As death toll in Gaza rises, Israeli officials fear possible genocide charges at ICJ

Julia Conley,

 Common Dreams
January 2, 2024 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (AFP Photo/Dan Balilty)

Top officials in the Israel Defense Forces and Israeli government have reportedly been warned by a top legal expert that the International Court of Justice could issue an injunction requiring the country to halt its bombardment of Gaza, following a motion filed by South Africa last week.

Haaretz reported that the Israeli "security establishment and the state attorney's office are concerned" that the court could soon take action to force a cease-fire to protect civilian lives.

IDF Chief of Staff Herzl Halevi is among those who have been warned that South Africa's petition could be successful, the outlet reported, and a hearing on how the government should deal with the matter was held Monday at the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

As Common Dreamsreported last week, South Africa said in its complaint to the ICJ that it is "gravely concerned with the plight of civilians caught in the present Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip due to the indiscriminate use of force and forcible removal of inhabitants," and called on the ICJ to take action to force Israel to "immediately cease" its attacks on Gaza's 2.3 million residents.

At least 21,978 Palestinians have been killed and 57,697 have been injured in Israeli air and ground attacks on Gaza since the IDF began its bombardment in retaliation for Hamas' assault on southern Israel on October 7, which killed 1,139 people.

Top officials in Israel have made numerous statements suggesting their overarching goal is to clear Gaza and the West Bank of all Palestinian residents, with National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir saying Monday that the fighting presents an "opportunity" for Gaza residents to leave and for Israel to expand its settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Previously, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the so-called "voluntary migration" of Palestinians is the goal, while President Isaac Herzog said all civilians in Gaza are "responsible" for Hamas' attack and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the military would collectively punish Palestinians in Gaza, whom he called "human animals," for the October 7 attack.

Professor Eliav Lieblich, an expert on international law at Tel Aviv University, told Haaretz that such statements could be viewed by the ICJ as evidence of intent to harm civilians in Gaza.

"Genocide is a violation, the proof of which in court requires two elements," Lieblich told the outlet. "First, you have to show intention of annihilation, and second—certain actions in the field that promote this intention. According to South Africa, the intention is proven by statements of senior Israeli figures and a public atmosphere of erasing or flattening Gaza, and the widespread harm to civilians and the hunger in Gaza show the factual element of the deed."

"In general, it's hard to prove an intention of genocide because no public statements to that effect are made during the fighting," Lieblich added. "But these irresponsible statements about erasing Gaza will require Israel to explain why they don't reflect such an intention."

Author and activist Naomi Klein pointed out that while Israel does not recognize the authority of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which investigates accusations of war crimes and prosecutes individuals, it is a party to the Genocide Convention, which allows the ICJ to deal with judicial disputes between countries, including when they are accused of genocide.

A determination by the ICJ that Israel has failed to stop a genocide by its military forces or has committed genocidal acts against Palestinian civilians wouldn't necessarily mean that an injunction "would be immediately enforced," Lieblich told Haaretz. "But if it determines in a ruling or even a temporary injunction that a suspicion exists that Israel is committing genocide, you have to think about what this would say for the historical narrative. For this reason, too, the proceeding must be taken seriously."

The ICJ is also considering a complaint made by Ukraine regarding Russia's invasion and a complaint against Myanmar about its persecution of the Rohingya minority group.

"South Africa's complaint is intended to add Israel to this very disreputable group, and thereby also embarrass the U.S. as its ally," Lieblich told Haaretz.

Despite the fact that a majority of Americans support the call for a cease-fire in Gaza, the U.S. government has continued providing Israel with military support and defending its actions.

Independent journalist Sam Husseini wrote Monday that a volunteer has compiled a list of international officials who cease-fire advocates can get in touch with directly to pressure other governments to back South Africa's petition.

World Beyond War and RootsAction have also launched actions to pressure other countries to support South Africa at the ICJ.

"If a majority of the world's nations call for a cease-fire, yet fail to press for prosecution of Israel—what is to stop Israel from ethnically cleansing all Palestinians?" reads World Beyond War's letter, which it urged supporters to send to governments that have been critical of Israel. "For that matter, what is to stop other nations from repeating a horror of this magnitude?"

Why Trump is rising in the polls — and why American capitalism is so rotten

Robert Reich
December 31, 2023

Donald Trump, Melania Trump at Mar-a-Lago (Photo via AFP)

As we barrel toward the fateful year of 2024, many of you have asked why Trump is rising in the polls despite his increasingly explicit neofascism, and why Biden is falling despite a good economy. Fearing the worst, you ask what can be done to preserve American democracy.

These are hugely important questions, and they fit so directly into our series on reconciling the common good with American capitalism that I thought today would be an occasion to tackle them.

Trump’s increasing neofascism

Trump’s angry words have escalated beyond his previous two campaigns.

On Christmas Eve, Trump let go with a mixture of anger and self-pity while making multiple false or questionable claims. He posted: “THEY SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN, LIED TO CONGRESS, CHEATED ON FISA, RIGGED A PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ALLOWED MILLIONS OF PEOPLE, MANY FROM PRISONS & MENTAL INSTITUTIONS, TO INVADE OUR COUNTRY, SCREWED UP IN AFGHANISTAN, & JOE BIDEN’S MISFITS & THUGS, LIKE DERANGED JACK SMITH, ARE COMING AFTER ME, AT LEVELS OF PERSECUTION NEVER SEEN BEFORE IN OUR COUNTRY???”

On Christmas Day, when Joe Biden and most other world leaders were wishing peace, Trump sent wishes to “world Leaders, both good and bad, but none of which are as evil and ‘sick’ as the THUGS we have inside our Country.” Referring to Biden and Special Counsel Jack Smith, he said: “MAY THEY ROT IN HELL. AGAIN, MERRY CHRISTMAS!”

He has referred to the upcoming election as “the final battle.” “Either they win or we win. And if they win, we no longer have a country.” “Our country is going to hell.”

He claims that “the blood-soaked streets of our once great cities are cesspools of violent crimes.”

His rhetoric of cataclysm and apocalypse bears increasing similarity to that of Adolf Hitler in the 1930s. He says undocumented immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country” and describes their movement across our borders as “an invasion. This is like a military invasion. Drugs, criminals, gang members and terrorists are pouring into our country at record levels. We’ve never seen anything like it. They’re taking over our cities.”

He promises to “root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections.”

He claims that this is “the most dangerous time in the history of our country.”

Meanwhile, Trump is threatening to destroy the core institutions of American democracy and to rule as authoritarians in other countries do — authoritarians whom he praises.

He is signaling that, unlike in his first term in the White House, he will appoint aides and Cabinet officials who will not restrain him. He says he will turn the Justice Department into a vehicle of retribution against his political enemies, replace civil servants with loyalists, and become a “dictator on day one.”

“He’s told us what he will do,” Liz Cheney (a Republican member of Congress until her criticism of Trump led to her defeat in a Republican primary) warns:

“People who say, ‘Well, if he’s elected, it’s not that dangerous because we have all of these checks and balances’ don’t fully understand the extent to which the Republicans in Congress today have been co-opted.”

Why then do so many Americans support Trump?

Given this, why does poll after poll show Trump leading Biden?

Granted that polls this long before an election are not predictive of the outcome and that most Americans have not yet focused on the election, it’s still remarkable that seven separate polls show Trump in the lead; not one shows Biden leading.

True, many Americans are unhappy with the economy under Biden, starting with the high prices of housing, food, and other necessities. High mortgage costs mixed with low housing inventory and elevated prices have put housing out of reach for a sizable number of families.


It’s possible that much of this will correct itself over 2024 as the Fed lowers short-term interest rates.

But I believe something deeper is going on — something that has been worsening for decades. It doesn’t justify anyone supporting Trump, but it may help explain his support.

In short, the “American dream” has been vanishing.

In 1931, historian James Truslow Adams wrote in his book The Epic of America that the American dream is “of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement,” and “regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.”

Adams was writing at the height of the Great Depression. His American dream became reality after World War II as America’s middle class grew, almost everyone’s income rose, and their children did even better than they did.

Americans born in the early 1940s had a 92% chance of obtaining a higher household income than their parents, once they became adults. They would live out the American dream.

But Americans born in the 1980s have only a 50-50 shot at doing better than their parents.

Over the past 40 years, the earnings of the typical American have barely budged (adjusted for inflation), while the compensation for CEOs of large corporations has skyrocketed to more than 300 times the pay of their typical worker — from 20 times in the 1950s and ’60s.

There has not been such a long period of wealth stagnation since the Great Depression. Where did the wealth go? The wealthiest 1% of Americans now bring home more than 40% of the country’s total income, up from 10% in the 1950s and ’60s. And they control 31% of the nation’s wealth, while the bottom 50% has only 2.5%.

Perhaps the clearest sign of our problems is the stagnation and decline of life expectancy. In 1980, the U.S. had a typical life expectancy for an affluent country. Now it ranks lower than its peers and lower even than many poorer countries. The life spans of working-class men without college degrees have actually shrunk.

Anger and frustration

The formula for a better life used to be simple: Play by the rules and work hard.


No longer. To me, this fact more than any other explains the public’s sour mood. It also explains why Trump’s angry rants against the “deep state” establishment, immigrants, “coastal elites,” and “socialists” hit a responsive chord in 2016, and may do so again in 2024.

Most Americans don’t pay a great deal of attention to national economic indicators showing how fast the economy is growing, how many new jobs are being created, and the declining rate of inflation.

Instead, they look at their own efforts to create a better life for themselves and their children. And those efforts no longer seem to pay off.

An October 19-24 Wall Street Journal/NORC poll found that only 36% of voters said the American dream — “that if you work hard you’ll get ahead” — still holds true.

This was down from 53% and 48% in similar polls in 2012 and 2016, respectively.

An NBC News poll conducted November 10-14 found that a record-low 19% of voters said they feel confident life for their children’s generation will be better than for their own generation, while 75% were not confident their children will be better off.

As the American dream fades — and as inequalities of income and wealth soar — many Americans feel increasingly angry and frustrated. Take a look at these charts:



THE CONVENTIONAL explanation for the decline of the American dream posits that globalization and technological change have made most Americans less competitive.

But another — perhaps larger — cause is the increasing concentration of political power in a corporate and financial elite.

Meanwhile, centers of countervailing power that between the 1930s and 1980s enabled America’s middle and lower-middle classes to offset the power of large corporations and Wall Street have withered. These included labor unions, small businesses, family farms, the civil rights movement, grassroots political movements, and political parties anchored at the local and state levels.

As I’ve discussed in the previous weeks of our Friday series, this imbalance of power has allowed America’s corporate and financial elite to reorganize the market for their own benefit.

Americans correctly perceive that our economic and political system is now rigged.

When most people stop believing they and their children have a fair chance at the American dream, public trust in the major institutions of society declines — as has happened over the past decade and a half in America.

For the same reason, many become vulnerable to the rants of a demagogue who promises radical change by taking a wrecking ball to democracy.

Let me emphasize again that an explanation is not a justification. There is no moral justification for supporting Donald Trump. But I think it important to understand why many Americans do.

The real choice ahead

I want to end this letter on an optimistic note. American history provides some direction as well as some reason for comfort.

In three periods, America successfully readapted the rules of the political economy to constrain the political power of wealthy minorities at the top: the Jacksonian 1830s, the turn-of-the-20th-century reform era, and the New Deal 1930s.

We can do so again.

I believe there’s political will to do so — but only if Americans understand the stakes and the true choice we face: between making the system truly fair and democratic by reducing the power over it of large corporations, Wall Street, and the ultra-wealthy or losing our democracy to a neofascist dictatorship.

The question is whether Joe Biden is capable of clarifying this choice for America and committing himself to an agenda to revive democracy — including getting big money out of politics, reforming the Electoral College, and reviving voting rights.

Can he be sufficiently bold and convincing? Or do Democrats need someone else as their candidate who can be?

What do you think?

Next week, we’ll look at the real center of power in America: America’s oligarchy.

Robert Reich is a professor at Berkeley and was secretary of labor under Bill Clinton. You can find his writing at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

'An unbreakable plurality of the GOP explicitly wants fascism': defense analyst

Brad Reed

RAW STORY
January 3, 2024 

Thousands of Trump supporters gather at the Supreme Court to show their support for President Trump after the election. (Shutterstock.com)


Defense analyst Brynn Tannehill has taken a look at recent polling of Republican primary voters and has come to the sobering conclusion that many of them want former President Donald Trump to be a dictator.

Writing in the New Republic, Tannehill notes that a recent poll of GOP voters showed that Trump's Nazi-esque rhetoric about migrants "poisoning the blood" of the nation made 42 percent of respondents more likely to support him, while only 28 percent said it made them less likely to support him.

"About half of Republicans hear Trump’s rhetoric and think, 'Yes, this exactly what I want,'" he writes. "Which is to say, an unbreakable plurality of the GOP explicitly wants fascism."

While the fascist bloc of the GOP may not constitute a majority of voters in the country, Tannehill points to historical precedent showing they don't need to be in order to impose a potential dictatorship on the country.

"When Milton Mayer visited Germany in the early 1950s to interview former low-level members of the Nazi party, he concluded that perhaps only a million out of 70 million Germans were 'Fanatiker' (fanatics or true believers)—the rest were just along for the perks or to simply avoid unwanted scrutiny for lack of ideological purity," Tannehill explains. "In my own experience as an analyst in U.S. Central Command who studied insurgency, I estimated that you only needed 10 to 15 percent of the population to be supportive of the insurgents to get a situation like what I saw in Iraq in 2005–2006."

In other words, says Tannehill, "you don’t need all that many people dedicated to dictatorship, theocracy, or any other awful possibility to absolutely collapse a country into barbarism."


Read the full analysis here.

 

'There will be camps' if Trump wins: Academic issues stern warning about fascism's return

Kathleen Culliton

RAW STORY
January 2, 2024 

Donald Trump (AFP)

Donald Trump’s return to the White House would instate an authoritarian rule comparable to fascist leaders of 1930s Europe, an Ivy League academic and Forbes columnist argued Tuesday.

“There will be camps,” wrote Columbia University lecturer Tom Watson. “We will be Spain under Franco. Or worse.”

Watson, in Tuesday’s edition of his newsletter The Liberal, describes a bleak future for the U.S. under a Trump administration he fears would dismantle checks and balances to the detriment of those who do not identify as white and male.

“Ethnic and religious minorities will suffer. Millions will be targeted because of sexual orientation. Immigrants will suffer,” Watson writes.

“Criminal gangs will run the Federal government and even deep blue states will be hard-pressed to resist the pull of authoritarian rule.”

But the silver lining of Watson’s looming storm cloud is a mix of optimism and odds: “I think we will win.”

Watson argues that President Joe Biden’s position is much stronger than conservatives, critics, and the media would have Americans believe.

“Biden’s strengths are the kind that win elections,” Watson writes. “And you know who agrees? State parties in swing and blue states.”

Watson challenges the “Dems in disarray” critique — arguing the liberal party is well-funded, well-organized and activated — and urges readers to remember Democrats' strong swing-state showing in the 2022 midterm elections.


“Democrats’ statewide margins were greater than the 2020 presidential margins in Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania — all recent battleground states,” Watson writes.

“That showing led the party to pick up a Senate seat, four state legislative chambers and two governorships, and helped keep the House of Representatives close, making it far more likely Republicans lose it in 2024.”

But Watson warns of real challenges in the months to follow, including voter suppression, bigotry, the “clickiness” of Trump, Vladimir Putin, and the slow pace of the criminal court system.


“The thunderstorm is coming,” Watson concludes. “Consider these hard truths without turning away."

Read "The Gathering Storm" in entirety here.

‘Full Hitler’: Trump’s push for dictatorship to be focus of Biden campaign

David Edwards

RAW STORY
January 2, 2024 

Joe Biden, Donald Trump (Photo by Brendan Smialakowski for AFP)

President Joe Biden's campaign is preparing to run against Donald Trump as if the Republican candidate were Adolf Hitler.

CNN reported that Biden's campaign operatives are being careful to slowly increase the campaign rhetoric so voters do not get numb to the arguments that Trump is behaving like a dictator.

"[A]s some of the younger aides on Biden's reelection campaign have been grimly joking, it's about when to go 'full Hitler' – when the leading Republican candidate's speeches and actions go so far that the Biden team goes all the way to a direct comparison to the Nazi leader rather than couching their attacks by saying Trump 'parroted' him," the CNN report said.

Trump has joked that he would behave as a dictator on day one of his next presidency. And the candidate recently hinted on social media that his goals were "corruption," "revenge," and "dictatorship."

ALSO READ: More questions arise about college’s ‘pink slime,’ conservative PAC-backed publisher hire

"You have this moment in the first quarter where he is continuing to go full MAGA extremist now in order to shore up support in his own base," a senior campaign aide explained to CNN. "While he may be successful in that effort, if we do our job, we'll point out that everything he's saying is extreme and unpopular."

The campaign aide suggested Biden's strategy would not change much even if Trump is not the Republican nominee

"There's zero distance between these [GOP candidates] on the insane and dangerous worldview for which they're advocating," the senior campaign aide said. "Our ability to develop a contrast does not change based on who has the nomination at this point."

Doctors in England launch longest strike in NHS history

Agence France-Presse
January 3, 2024 

Junior doctors in England have staged successive strikes over pay and conditions 

(Daniel LEAL/AFP)

Hospital doctors in England on Wednesday began their longest consecutive strike in the seven-decade history of Britain's National Health Service (NHS).

Junior doctors -- those below consultant level -- started a six-day walkout, in a major escalation of their long-running pay dispute with the UK government.

The industrial action comes at one of the busiest times of the year for the state-funded NHS, when it faces increased pressure from winter respiratory illnesses.

It also quickly follows a three-day strike held by doctors just before Christmas.

The NHS said the latest stoppage, which could see up to half of the medical workforce on picket lines, would have "a significant impact on almost all routine care".

"This January could be one of the most difficult starts to the year the NHS has ever faced," said its national medical director, Stephen Powis.

The strike is due to end at 0700 GMT next Tuesday.

The British Medical Association (BMA) announced the walkout in December after a breakdown in talks with the government.

The union said junior doctors have been offered a 3.0-percent rise on top of the average 8.8-percent increase they were given earlier this year.

It rejected the offer because the cash would be split unevenly across different doctor grades and would "still amount to pay cuts for many doctors".


Junior doctors have gone on strike at least seven times since March.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and hospital leaders have criticized the action.

- 'Significant' -


Health policy is a devolved matter for the administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, with the UK government overseeing England.

Junior doctors in Wales are due to walk out for 72 hours from January 15.

Those in Northern Ireland have voted for potential strike action.


Their Scottish counterparts have struck a deal with the government in Edinburgh.

The NHS typically sees a rise in the number of people in hospital in the two weeks after Christmas, due to people delaying seeking treatment in order to spend the festive season with loved ones.

The service is already facing huge backlogs in waiting times for appointments and surgery, blamed on treatment postponement during Covid but also years of under-funding.


Julian Hartley, the chief executive of NHS Providers which represents hospital groups in England, said the effect of the strikes on patients would be "significant".

"The vast majority of planned operations, appointments, and so on, will have to be stood down," he told BBC television.

Consultants will cover for junior doctors and emergency and urgent care such as maternity and intensive care services will be operating.


But there are fears that Covid, flu and other seasonal conditions could also hit staffing.

"We're deeply concerned about the kind of impact over the coming days," said Hartley.

New Massachusetts 'Tax the Rich' law raises $1.5 billion for free school lunch and more

Julia Conley, Common Dreams
January 3, 2024 

Kids eating Lunch

A new "millionaire's tax" in Massachusetts was expected to generate $1 billion in revenue last year to help pay for public education, infrastructure, and early childcare programs, but projections were a bit off, according to a fresh state analysis.

The state Department of Revenue estimated late last week that the Fair Share Amendment, which requires people with incomes over $1 million, to pay a 4% annual surtax, will add $1.5 billion to state coffers this fiscal year, which ends in June—surpassing expectations.

Universal free school meals, much-needed improvements to an aging public transportation system, and tuition-free education for community college students are just some of the programs Massachusetts' wealthiest residents have helped pay for after voters approved the law in 2022 amid growing calls across the United States to tax the 
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The amendment was narrowly passed via a statewide ballot initiative in 2022 despite claims by opponents that it would force wealthy residents and businesses to leave the state.

The state analysis of the law shows that requiring wealthy households to pay more in taxes to contribute to the greater good has overall benefits for the state, said observers including Jonathan Cohn, political director for Progressive Massachusetts.

"The Fair Share Amendment has had a great first year. Looking forward to many more!" said the organization.

According to Fair Share, which advocated for the passage of the referendum in 2022, $150 million of the new revenue has been allocated to expanding green infrastructure and other construction projects in schools, while it cost the state's richest taxpayers just $69 million to fund free school meals for every child in Massachusetts, "saving families hundreds of dollars."

More than $205 million is being spent to upgrade, repair, and maintain the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority system, and $150 million is going toward bridge and road repairs. Expanded access to high-quality childcare and pre-kindergarten is being paid for with just $70.5 million, and $50 million is going toward tuition-free community college.

The investments are "only possible because the voters passed this constitutional amendment and we created this new tax," Andrew Farnitano, spokesperson for the Raise Up MA Coalition, toldWBUR.

"The money is going where it was promised," he added. "Those are fundamental investments in our economy that are needed to make sure it works for everyone."

Farnitano toldMassLive that revenues from the Fair Share Amendment are expected to increase as much as $2 billion by the time the 2025 budget goes into effect.

“Over the past few months, we've seen the impact, and that will only grow," he said.

An overall decline in other state revenue shows that the public spending would be impossible without the Fair Share Amendment, Farnitano told WBUR.

A Politico/Morning Consult poll found in September 2021 that 74% of Americans agreed with the statement, "The wealthiest Americans should pay higher taxes," and a Gallup survey found in August 2022, three months before the Massachusetts law was passed, that 52% of respondents believed the U.S. government should "redistribute wealth by heavy taxes on the rich," while 47% disagreed.

The Economic Incentive: Blocking Israel’s Supply Chain

by Binoy Kampmark / January 2nd, 2024

If demography is destiny, as Auguste Comte tells us, then economics must be current, pinching reality.  The Israel-Gaza conflict is invigorating a global protest movement against the state of Israel which is seeing various manifestations.  From an economic standpoint, Israel can be seen as vulnerable in terms of global supply lines, potentially at the mercy of sanctions and complete isolation.  Both imports and exports are of concern.

Israel, however, has been spared any toothy sanctions regime over its conduct in Gaza.  If anything, the Biden administration in Washington has been brightly enthusiastic in sending more shells to the Israeli Defence Forces, despite Congressional reservations and some grumbling within the Democratic Party.  This has made such figures as Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert, who has a long-standing association with the health system in Gaza, wonder why the wealthy states of the West exempt Israel from financial chastisement while economically punishing other powers, such as Russia, without reservation.  “Where are the sanctions against the war crimes of Israel?” he asks.  “Where are the sanctions against the occupation of Palestine?  Where are the sanctions against these abhorrent attacks on civilian healthcare in Gaza?”

The retaliatory initiative has tended to be left to protests at the community level, typified by the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement created in 2005.  The war in Gaza, however, has resulted in a broader efflorescence of interest.  Israeli companies such as Elbit Systems have become specific targets of international protest. On December 21, a global coalition of groups under the umbrella of Progressive International took a day of action against the country’s largest arms company, drawing attention to the tentacular nature of the enterprise in the US, UK, Europe, Brazil and Australia.

Restricting the docking of Israeli shipping at ports, notably from ZIM Integrated Shipping Services, has also presented an opportunity to the protest movement.  Actions have been organised as far afield as Australia where “Block the Boat” measures have taken place.  During the early evening of November 8, several hundred protesters flocked to the entrance of Melbourne’s international container terminal.  On catching sight of a ZIM-branded shipping container, the protestors staged a blockade lasting till the morning of the next day.  A similar action was repeated in Sydney on November 11, involving several hundred protestors holding the line on the shores of Port Botany and delaying the arrival of a ZIM vessel.

The assessments that followed the protest were mixed.  Zacharias Szumer, writing in Jacobin, admits that such blockades, on their own, “are unlikely to cause a major dint in ZIM’s bottom line.”  That said, he is confident enough to see it as part of a globalised effort which “can cumulatively make a difference.”

Then came the sceptical voices who felt that these actions fell dramatically short of substance and effect, a product of righteous, ineffectual tokenism.  An anonymous contribution to the New Socialist, purporting to be from one of the protestors, went so far as to call the “Block the Boat” strategy misguided, since it never actually entailed blocking vessels.  The promotional materials for the events “indicated that the purpose was actually to say somebody should ‘Block the Boats’, and to ‘call for’ a boycott – a message addressed to ZIM and Albanese.”  The writer, clearly agitated, also took issue with the choice of locations (they “weren’t conducive to disruption”) and the “suspiciously rigid, and convenient” timing of the rallies.

Short of these efforts, it is precisely the absence of responses at the highest levels that has precipitated a more global reaction that is upending the order of things.  Beyond the protests of activists, community groups, and the more generally outraged come the more direct, state-sponsored measures that have rattled financiers, the carriers and the operators.  The crisis in the Red Sea, for instance, where Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels (Ansar Allah), are putting the brakes on international shipping, is the stellar example.  While the measure initially began on November 14 to target Israeli-affiliated merchant shipping, largescale operators have not been spared.  “Unlike previous piracy related events in the Red Sea/Gulf of Aden this is a sophisticated military threat and requires a very sophisticated response,” states a briefing note from Inchcape Shipping Services.

The disruptions are significant, given that 30 percent of all container ship traffic passes through the Bab al-Mandab Strait off the coast of Yemen, the point where both the Red Sea and Indian Ocean meet.  The actions and threats by the Houthis have seen various oil and gas companies reroute their tankers. Decisions are even being made to suspend shipping through that route in favour of the safer, though costlier and longer route via the Cape of Good Hope.  Insurance premiums are also on the rise.

The Egyptians are also raising fees for those using the Suez Canal for the new year.  In an October announcement, the SCA promised an increase of between 5-15%, effective from January 15, 2024.  The measure is applicable to a fairly comprehensive list of vessel categories, including crude oil tankers, petroleum product tankers, liquefied petroleum gas carriers, containerships and cruise ships.

On December 20, Malaysia, as if heeding the “Block the Boat” protests, announced that it would be preventing Israeli-flagged cargo ships from docking at the country’s ports.  Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim announced the decision in a statement, with a specific reference to ZIM.  “The Malaysian government decided to block and disallow the Israeli-based shipping company ZIM from docking at any Malaysian port.”  Such sanctions were “a response to Israel’s actions that ignore basic humanitarian principles and violate international law through the ongoing massacre and brutality against Palestinians.”

Malaysia also announced, in addition to barring ships using the Israeli flag from docking in the country, the banning of “any ship on its way to Israel from loading cargo in Malaysian ports.”

Blockade, barring, embargo, constriction – all these measures are familiar to the Israeli security establishment as it seeks to strangle and pulverize the Gaza Strip.  While closing ports to Israeli shipping is modest in comparison to starving and strafing an entire population, it is fittingly reciprocal and warranted.  The Israel campaign against Gaza, and Palestinians more generally, is no longer a local, contained affair.

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com. Read other articles by Binoy.

The Distortion of Science

To support the globalist's Climate Change agenda

by Robert Malone / January 2nd, 2024

Starting in the mid-20th century, companies began distorting and manpulating science to favor specific commercial interests.

Big tobacco is both the developer and the poster child of this strategy. When strong evidence that smoking caused lung cancer emerged in the 1950s, the tobacco industry began a campaign to obscure this fact.

The Unmaking of Science

The tobacco industry scientific disinformation campaign sought to disrupt and delay further studies, as well as to cast scientific doubt on the link between cigarette smoking and harms. This campaign lasted for almost 50 years, and was extremely successful… until it wasn’t. This tobacco industry’s strategic brilliance lay in the use of a marketing and advertising campaign (otherwise known as propaganda) to create scientific uncertainty and sow doubts in the minds of the general public. This, combined with legislative “lobbying” and strategic campaign “donations” undermined public health efforts and regulatory interventions to inform the public about the harms of smoking and the regulation of tobacco products.

Disrupting normative science has become a de rigueur component of the pharmaceutical industry business model. A new pharmaceutical product is not based on need, it is based on market size and profitability. When new data threatens the market of a pharmaceutical product, then that pharma company will try to sprout the seeds of scientific uncertainty and lack of proof. For instance, clinical trials can be easily coopted to meet specified end-points positive for the drug products. Other ways to manipulate a clinical trial include manipulating the dosing schedule and amounts. As these practices have been exposed, people no longer trust the science. Fast forward to the present, and the entire industry of evidence-based (and academic) medicine is now suspect due to the malfeasance of certain pharma players. In the case of COVID-19, Pharma propaganda and cooptation practices have now compromised the regulatory bodies controlling the pharma product licensing and deeply damaged global public confidence in those agencies.

We all know what climate change is. The truth is that the UN, most globalists and a wide range of world leaders” blame human activities for climate change. Whether or not climate change is real or that human activities are enhancing climate change is not important to this discussion. That is a subject for another day.

Most climate change scientists receive funding from the government. So they must comply with the government edict and policy position that human activity-caused climate change is an existential threat to both humankind and global ecosystems. When these “scientists” publish studies supporting the thesis that human activities cause climate change, they are more likely to receive more grant monies and therefore more publications- and therefore to be academically promoted (or at least to survive in the dog-eat-dog world of modern academe). Those who produce a counter narrative from the government approved one soon find themselves without funding, tenure, without jobs, unable to publish and unable to procure additional grants and contracts. It is a dead-end career wise. The system has been rigged.

And by the way, this is nothing new. Back in the day, during the “war on drugs, if a researcher who had funding by the NIH’s NIDA (National Institute of Drug Addiction) published an article or wrote an annual NIH grant report showing benefits to using recreational drugs, that would be a career ending move, as funding would not be renewed and new funding would never materialize. Remember, the NIH peer review system only triages grants, it does not actually chose who receives grant money. The administrative state at NIH does that! And anything that went against the war on drugs was considered a war on the government. Funding denied. This little truthbomb was conveyed to me – word of mouth- many years ago by a researcher and Professor who specialized in drug addiction research. Nothing printed, all heresy. Because that is how the system works. A whisper campaign. A whiff of a message on the wind.

The ends justify the means.

The new wrinkle in what has now happened with corrupted climate change activism/propaganda/”science” is that the manipulation of research is crossing disciplines. No longer satisfied with oppressing climate change scientists, climate change narrative enforcers have moved into the nutritional sciences. This trend of crossing disciplines portends death for the overall independence of any scientific endeavors. A creeping corruption into adjacent disciplines. Because climate change activists, world leaders, research institutions, universities and governments are distorting another branch of science outside of climate science. They are using the bio-sciences, specifically nutrition science, to support the climate change agenda. It is another whole-of-government response to the crisis, just like with COVID-19.

Just like with the tobacco industry’s scientific disinformation campaign, they are distorting health research to make the case that eating meat is dangerous to humans. Normal standards for publication have been set aside. The propaganda is thick and easily spotted.

As the NIH is now funding researchers to find associations between climate change and health, it is pretty clear that those whose research is set-up to find such associations will be funded. Hence, once again, the system is rigged to support the climate change narrative.

The standard approach for nutritional research is based on a food-frequency and portion questionnaire – usually kept as a diary. The nutrient intake from this observational data set is then associated with disease incidence. Randomized interventional clinical trials are not done due to expense and bioethical considerations.

The problem is that the confounding variables in such studies are hard to control. Do obese people eat more, so would their intake of meat be more or less in proportion to dietary calories? What do they eat in combination? What about culture norms, combined with genetic drivers of disease? Age? Geo-considerations? The list of confounding variables is almost never ending. Garbage in, garbage out.

We have all witnessed how these studies get used to promulgate one point of view or another.

It’s not just within the context of red meat. The same thing happens over and over. We get dietary recommendations put together by expert committees and the data are reviewed. But when subsequent, so-called systematic reviews of specific recommendations take place, the data don’t meet reliability standards…

Yes, available information is mostly based on studies of association rather than causation, using methods that fall short of proving chronic disease effects, especially in view of the crucial dietary measurement issues. The whole gestalt produces reports that seem very uncertain in terms of the standards that are applied elsewhere in the scientific community for reliable evidence. (Dr. Ross Prentice, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center)

Some recent “peer reviewed” academic publications on climate change and diet:

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Enter climate change regulations, laws and goals – such as those found in UN Agenda 2030. Enter globalists determined to buy up farm-land to control prices, agriculture and eating trends. Enter politics into our food supplies and even the science of nutrition What a mess.

Below are some of the more outlandish claims being made in the name of climate science and nutrition. The United Nations’s World Food Program writes:

The climate crisis is one of the leading causes of the steep rise in global hunger. Climate shocks destroy lives, crops and livelihoods, and undermine people’s ability to feed themselves. Hunger will spiral out of control if the world fails to take immediate climate action.

Note that “Climate shocks” have always existed and will always exist. The existence of readily observed (and easily propagandized) human tragedies associated with hurricanes, fires and droughts are embedded throughout the entire archaeological record of human existence. This is nothing new in either written human history or prehistory. This does not equate to a pressing existential human crisis.

In fact, reviewing the evidence of calories and protein available reveals a very different trend. Over time, per capita caloric and protein supplies have increased almost across the board.

The prevalence of undernourishment is the leading indicator of food availability. The chart below shows that the world still has a significant issue with poverty and food stability, but it is not increasing. If anything, people are better nourished in countries with extreme poverty than they were 20 years ago.

*Note the COVIDcrisis has most likely exacerbated extreme poverty and undernourishment, but those results for the 2021-2023 years are not (yet?) available.

Despite clear and compelling evidence that climate change is not impacting on food availability or undernutrition, websites, news stories and research literature all make tenuous assertions about how the climate change “crisis” is causing starvation.

These are from the front search page on google for “climate change starvation”:

But the actual data documents something different.

This is not to say that that the poorest nations in the world don’t have issues with famine, they do. It is an issue, but not a climate change issue. It is a gross distortion of available data and any objective scientific analysis of those data to assert otherwise.

The best way to stop famine is to ensure that countries have adequate energy and resources to grow their own food supply, and have a domestic manufacturing base. That means independent energy sources.

If the United Nations and the wealthy globalists at the WEF truly want to help nations with high poverty and famine rates <and reduce our immigration pressure>, they would help them secure stable energy sources. They would help them develop their natural gas and other hydrocarbon projects. Then they could truly feed themselves. They could attain independence.

Famine is not a climate change issue, it is an energy issue. Apples and oranges. This is not “scientific”. Rather, it is yet more weaponized fearporn being used as a Trojan horse to advance hidden political and economic objectives and agendas of political movements, large corporations and non-governmental organizations.

Facts matter.

Robert W Malone MD, MS is president of the Malone Institute whose mission is to bring back integrity to the biological sciences and medicine. The Malone Institute supports and conducts research, education, and informational activities. Contact: info@maloneinstitute.org. Read other articles by Robert, or visit Robert's website.

 

Global Banks Pledge Massive Investments in Sustainable Projects

By Felicity Bradstock - Dec 31, 2023

• The World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and Inter-American Development Bank Group have announced substantial increases in funding for climate mitigation and adaptation projects.
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• These banks aim to become key players in supporting the green transition in Asia-Pacific and Latin America, with funding directed towards innovative climate technologies and renewable energy.
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• Commitments include creating regulatory frameworks to attract private investment, pausing debt repayment during climate disasters, and establishing common approaches for reporting climate results.
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Several regional development banks are responding to mounting pressure to provide climate financing to support the development of the green economy of low-income regions. This year, both the Asian Development Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank Group announced major climate investments aimed at the growth of renewable energy capacity in developing regions of the world. This is further supported by recent efforts but the World Bank Group.

Since the first COP climate summit two years ago, COP26 held in Glasgow, development banks have been facing increasing pressure to fund green energy and tech projects in much-overlooked parts of the world. And at COP28, several announcements suggested that the banks have responded to this demand. The World Bank Group announced at the summit that it was increasing its climate target to give 45 percent of its annual financing to climate-related projects in the next fiscal year. This provides around an additional $9 billion in funding for green projects, aimed principally at climate mitigation and adaptation. 

In October, The Asian Development Bank (ADB) announced it planned to lend an additional $100 billion over the next 10 years. It expects to lend around $36 billion a year, marking a 40 percent increase in lending. In 2022, the ADB lent an estimated $20.5 billion for climate-related development. The bank’s plan to “relax” rules on loans is not expected to affect its AAA credit rating. Woochong Um, managing director general at ADB, stated “We looked at it and without jeopardizing our AAA we can optimize our capital adequacy framework, and be able to raise more resources to lend to the countries.” He added, “The development needs are huge and we need to make sure that we are equipped to provide financing.” 

While the ADB’s lending will continue to be centred around poverty, it hopes to boost the amount of financing it provides for climate work. The ADB said that it hopes to become the climate bank of Asia and the Pacific by increasing its spending on mitigation, adaptation, and climate resilience. Significant funding will go towards new climate-related technologies and exploring cleaner transportation and weather-resistant crops. It believes that this funding goes hand in hand with the bank’s aims to alleviate poverty in the region. To attract more private funding, the ADB plans to support the creation of regulatory frameworks in countries across the region, to reduce risk and make the investment environment more attractive.

Around a month later, the Inter-American Development Bank Group (IDB Group) announced an increase in funding to Latin America and the Caribbean to $150 billion over the next decade. This would help the bank achieve three times the amount of financing it had previously earmarked for climate projects, putting it on track to meet the G20’s recommendation. The President of the IDB, Ilan Goldfajn, stated “We are placing action on climate and nature at the centre of the IDB Group… This means increasing direct and mobilized climate financing for Latin America and the Caribbean, expanding our work on global public goods, such as the Amazon, catalysing private-sector engagement and developing new financial instruments so we can mobilize more capital toward climate action.” 

The IDB is the main source of long-term development financing in the region and is committed to meeting its climate mitigation and adaptation goals. The Latin America and the Caribbean region is home to the Amazon rainforest, which is one of the world’s primary carbon sinks, as well as vast green energy resources. With greater financing, the region could be propelled to become a major green energy and tech hub, helping to alleviate the burden of climate change and supporting a global green transition. 

Five multinational development banks (MDBs) have now pledged to include clauses in their agreements and contracts to pause debt repayment in the case of a climate disaster, following pressure from international bodies and governments. Further, MDBs recently released a joint statement stating their commitment to establishing a common approach for reporting climate results. This will be achieved through country-level cooperation to harmonise climate indicators. They will also develop a programme to be provided via the World Bank to support countries in the development of long-term climate and development strategies and to attract private climate funding. EIB President Werner Hoyer said in a statement “This joint statement from the world’s multilateral development banks makes it clear that we have heard the calls to step up and that we have the means to deliver. Crucially, we have agreed to further strengthen our cooperation to support countries and the private sector to accelerate a green and just transition and build resilience.” 

In response to mounting pressure from state governments and other official actors, several development banks have announced an increase in climate funding, aimed mainly at climate mitigation and adaptation. This funding is expected to help greater private funding to low-income regions that could be key to achieving a global green transition. Investments in green energy and technologies are also expected to spur economic growth at the national level for several countries around the globe. 

By Felicity Bradstock for Oilprice.com