personnel at the scene of a terror attack in Jerusalem, on November 23, 2022. (Olivier Fitoussil/Flash90)

The Palestinian Authority’s practice of paying allowances to those convicted of carrying out terror attacks and to the families of those killed while carrying out attacks — often referred to by some Israeli officials as a pay-to-slay policy — has been defended by Palestinian leaders, who describe them as a form of social welfare and necessary compensation for victims of Israel’s military justice system in the West Bank.

Smotrich told reporters on Sunday that as long as the PA “operates according to agreements, takes care of civilian life and thwarts terror activities in cooperation with Israel’s security establishment, then, of course, it is possible to have relations with the authority.

“This is on the condition that the authority does not resort to terror,” he added.

Abie Moses, the head of the national the Organization of Victims of Terrorism, praised the “important decision,” but added it was only a first step among several demands by those hurt in attacks.

“The inauguration of a new Knesset is an opportunity to atone for the long-standing neglect of the victims of enemy hostilities, and to allocate the necessary resources in order to take care of the rights of thousands who lost their loved ones, who are struggling to survive and trying to continue to live,” he said.

Attorney Avi Segal of Israeli legal advocacy group Shurat HaDin thanked Smotrich and the government for the decision, adding “there is empirical research” that cutting off funds was crucial to preventing terror.

Ron Alon, a relative of terror victims killed in a 2002 Jerusalem attack, called the move “a historic day,” echoing Smotrich’s words about both doing justice for terror victims and potentially deterring future would-be-assailants.

Other punitive measures against the PA include the revocation of travel permits for top Palestinian officials that allow them to travel easily in and out of the West Bank, unlike ordinary Palestinians, and the freezing of Palestinian construction in parts of the West Bank.

Italy rejects MSF ship's request for closer safe port

The New Arab Staff & Agencies
08 January, 2023

NGO operations in the Mediterranean are becoming increasingly precarious.


The Geo Barents has been left at sea in deteriorating weather conditions [Getty images]

The Italian government has rejected a request from Doctors Without Borders to assign a safe port to their ship the Geo Barents closer to the place where it rescued 73 migrants, an NGO official said on Sunday.

Italy's interior ministry did not comment on the issue.

The dispute is part of a broader tug-of-war between Italy's right-wing government and NGOs over where to disembark migrants saved in the Mediterranean sea.

On Saturday Doctor Without Borders' ship Geo Barents received permission from Rome to dock to Ancona port, which is in central Italy and on the country's east coast, far away from Sicily where NGO boats normally disembarked rescued migrants.

"The interior ministry rejected our request for a closer safe port for the disembarkation of the 73 survivors on board the Geo Barents. The ship is heading north," Doctors Without Borders' Mission Head Juan Matias Gil said in a message on Sunday.

After rescuing migrants on a rubber dinghy offshore Libya, Geo Barents on Saturday asked for a closer port, adding it would take it more than three days to reach Ancona while weather conditions were deteriorating.

Reporting by Reuters

Builders uncover Jewish WWII trove in yard in Poland

WARSAW, POLAND
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

PUBLISHED 1 HOUR AGO

About 400 items believed to have been hidden in the ground by their Jewish owners during World War II have been uncovered during house renovation work in a yard in Lodz in central Poland, media reports said Sunday.

History experts say that the objects include Hanukkah menorahs and items used in daily life, TVN24 reported.

They are mostly silver-plated tableware, menorahs and glass containers for cosmetics, according to the regional office for the preservation of historic objects. The office’s experts said on Facebook last week that the objects will be handed over to the city’s Archaeology Museum.

The stash was found in December and two of the hanukkiahs were lighted Dec. 22 during Hannukah organized by the city’s Jewish community.

The address at 23 Polnocna Street, where the objects were found, was just outside the perimeter of the Litzmannstadt Ghetto that the occupying Nazi Germans established in Lodz in February 1940 and until August 1944 held about 200,000 Jews from across Europe. Most of the inmates died there or in concentration camps.