Tuesday, December 12, 2023

Inspiration for the Nakba?

The unspeakable violence that plagues Israel and Palestine daily relates in part to the assertion of an ancient, ancestral, and even divinely bestowed property right to a parcel of land, which is often called “holy” and “promised.” For background, here are a few influential – which is not to say factual – passages from a perennially bestselling book (or set of books) deemed important by the three Abrahamic religions.

From the Book of Genesis:

[15:18]In that day [the Lord] made a covenant with Abram, saying: ‘Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt [Nile] unto the great river, the river Euphrates [Iraq]; [15:19][the land of] the Kenite, and the Kenizzite, and the Kadmonite, [15;20]and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Rephaim, [15:21]and the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Girgashite, and the Jebusite.’

From the Book of Joshua:

[1:1][T]he LORD spake unto Joshua the son of Nun [allegedly in 1400 BCE] … saying, [1:2]…go over this Jordan, thou, and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel. [1:3]Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses. [1:4]From the wilderness [Sinai?] and this Lebanon even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your coast. [1:5]There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. [1:6]Be strong and of a good courage: for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land, which I sware unto their fathers to give them.

[6:20]So the people shouted when the priests blew with the trumpets: and it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city. [6:21]And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword…. [6:24]And they burnt the city with fire, and all that was therein….

[8:1]And the LORD said unto Joshua, Fear not, neither be thou dismayed: take all the people of war with thee, and arise, go up to Ai: see, I have given into thy hand the king of Ai, and his people, and his city, and his land: [8:2]And thou shalt do to Ai and her king as thou didst unto Jericho and her king: only the spoil thereof, and the cattle thereof, shall ye take for a prey unto yourselves: lay thee an ambush for the city behind it. [8:3]So Joshua arose, and all the people of war, to go up against Ai: and Joshua chose out thirty thousand mighty men of valour, and sent them away by night. [8:4]And he commanded them, saying, Behold, ye shall lie in wait against the city, even behind the city: go not very far from the city, but be ye all ready: [8:5]And I, and all the people that are with me, will approach unto the city: and it shall come to pass, when they come out against us, as at the first, that we will flee before them, [8:6](For they will come out after us) till we have drawn them from the city; for they will say, They flee before us, as at the first: therefore we will flee before them. [8:7]Then ye shall rise up from the ambush, and seize upon the city: for the LORD your God will deliver it into your hand. [8:8]And it shall be, when ye have taken the city, that ye shall set the city on fire: according to the commandment of the LORD shall ye do….

[8:11]And all the people, even the people of war that were with him, went up, and drew nigh, and came before the city, and pitched on the north side of Ai: now there was a valley between them and Ai. [8:12]And he took about five thousand men, and set them to lie in ambush between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of the city…. [8:14]And it came to pass, when the king of Ai saw it, that they hasted and rose up early, and the men of the city went out against Israel to battle, he and all his people, at a time appointed, before the plain; but he wist not that there were liers in ambush against him behind the city. [8:15]And Joshua and all Israel made as if they were beaten before them, and fled by the way of the wilderness. [8:16]And all the people that were in Ai were called together to pursue after them: and they pursued after Joshua, and were drawn away from the city. [8:17]And there was not a man left in Ai or Bethel, that went not out after Israel: and they left the city open, and pursued after Israel.

[8:18]And the LORD said unto Joshua, Stretch out the spear that is in thy hand toward Ai; for I will give it into thine hand. And Joshua stretched out the spear that he had in his hand toward the city. [8:19]And the ambush arose quickly out of their place, and they ran as soon as he had stretched out his hand: and they entered into the city, and took it, and hasted and set the city on fire. [8:20]And when the men of Ai looked behind them, they saw, and, behold, the smoke of the city ascended up to heaven, and they had no power to flee this way or that way: and the people that fled to the wilderness turned back upon the pursuers. [8:21]And when Joshua and all Israel saw that the ambush had taken the city, and that the smoke of the city ascended, then they turned again, and slew the men of Ai. [8:22]And the other issued out of the city against them; so they were in the midst of Israel, some on this side, and some on that side: and they smote them, so that they let none of them remain or escape. [8:23]And the king of Ai they took alive, and brought him to Joshua.

[8:24]And it came to pass, when Israel had made an end of slaying all the inhabitants of Ai in the field, in the wilderness wherein they chased them, and when they were all fallen on the edge of the sword, until they were consumed, that all the Israelites returned unto Ai, and smote it with the edge of the sword. [8:25]And so it was, that all that fell that day, both of men and women, were twelve thousand, even all the men of Ai. [8:26]For Joshua drew not his hand back, wherewith he stretched out the spear, until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai. [8:27]Only the cattle and the spoil of that city Israel took for a prey unto themselves, according unto the word of the LORD which he commanded Joshua. [8:28]And Joshua burnt Ai, and made it an heap for ever, even a desolation unto this day. [8:29]And the king of Ai he hanged on a tree until eventide: and as soon as the sun was down, Joshua commanded that they should take his carcase down from the tree, and cast it at the entering of the gate of the city, and raise thereon a great heap of stones, that remaineth unto this day…..

[10:40]So Joshua smote all the country of the hills, and of the south, and of the vale, and of the springs, and all their kings: he left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the LORD God of Israel commanded. [10:41]And Joshua smote them from Kadeshbarnea even unto Gaza, and all the country of Goshen, even unto Gibeon. [10:42]And all these kings and their land did Joshua take at one time, because the LORD God of Israel fought for Israel.

[11:1]And it came to pass, when Jabin king of Hazor had heard those things, that he sent to Jobab king of Madon, and to the king of Shimron, and to the king of Achshaph, [11:2]And to the kings that were on the north of the mountains, and of the plains south of Chinneroth, and in the valley, and in the borders of Dor on the west, [11:3]And to the Canaanite on the east and on the west, and to the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Jebusite in the mountains, and to the Hivite under Hermon in the land of Mizpeh. [11:4]And they went out, they and all their hosts with them, much people, even as the sand that is upon the sea shore in multitude, with horses and chariots very many. [11:5]And when all these kings were met together, they came and pitched together at the waters of Merom, to fight against Israel. [11:6]And the LORD said unto Joshua, Be not afraid because of them: for to morrow about this time will I deliver them up all slain before Israel: thou shalt hough their horses, and burn their chariots with fire.

[11:7] So Joshua came, and all the people of war with him, against them by the waters of Merom suddenly; and they fell upon them. [11:8]And the LORD delivered them into the hand of Israel, who smote them, and chased them unto great Zidon, and unto Misrephothmaim, and unto the valley of Mizpeh eastward; and they smote them, until they left them none remaining. [11:9]And Joshua did unto them as the LORD bade him: he houghed their horses, and burnt their chariots with fire. [11:10]And Joshua at that time turned back, and took Hazor, and smote the king thereof with the sword: for Hazor beforetime was the head of all those kingdoms. [11:11]And they smote all the souls that were therein with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying them: there was not any left to breathe: and he burnt Hazor with fire. [11:12]And all the cities of those kings, and all the kings of them, did Joshua take, and smote them with the edge of the sword, and he utterly destroyed them, as Moses the servant of the LORD commanded. [11:13]But as for the cities that stood still in their strength, Israel burned none of them, save Hazor only; that did Joshua burn. [11:14]And all the spoil of these cities, and the cattle, the children of Israel took for a prey unto themselves; but every man they smote with the edge of the sword, until they had destroyed them, neither left they any to breathe….

[11:16]So Joshua took all that land, the hills, and all the south country, and all the land of Goshen, and the valley, and the plain, and the mountain of Israel, and the valley of the same; [11:17]Even from the mount Halak, that goeth up to Seir, even unto Baalgad in the valley of Lebanon under mount Hermon: and all their kings he took, and smote them, and slew them. [11:18]Joshua made war a long time with all those kings. [11:19]There was not a city that made peace with the children of Israel, save the Hivites the inhabitants of Gibeon: all other they took in battle. [11:20]For it was of the LORD to harden their hearts, that they should come against Israel in battle, that he might destroy them utterly, and that they might have no favour, but that he might destroy them, as the LORD commanded Moses. [11:21]And at that time came Joshua, and cut off the Anakims from the mountains, from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab, and from all the mountains of Judah, and from all the mountains of Israel: Joshua destroyed them utterly with their cities. [11:22]There was none of the Anakims left in the land of the children of Israel: only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod, there remained. [11:23]So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that the LORD said unto Moses; and Joshua gave it for an inheritance unto Israel according to their divisions by their tribes. And the land rested from war.

The land thus acquired was then divided among the tribes of Israel. In 24:13, Joshua reported to his assembled people that the Lord had said, in summarizing all the favors he had done for them, “And I have given you a land for which ye did not labour, and cities which ye built not, and ye dwell in them; of the vineyards and oliveyards which ye planted not do ye eat.”

Postscript: Archeological and historical evidence – or more precisely, the lack thereof – tells us that these alleged events of 1400 BCE never happened. But that cannot be said of the Nakba, Arabic for catastrophe, of 1947-48 CE, when 750,000 Palestinians were dispossessed and hundreds of others killed and wounded in the formation of the state of Israel. That was all too real.

Sheldon Richman is the executive editor of The Libertarian Institute and a contributing editor at Antiwar.com. He is the former senior editor at the Cato Institute and Institute for Humane Studies; former editor of The Freeman, published by the Foundation for Economic Education; and former vice president at the Future of Freedom Foundation. His latest books are Coming to Palestine and What Social Animals Owe to Each Other.

Gaza and Ukraine: How the US Risks Losing the Global South

The Global South – or perhaps more acutely, the Global Majority – is a loose club of countries who share growing confidence in their economic strength and in their ability to resist US hegemony in favour of working with multiple poles in pursuit of their own national interest instead of America’s interests. The US has been unable to recruit the Global South into its historically convenient portrayal of an unprovoked Russian invasion or to pressure it into its sanction regime against Russia. And this emerging trend in the Global South is being cemented by the US position in the two wars being fought in Ukraine and Gaza. The price of the position the US is taking could be the loss of the Global Majority.

The main issue is not the issue of right or wrong. The Global South is consistently aligned with the US in its condemnation of Hamas’ atrocious attack on Israel on October 7. The main issue is the consistent application of international law. The essence of international law grounded in the charter system and the UN is its universal application. The main issue for the Global South is that UN led international law not be replaced in global affairs by a US led rules-based order in which the unwritten rules are made up as you go along and in which the rules are invoked when they benefit the US and its partners and are not invoked when they don’t.

What is at risk for the Global South is the preservation of international law; what is at risk for the US in the positions it is taking in Ukraine and Gaza is the Global Majority’s trust. In the eyes of the Global South, the US is being exposed as the hypocritical hegemon that invokes international law unevenly in the service, not of global justice, but of American advantage that it has long accused the US of being.

The Global South was first amazed by the political West’s hypocrisy by the statements of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. A year ago, von der Leyen loudly declared that “Russia’s attacks against civilian infrastructure, especially electricity, are war crimes.” She condemned “Cutting off men, women, children of water, electricity and heating with winter coming” as “acts of pure terror.” She then demanded that the world “call it as such.”

But she didn’t call it as such when Israel acted on Defence Minister Yoav Gallant’s promise that there would be “no electricity, no food, no water, no gas – it’s all closed.” Instead, she has consistently called upon Israel’s right to defend itself.

But it was US President Joe Biden who, as the leader of the unipolar world, took the lead and set the tone by linking Israel and Ukraine. In his October 19 speech, Biden that “the assault on Israel echoes nearly 20 months of war, tragedy and brutality inflicted on the people of Ukraine” and that “Hamas and Putin represent different threats, but they share this in common. They both want to completely annihilate a neighboring democracy – completely annihilate it.”

Von der Leyen echoed that link, saying that the two “conflicts have one thing in common: they are about the struggle between those who seek peace, balance, freedom and cooperation – and those who do not want any of this because they profit from the chaos and disorder.”

Linking and equating the two wars was tone deaf to the Global South. No one in the Global South dissented from the criticism that the two attacks were brutal. No one dissented from the judgement that both attacks were in violation of international law. And no one disputed the right of Israel and Ukraine to defend themselves. But no one in the Global South heard the US or the EU compare an occupied people’s right to defend themselves against occupation. The US and its allies were aggressively insistent on Ukraine’s right to resist occupation by Russia. Aggressively insistent enough to flood them with weapons and to provide them with all the funding, intelligence, planning and training they need for as long as it takes. But this time the link was not made, nor the equation drawn. No one allowed – not, of course, for Hamas’ present illegal attack on and kidnapping of civilians – but for Palestine’s historic right to defend itself and resist occupation. The US saw only a comparison between invaded countries: Israel and Ukraine. The Global South saw also a comparison between occupied people: Palestine and Ukraine. The Global South did not disagree with the former, but they sought a consistent application of the latter.

It was not the first time the subjects of US hegemony had questioned the selective application of international law. While the US and NATO rightly rail against Russia’s breaking of international law by violating a sovereign country’s borders, the world remembers Panama, Grenada, Libya, Kosovo, Iraq and Syria: all of whose borders were violated or whose people were bombed by the US without Security Council authorization.

The Global South had long suspected that the US had insinuated itself into the position of arbiter of international law and source of authorization for aggression, replacing the UN at the head of the international system. The Global South had long accused the US of the sleight of hand of substituting the codified and agreed upon international law with the unwritten and American made rules-based order. But in the clear juxtaposition of Gaza and Ukraine, the hypocrisy was confirmed. And America’s loss of the Global South became a real possibility.

The first sign of the breaking away was not in a failure to condemn Hamas nor to assert Israel’s right to defend itself. No nation in the Global South broke with the US on that. The first sign of the independent break was the simultaneous demand in both Ukraine and Gaza for diplomacy, for a consideration of historical context, and for a demand for a ceasefire. The US risked losing the Global South over the failure to apply international law impartially and consistently.

If the right of an occupied people to resist occupation is applied in Ukraine, should it not be applied everywhere? If attacks on civilian infrastructure and, especially, electricity are war crimes, are they not war crimes everywhere? If the killing of civilians is against the rules of war in Ukraine, is it not against the rules of war everywhere?

It is not a question of whether any of these specific acts are against international law, it is a question of the non-hypocritical, universal application of international law.

A senior G7 diplomat recently said that “We have definitely lost the battle in the Global South. All the work we have done with the Global South [over Ukraine] has been lost . . . Forget about rules, forget about world order. They won’t ever listen to us again.” The diplomat added that “What we said about Ukraine has to apply to Gaza. Otherwise we lose all our credibility.”

America’s self-serving and unprincipled application of international law in Ukraine and in Gaza risks serious harm to its future foreign policy, to its global reputation and ability to command trust, and to the security of its place at the head of the international table. It is US hypocrisy in the application of international law, more than competition from China or Russia, that is challenging US hegemony. For the Global South, it is not the question of the judgement of right and wrong. It is the defense of international law with its foundation in the United Nations over a rules-based order with its foundation in Washington that is applied according to a hypocritical standard that benefits the US and its selected partners and not according to a universal standard that benefits the whole global community.

Ted Snider is a regular columnist on US foreign policy and history at Antiwar.com and The Libertarian Institute. He is also a frequent contributor to Responsible Statecraft and The American Conservative as well as other outlets. To support his work or for media or virtual presentation requests, contact him at tedsnider@bell.net.

America’s War for the Greater Middle East (Continued)

One way of understanding the ongoing bloodbath pitting Israel against Hamas is to see it as just the latest chapter in an existential struggle dating back to the founding of the Jewish state in 1948. While the appalling scope, destructiveness, and duration of the fighting in Gaza may outstrip previous episodes, this latest go-around serves chiefly to reaffirm the remarkable intractability of the underlying Arab-Israeli conflict.

Although the shape of that war has changed over time, certain constants remain. Neither side, for instance, seems capable of achieving its ultimate political goals through violence. And each side adamantly refuses to concede to the core demands of its adversary. In truth, while the actual fighting may ebb and flow, pause and resume, the Holy Land has become the site of what is effectively permanent conflict.

For several decades, the United States sought to keep its distance from that war by casting itself in the role of regional arbiter. While providing Israel with arms and diplomatic cover, successive administrations have simultaneously sought to position the U.S. as an “honest broker,” committed to advancing the larger cause of Middle Eastern peace and stability. Of course, a generous dose of cynicism has always informed this “peace process.”

On that score, however, the present moment has let the cat fully out of the bag. The Biden administration responded to the gruesome terrorist attack on October 7th by unequivocally endorsing and underwriting Israeli efforts to annihilate Hamas, with Gazans thereby subjected to a World War II-style obliteration bombing campaign. Meanwhile, ignoring tepid Biden administration protests, Israeli settlers continue to expel Palestinians from parts of the West Bank where they have lived for generations. If Hamas’s October assault was a tragedy, proponents of a Greater Israel also saw it as a unique opportunity that they’ve seized with alacrity. As for the peace process, already on life support, it now seems altogether defunct. Prospects of reviving it anytime soon appear remote.

More or less offstage, the fighting is having this ancillary effect: as Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) employ U.S.-provided weapons and munitions to turn Gaza into rubble, the “rules-based international order” touted by the Biden administration as the latest organizing principle of American statecraft has forfeited whatever slight credibility it might have possessed. Russia’s assault on Ukraine appears almost measured and humane by comparison.

As if to emphasize Washington’s own limited fealty to that rules-based order, President Biden’s immediate response to the events of October 7th focused on unilateral military action, bolstering U.S. naval and air forces in the Middle East while shoveling even more weapons to Israel. Ostensibly tasked with checking any further spread of violence, American forces in the region have instead been steadily edging toward becoming full-fledged combatants.

In recent weeks, U.S. forces have sustained dozens of casualty-producing attacks, primarily from rockets and armed drones. Attributing those attacks to “Iran-affiliated groups,” the U.S. has responded with air strikes targeting warehouses, training facilities, and command posts in Syria and Iraq.

According to a Pentagon spokesman, the overall purpose of American military action in the region is “to message very strongly to Iran and their affiliated groups to stop.” Thus far, the impact of such messaging has been ambiguous at best. Certainly, U.S. retaliatory efforts haven’t dissuaded Iran from pursuing its proxy war against American military outposts in the region. On the other hand, the scale of those Iran-supported attacks remains modest. Notably, no U.S. troops have been killed — yet.

For the moment at least, that fact may well be the administration’s operative definition of success. As long as no flag-draped coffins show up at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, Joe Biden may find it perfectly tolerable for the U.S.-Iran subset of the Israel-Hamas war to simmer indefinitely on the back burner.

This pattern of tit-for-tat violence has received, at best, sporadic public attention. Where (if anywhere) it will lead remains uncertain. Even so, the U.S. is at risk of effectively opening up a new front in what used to be called the Global War on Terror. That war is now nearly dormant, or at least hidden from public view. The very real possibility of either side misinterpreting or willfully ignoring the other’s “messaging” could reignite it, with an expanded war that directly pits the U.S. against Iran making the Israel-Gaza war look like a petty squabble.

Then there are the potential domestic implications. No doubt President Biden’s political advisers are alive to the possibility of a major war affecting the outcome of the 2024 elections (and not necessarily to the incumbent’s benefit either). One can easily imagine Donald Trump seizing on even a handful of U.S. military fatalities in Middle East skirmishing as definitive proof of presidential ineptitude, akin to the bungled withdrawal from Kabul, Afghanistan, during Biden’s first year in office.

Two Wars Converge

Understanding the larger implications of these developments requires putting them in a broader context. In Gaza in the last two months, two protracted meta-conflicts that had unfolded on parallel tracks for decades have finally converged. That is likely to have profound implications for basic U.S. national security policy, even if few in Washington appear aware of the potential implications.

On the one track, dating from 1948 (although its preliminaries occurred decades earlier) is the Arab-Israeli conflict. Enshrined among Israelis as the War for Independence, for Arabs the events of 1948 are seen as the Nakba, or “Catastrophe.” Subsequent eruptions of violence have ensued from time to time, as Arab nations vented their anger at the Jewish state and Israel pursued opportunities to create a strategically more coherent and more economically viable, not to mention biblically endorsed, “Greater Israel.”

Initially intent on steering clear of the Arab-Israeli conflict — occasionally even denouncing Israeli misbehavior — American officials allowed themselves over time to be incrementally drawn into becoming Israel’s closest ally. Yet under the terms of the relationship as it evolved, the Israeli leaders insisted on retaining a large measure of strategic autonomy. Over Washington’s vociferous objections, for example, it acquired a robust nuclear arsenal. To guarantee their security, Israelis placed paramount emphasis on their own military capabilities, not those of the United States.

Meanwhile, on the other track, dating from the promulgation of President Jimmy Carter’s Carter Doctrine in 1980, U.S. forces have had their hands full in the region. With Israel exacerbating or fending off threats to its own security, successive American administrations undertook a series of new military commitments, interventions, and occupations across the Greater Middle East that had little or nothing to do with protecting Israel.

In the Persian Gulf, the Levant, the Horn of Africa, the Balkans, and Central Asia, the Pentagon dealt with problems of its own as those regions became venues for hosting American forces engaged in operations intended to protect, punish, or even “liberate.” Such military exertions and the presence of U.S. forces became commonplace throughout the Middle East — except in Israel. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Washington’s military actions reached their apotheosis when President George W. Bush embarked on a global campaign with the aim of eliminating evil.

Meanwhile, the various engagements undertaken by Israeli forces from the 1950s into the present century achieved mixed results. On the one hand, the Jewish state persists and has even expanded — a minimalist definition of “success.” On the other hand, recent events affirm that threats to Israel’s existence also persist.

In comparison, the U.S.-led Global War on Terror proved an outright failure, even if strikingly few ordinary Americans (and even fewer members of the political establishment) appear willing to acknowledge that fact.

Once the U.S.-supported regime in Kabul collapsed in 2021, it appeared American military misadventures in the Greater Middle East might be petering out. The humiliating result of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan in the wake of the disappointing outcome of Operation Iraqi Freedom had seemingly exhausted Washington’s appetite for remaking the region. Besides, there was Russia to tend to — and China. Strategic priorities seemed to be shifting.

Alarm Bells, American-Style

Now, however, in the wake of the atrocities committed on October 7th and Washington’s tacit acquiescence in Israel’s maximalist war aims, the dubious notion that vital American interests are still at stake in the Greater Middle East has taken on new life. Dating from the 1980s, Washington had cycled through a variety of arguments for why that part of the world was worthy of spending American blood and treasure: the threat of Soviet aggression, U.S. reliance on foreign oil, radical Arab dictators, Islamic jihadism, weapons of mass destruction falling into hostile hands, potential ethnic cleansing and genocide. All of those were pressed into service at one time or another to justify continuing to treat the Middle East as a strategic U.S. priority.

In truth, though, none of them has stood the test of time. Each has proven to be fallacious. Indeed, efforts to cure the sources of dysfunction afflicting the region proved to be a fool’s errand that has cost the United States dearly in money and lives while yielding little of value.

For that reason, allowing Israel’s conflict with Hamas to draw the United States into a new Middle Eastern crusade would be the height of folly. In fact, however, with little public attention and even less congressional oversight, that is precisely what may be happening. The Global War on Terror seems on the verge of absorbing the Gaza War into its current configuration.

In recent years, a shift in Pentagon priorities to the Indo-Pacific and to a future face-off with China has left only about 2,500 U.S. troops in Iraq and 900 more in Syria. The nominal mission of such modestly sized garrisons is to carry on the fight against the remnants of ISIS.

White House officials have, however, never gone out of their way to explain what those troops are really doing there. In practice, they have effectively become inviting stationary targets. As a consequence and not for the first time, “protecting the troops” has emerged as a convenient pretext for mounting a broader punitive response.

With Congress accepting claims that the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) enacted in response to 9/11 suffices to cover whatever U.S. forces in the region may be up to 22 years later, the Biden administration functionally has a free hand to act as it wishes. The course it has chosen is to use Israel’s war in Gaza as a rationale for reversing course in the Middle East and once again making violence and threats of violence the basis of U.S. policy there. On that score, the fact that some American forces are now covertly operating in Israel itself should set off alarm bells.

The Gaza War will change Israel in ways that may be difficult to foresee. The failure of its vaunted military and intelligence establishments to anticipate and thwart the worst terrorist attack in that country’s history leaves Jewish Israelis with a sense of unprecedented vulnerability. It will hardly be surprising if they look to Washington for protection, in which case Israel’s survival could become an American responsibility.

The invitation is one that the United States would do well to refuse. Accepting it will confront Americans with challenges they are ill-equipped to meet and with obligations they can ill afford. Deepening the Pentagon’s involvement in the Greater Middle East will only compound the failures to which the Carter Doctrine has already subjected this nation, while scrambling U.S. strategic priorities in ways sure to prove counterproductive.

In 1796, George Washington warned his countrymen of the dangers of allowing a “passionate attachment” to another nation to affect policy. That warning remains relevant today. The Gaza War is not and should not become America’s war.

Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch Books, John Feffer’s new dystopian novel, Songlands (the final one in his Splinterlands series), Beverly Gologorsky’s novel Every Body Has a Story, and Tom Engelhardt’s A Nation Unmade by War, as well as Alfred McCoy’s In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power, John Dower’s The Violent American Century: War and Terror Since World War II, and Ann Jones’s They Were Soldiers: How the Wounded Return from America’s Wars: The Untold Story.

Andrew Bacevich, a TomDispatch regular, is chairman and co-founder of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. His Dispatch book, On Shedding an Obsolete Past: Bidding Farewell to the American Century, was published last year.

How Israel Uses an AI Genocide Program To Obliterate Gaza

It should already have been evident from the scale of death and destruction inflicted on Gaza over the past eight weeks that Israel was implementing a policy of ethnic cleansing and genocide against Palestinians in the besieged enclave.

Now Israeli whistleblowers have provided details of how these crimes against humanity are being carried out – and how they are being rationalised internally within Israel’s military and political echelons.

An extraordinary series of testimonies jointly published by the Israel-based publications 972 and Local Call last week established that the huge death toll of Palestinian civilians is, in fact, integral to Israel’s war aims, not an unfortunate side effect.

The known dead so far are estimated at almost 16,000, with a further 6,000 missing, presumably crushed under rubble. Two-thirds of those killed by Israel are women and children.

Two years ago, during an earlier attack on Gaza, Israeli military officials admitted for the first time that a computer was supplying them with potential targets. The intention appears to have been to bypass the restraints imposed by human assessments of likely casualties by outsourcing the killings to a machine.

The whistleblowers confirm that, given new, generous parameters of who and what can be attacked, the artificial intelligence system, called “Gospel”, is generating lists of targets so rapidly the military cannot keep up.

Israel’s inputs are now so broad that they allow the bombing without warning of high-rise apartment blocks, so long as it can be claimed that one person residing there is believed to have a connection to Hamas.

As Hamas not only has a military wing but runs the enclave’s government, the new policy potentially widens the circle of targets to include civil servants, police, health workers, educators, journalists and aid workers.

That helps explain how, according to United Nations figures, some 100,000 homes in Gaza have been levelled or made uninhabitable and at least 1.7 million Palestinians displaced, some three-quarters of the enclave’s population.

Basic survival

The revelations definitively give the lie to claims by western politicians, such as US President Joe Biden, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and opposition Labour leader Keir Starmer, that Israel is simply defending itself and trying to avoid civilian casualties.

In a report last Friday, the Guardian corroborated Israel’s reliance on the Gospel computing system. The paper quoted a former White House official familiar with the Pentagon’s development of autonomous offensive systems as stating that Israel’s no-holds-barred AI war on Gaza was an “important moment”.

The official added: “Other states are going to be watching and learning.”

Perhaps the most significant of the disclosures from current and former Israeli officials who have spoken to 972 and Local Call is the fact that Israel is aware its many thousands of air strikes on Gaza’s residential areas are having a minimal impact on the armed wing of Hamas.

This contrasts with public declarations that Israel is seeking to eradicate the group.

Even according to the Israeli military’s own claims, likely based on the new, much broader definition of who counts as a Hamas target, Israel has killed between 1,000 and 3,000 “operatives” – meaning that, even by Israel’s assessment, civilians comprise between 85 and 95 per cent of those dead from its bombing campaigns.

This is not accidental, according to the sources.

Israel is continuing long-standing military policies towards Gaza – principally the so-called Dahiya doctrine, sometimes known as “mowing the lawn” – but has changed the focus to allow for far greater bloodshed among civilians.

The doctrine, which has guided Israel’s repeated attacks on Gaza over the last 15 years, is named after the destruction of an entire neighborhood of Beirut in Israel’s war on Lebanon in 2006.

The doctrine has two key premises: that laying waste to an enemy area will force the population to concentrate on basic survival rather than resistance; and in the longer term it will encourage ordinary people to rise up against their rulers.

Traditionally, the Dahiya doctrine was chiefly about the destruction of infrastructure. At least officially, given the strictures of international law, Israel claimed it issued advance warnings. That was supposed to give civilians in the targeted area time to evacuate.

According to military officials, this notice period has largely ended, placing civilians directly in Israel’s crosshairs.

‘Not surgical’

A source explained the effects of the new policy to 972: “The numbers increased from dozens of civilian deaths [permitted] as collateral damage as part of an attack on a senior [Hamas] official in previous operations, to hundreds of civilian deaths as collateral damage.”

A former military intelligence official said the policy was designed to make most of Gaza’s infrastructure legitimate targets: “Hamas is everywhere in Gaza; there is no building that does not have something of Hamas in it, so if you want to find a way to turn a high-rise into a target, you will be able to do so.”

According to these sources, given that Hamas’ armed wing is underground in tunnels, Israel has struggled to identify primary targets, such as weapons sites, armed cells and headquarters.

Instead, it has focused on what it calls “power targets” – or more accurately, symbolic targets – such as high-rise buildings and residential towers in urban areas, as well as public buildings such as universities, banks, government offices, hospitals and mosques.

These attacks, say the sources, are seen as a “means that allows damage to civil society”, weakening the ability of the society to organize and function, and families to subsist. According to 972, the former Israeli officials it spoke to “understood, some explicitly and some implicitly, that damage to civilians is the real purpose of these attacks”.

Referring to the high death toll among civilians, another source stated: “Everything is intentional. We know exactly how much collateral damage there is in every home.”

Five different sources told 972 that Israel had compiled files on tens of thousands of private homes and apartments in Gaza where low-level Hamas members live. The homes, as well as everyone who lives in them, were viewed as a legitimate target as soon as a Hamas-linked person entered the building.

One noted: “Hamas members who don’t really matter for anything live in homes across Gaza. So they mark the home and bomb the house and kill everyone there.”

Another source observed of this practice that its equivalent would be for Hamas to bomb “all the private residences of our families when [Israeli soldiers] go back to sleep at home on the weekend.”

An official who had overseen previous attacks on Gaza said Israel would claim one floor in a high-rise was serving as the office of a Hamas or Islamic Jihad spokesman to justify leveling the building. “I understood that the floor is an excuse that allows the army to cause a lot of destruction in Gaza.”

If the truth were known about what Israel was doing, the source added, “this would itself be seen as terrorism. So they do not say it.”

Another stated that Israel’s aim was to inflict maximum damage rather than hit the part of the building associated with Hamas. “It was also possible to hit that specific target with more accurate weaponry. The bottom line is that they knocked down a high-rise for the sake of knocking down a high-rise.”

Senior Israeli officials have made this goal explicit over the past few weeks. Omer Tishler, the head of the Israeli air force, told military reporters that entire neighborhoods had been attacked “on a large scale and not in a surgical manner”.

A source said Israel’s long-term aim was “to give the citizens of Gaza the feeling that Hamas is not in control of the situation”.

Holy war

In previous attacks on Gaza, Israel adopted a strategy that inflicted wanton destruction on infrastructure and led to large numbers of Palestinians being killed. But according to the sources quoted by 972 and Local Call, all restraints have been removed, dramatically scaling up the fallout for civilians.

Tishler, the head of the air force, has confirmed that, in many cases before bombing a building, Israel no longer provides a warning strike with a small shell – known as “roof knocking”. The practice, he said, was “relevant to rounds [of fighting] and not to war.”

The risk this poses to civilians has been highlighted by the disclosure that the Israeli military is now using an artificial intelligence system, Habsora or Gospel, to identify targets.

The very name, with its biblical connotation, confirms the dangerous influences of religious fundamentalism now at play in the Israeli military, and the increasing assumption that Israel is engaged in a holy war against the Palestinians.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, traditionally seen as a secular figure, has adopted the language of the extremist settler right in calling Israel’s attack on Gaza a war against “Amalek” – a biblical enemy whose men, women and children the Israelites were commanded by God to exterminate.

Speaking of the military’s new reliance on Gospel, Aviv Kochavi, the former head of the Israeli military, told the Israeli Ynet website earlier this year: “In the past, we would produce 50 targets in Gaza per year. Now, this machine produces 100 targets a single day, with 50 per cent of them being attacked.”

The goal, he observed, was to address a “problem” in earlier bombing campaigns against Gaza that the Israeli military quickly ran out of Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets its human staff could identify.

A former intelligence officer told 972 that the Targets Administrative Division that runs Gospel had been turned into a “mass assassination factory”. Tens of thousands of people had been listed as “junior Hamas operatives” and were therefore treated as targets. The officer added that the “emphasis is on quantity and not on quality”.

A source who worked in the division added that most of Gospel’s recommendations were being nodded through without meaningful scrutiny: “We work quickly and there is no time to delve deep into the target. The view is that we are judged according to how many targets we manage to generate.”

Ethnic cleansing plan

The significance of these revelations – and what they disclose about Israel’s “war aims” – should not be underestimated.

Previously, the permanent siege on Gaza and Israel’s intermittent rampages based on the Dahiya doctrine were used as tools for managing the enclave.

They served as a constant reminder to Hamas of who is boss. The goal was to keep the group focused on administrative duties rather than armed resistance: repairing the destruction, devising ways to work around the siege, and restoring Hamas’ political legitimacy with a battle-weary wider public.

Now, Israel’s aim appears much more comprehensive – and final. According to a report in last week’s Financial Times, Israel is still in the early stages of a campaign that could last up to a year.

Despite the destruction of vast swaths of northern Gaza, and Israel’s current, intensified rampage in the south, an official familiar with the Israel’s war plans told the paper Israel still had a long way to go.

“This will be a very long war… We’re currently not near halfway to achieving our objectives.”

Most of Gaza’s population is being herded into the Rafah area, pressed up against the short border with Egypt. As has been explained in these pages before, Israel has had a long-term ethnic cleansing plan, seeking to pressure Cairo into rehousing Gaza’s population in Sinai.

The rapid onset of disease and starvation in the enclave from Israel’s intensified siege, denying the population food, water and power, is firmly aimed at forcing Egypt’s hand.

‘Thinning’ the population

According to Israel Hayom, an Israeli paper with historically close links to Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party, officials in Washington have been presented with a scheme to weaken Egyptian opposition further.

The US would offer aid to other neighboring states conditioned on their accepting refugees from Gaza, thereby lifting some of the burden from Egypt.

Additionally, the paper’s Hebrew edition refers to a plan drafted at Netanyahu’s request by Ron Dermer, one of his senior ministers, to “thin the population in Gaza to the barest minimum possible” through expulsions. The paper refers to this as a “strategic goal” for Netanyahu.

Netanyahu is reported to believe that, after the world has accepted millions of refugees displaced from Iraq, Syria and Ukraine, why should Gaza be different?

The plan envisions Palestinians leaving Gaza across the border with Egypt or fleeing by boat to Europe and Africa.

Israel’s genocidal destruction of Gaza, making it uninhabitable, is entirely consistent both with its leaders’ stated aims of treating Palestinians as “human animals” and with the whistleblowers’ revelations.

And yet western politicians and media continue maintaining the fiction that Israel’s objectives are limited to “eliminating” Hamas – and that the only legitimate question is whether Israel is acting “proportionately”.

This wholesale failure to see the forest for the trees is not accidental. It is evidence that western elites are wholly complicit in Israel’s expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza.

However strong the proof, even when insiders disclose Israel’s policies of genocide and mass ethnic cleansing, the West is determined to turn a blind eye.

Jonathan Cook is the author of three books on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and a winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His website and blog can be found at www.jonathan-cook.net. This originally appeared in the Middle East Eye.

Fortnite's Epic Games wins US antitrust lawsuit against Google

Epic Games, the maker of Fortnite, won a major US court battle against Google on Monday when a jury decided that the search engine giant wields illegal monopoly power through its Android app store.

AFP
Issued on: 12/12/2023

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney leaves a courtroom at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, Nov. 14, 2022.

By:NEWS WIRES
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Epic sued Google and Apple in 2020, accusing the tech titans of abusing control of their respective shops selling apps and other digital content on mobile devices.

Google and Apple take percentages of all financial transactions at their app shops, prompting complaints by developers about an unfair "tax" imposed by the companies.

The defeat is a rare setback for a US tech giant in a US court, where judges have recently ruled in favour of big tech against accusations of running illegal monopolies or abusing their market power.

The San Francisco jury took just a few hours to decide against Google, finding that the company had embarked on various illegal strategies to maintain its app store monopoly on Android phones.

"Victory over Google! After four weeks of detailed court testimony, the California jury found against the Google Play monopoly on all counts," Epic CEO Tim Sweeney said on X (formerly Twitter).

The case now goes back to the judge to decide how to remedy the harm found by the jury, which could force open the Android operating system to competing app stores.

Google said it would appeal the decision and the case could still drag on for months or years.

"We will continue to defend the Android business model and remain deeply committed to our users, partners, and the broader Android ecosystem," said Wilson White, Google's vice president for government affairs & public policy.

Phones running on the Android operating system have about a 70 percent share of the world's smartphone market.

Smartphone companies can install the Android app for free under the condition that the Play app store remains on the home page and that other Google offers are pre-installed.

During the trial it emerged that Google worked aggressively in other ways to make sure that the Google Play app store was the only conduit for making payments to third party apps such as Fortnite and other games.

A sizable chunk of app store revenue comes from video games and Epic Games has long sought to have payments for its mobile games, such as Fortnite, take place outside the Google or Apple app stores that take commissions as high as 30 percent.

Epic had mostly lost a similar case against Apple, where a US judge largely ruled in favor of the iPhone maker.

'Bribe and block'

Apple and Google regularly argue that their app shop commissions are industry-standard, and that they pay for benefits such as reach, transaction security, and ferreting out malware.

Google also argued that the arrangement with smartphone makers helped Android-run devices better compete against Apple's iPhone.

But the trial exposed that Google rakes in tens of billions of dollars of revenue through the app store.

In order to preserve its one-stop-shop for apps, Google paid smartphone makers a cut of its revenue in return for the Play store remaining the exclusive gateway.

In the trial, Epic’s lawyers described the strategy as "bribe and block."

The arguments made by Epic echoed Google's other landmark case in a federal court in Washington.

In that case, which will only be decided late next year, US Justice Department officials accuse the company of acting illegally to preserve the dominance of its world-leading search engine.

At the heart of the search case is Google’s massive revenue sharing deals in which Apple and other smartphone makers take a big cut of Google's ad revenue.

(AFP)

Suspended sentences in Japan army sexual assault case

Fukushima (Japan) (AFP) – Three Japanese ex-soldiers were found guilty Tuesday but given only suspended jail sentences for sexually assaulting a female colleague who won praise but also online hate for going public with her accusations.

AFP
Issued on: 12/12/2023

Rina Gonoi, 24, received both praise and vitriol when she took to YouTube to share her account after the military dropped its inquiry

© Philip FONG / AFP/File

Rina Gonoi, 24, broke the mould by speaking out publicly last year about her ordeal in 2021 in a country where the #MeToo movement failed to gain much ground and where many sexual assault victims are too scared to come forward.

On Tuesday she expressed satisfaction after Shutaro Shibuya, Akito Sekine and Yusuke Kimezawa were sentenced to two years in prison, suspended for four years, for what the judge called their "despicable and malicious" acts.

"What they did should not be forgiven even if they say it was only to get a laugh out of it. The verdict clearly ruled that it was a crime. I want them to face up to what they did and think about it," Gonoi said outside the court.

"There are many people out there who cannot speak up, who cannot fight over assaults like this. I was able to make the precedent," she told reporters.

"It was not necessarily a heavy sentence that I wanted to see. It was that they truly understand it was a crime, sexual violence, not something casual as they claimed."
'Desperate not brave'

In February Gonoi had told AFP in an interview that her decision to go public with her accusations after an internal military probe was dropped was "desperate rather than brave".

The public attention from the viral YouTube video and a petition signed by more than 100,000 people forced the defence ministry to acknowledge the assault and apologise.

This March, prosecutors reversed an earlier decision and charged the three men.

Gonoi said that after fulfilling a childhood dream and enlisting in 2020, she experienced daily harassment.

"When walking down the hallway, someone slaps you on your hip, or holds you from behind," she told AFP.

"I was kissed on the cheek, and my breasts were grabbed."

Then, during a drill in 2021, she says three colleagues pressed her to the ground, forced apart her legs and each repeatedly pressed their crotches against her while others watched and laughed.

Judge Takaaki Miura told the court on Tuesday that "shaking one's hip between the legs of the victim has stong sexual meaning" and "ignores the victim's dignity" and is a "despicable and malicious act".

'Stigma and shame'

Women rarely hold positions in the upper echelons of Japanese politics, business, government and military. The country's gender pay gap is the worst among advanced economies.

Prominent cases such as Gonoi's -- and a handful of others like that of journalist Shiori Ito, who accused a prominent TV reporter of rape -- are rare.

Rina Gonoi told AFP in February that her decision to go public was 'desperate rather than brave'

© Philip FONG / AFP/File

"While there are still areas of improvement (within society), today's ruling is a welcome sign that the voices of survivors of sexual violence in Japan will not go unheard, and that accountability for such rights abuses is possible," Teppei Kasai, Asia programme officer for Human Rights Watch, told AFP on Tuesday.

A 2021 government survey showed that about six percent of assault victims, men and women, went to the police, while nearly half of women respondents said they could not because of "embarrassment", Kasai had said last week.

Stricter laws

Inspired by Gonoi, however, more than 1,400 women and men have submitted their allegations of sexual harassment and bullying in the military following a special inspection by the defence ministry.

This June, Japan passed legislation redefining rape, including removing the requirement that victims prove they had sought to resist their attacker.

But Gonoi, who is suing her alleged attackers and the government in a parallel civil case, received a torrent of vitriol online after coming forward.

"I was prepared for defamation, but it's tough," she told AFP, saying at one point it got so bad she did not leave her home for five days.

"There's something wrong with Japan -- people attack victims instead of perpetrators."

© 2023 AFP

Rina Gonoi: Japan soldiers found guilty of sexual assault

The case has put a spotlight on the problem of sexual violence and harassment within the Japanese military.

A court in Japan on Tuesday found three former soldiers guilty of sexually assaulting a female colleague and gave them suspended jail terms.

The case of 24-year-old Rina Gonoi relates to a 2021 incident during her time in the army.

After joining the Japanese Self Defense Forces in 2020, she said she experienced daily harassment.

"When walking down the hallway, someone slaps you on your hip, or holds you from behind," she told AFP. "I was kissed on the cheek, and my breasts were grabbed."

And then in 2021, during a drill, she said three of her colleagues pinned her to the ground, forced her legs apart and pressed their crotches against her in simulation of a sex act. She said other colleagues present at the time watched and laughed.

Even though she complained to her superiors at the time, no action was taken, prompting Gonoi to leave the military.

In 2022, Gonoi took to YouTube to share her account.

After she went public, Japan's Defense Ministry issued a public apology to her and announced that five men connected to the incident had been dismissed and four others punished.

Attracting recognition as well as vitriol

Gonoi's decision to go public also grabbed public attention and put a spotlight on the issue of sexual assault and harassment in a society where women rarely hold positions in the upper echelons of politics, business and military.

It also inspired others to file complaints about sexual harassment and bullying.

In the military, for instance, over 1,400 women and men have submitted their allegations following a special inspection by the Defense Ministry.

This June, Japan passed legislation redefining rape, including removing the requirement that victims prove they had sought to resist their attacker.

Gonoi's battle has even attracted international recognition: Time Magazine named her on its list of 100 emerging world leaders while the British Broadcasting Corp included her among its 100 most influential women globally.

But she has also been a target of online vitriol.

"I have gotten many derogatory comments. But I know the world values what I'm doing," she told Reuters.

Separately, Gonoi has lodged a civil case against her former peers and the government, seeking damages for the alleged assault and the subsequent inaction despite her complaints.

sri/lo (Reuters, AFP)

Chinese dissident doctor and AIDS whistleblower dies aged 95

Washington (AFP) – A dissident doctor who became China's most outspoken and celebrated AIDS campaigner, spending years under government pressure before finding refuge in the United States, has died at the age of 95, a long-time supporter told AFP.

Gao Yaojie, who dedicated her retirement to helping AIDS patients and orphans, passed away in New York City on Sunday

© MARK RALSTON / AFP/File

Gao Yaojie, who dedicated her retirement to helping AIDS patients and orphans, passed away in New York City on Sunday, Andrew Nathan, a prominent China expert who managed her affairs in the United States, confirmed.

"She had been frail for several years and spent all but a few minutes a day in bed," he told AFP, but added that her health had been stable and her death was "sudden and unexpected."

She died at home on International Human Rights Day, said Nathan, who is a political scientist at Columbia University.

Gao moved to New York in 2009 after years of harassment by Chinese officials believed to be nursing grudges after she exposed a cover-up of the true extent of the AIDS epidemic in central Henan province.

She was among the first doctors to hear about the mysterious disease that was killing villagers in the mid-1990s, and realized huge numbers of poor farmers had contracted AIDS or HIV by selling blood in unsanitary government-approved collection schemes begun a decade earlier.

As the local authorities tried to keep the scandal quiet and refused to give any help to the villagers, Gao began buying basic medicine and supplies using her pension to help the sick.

Experts estimate at least one million farmers in Henan alone contracted HIV/AIDS in the blood trade.

Gao became one of the most vocal campaigners in publicizing the plight of the AIDS sufferers, and received international recognition for her work, though for years authorities refused to issue her a passport and often put her under surveillance.

China finally admitted to the crisis in 2001 -- and in 2004 honored Gao with an award.

But in 2007 Chinese officials placed her under house arrest to stop her from traveling to the United States to receive an award from then-US senator Hillary Clinton.

The officials eventually relented after intervention by Clinton and then-Chinese president Hu Jintao.

In 2019 Clinton posted a photo on Facebook of herself visiting Gao in New York, calling her "simply one of the bravest people I know."

'Great person'

Chinese social media has been flooded with comments paying tribute to Gao, who appeared on a list of top searches on the Baidu search engine.

Chinese social media was flooded with comments paying tribute to Gao, appearing on a list of top searches on the Google-like Baidu search engine

© MARK RALSTON / AFP/File

"She was a great person," one user on the Weibo social media platform said.

"It's a pity that she died in a foreign country for political reasons," they added.

"She said 'one cannot live only for oneself'," another wrote. "Will some bureaucrats be ashamed?"

Another compared Gao to whistleblower doctor Li Wenliang, who died from Covid in early 2020 after officials silenced his efforts to warn others about the deadly disease, triggering a public outcry.

"When I see Dr Gao, I also think of Li Wenliang," they wrote.

Noting that Chinese state media largely did not report her death, they said: "We don't have journalists, we don't have media, we don't deserve too many good people."

Gao said in 2007 that "the largest part" of HIV transmissions in China occurred "through the blood trade."

"The epidemic is different in China from anywhere else because I have spoken to AIDS groups here in the United States and they say it is mostly transmitted through sex and intravenous drug use," she said.

Gao was of the dwindling generation of people who became an adult before the Communist Party took over in 1949.

Because of her parents' background as landlords, the former gynecologist was demoted and forced to clean hospital bathrooms for eight years during the Cultural Revolution.

"I went through a lot of hardship. That's why I help others. I feel sorry for them," Gao told AFP in 2004.

© 2023 AFP

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