GRIFTER IN CHIEF

Opinion
Trump wants Americans to pay up for his crimes

Gregg Barak

SALON

Sat, January 27, 2024 

Donald Trump Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Donald Trump’s utmost assault on American democracy and the rule of law has been his ability to exploit these foundational institutions to weaken each as he constantly makes a mockery of both. It’s part and parcel of his efforts to sustain personal power. The ultimate goal is to enable oligarchic domination and facilitate financial looting by the uber-wealthy. 

My aim in this commentary is to move beyond Trump’s procedural harms or distractions and to connect his very real substantive crimes, fraudulent behaviors, and policies of deception to the GOP’s larger and unending appropriation of accumulated capital from the US commonwealth.     

Contrary to Trump’s repetitive narrative about how the Justice Department (DOJ), state prosecutors, and the courts are engaging in some kind of persecution or witch-hunt and/or weaponization of the rule of law against the former president as part of a “deep state” conspiracy to interfere with his winning back the presidency in 2024, these civil and criminal agencies of adjudication have been bending over backward to privilege or accommodate Trump’s perpetual lawlessness inside and outside various courthouses across America.

Nevertheless, until Trump is finally criminally convicted by a jury of his peers, Trump’s narrative of persecution or victimization will continue to resonate in the minds of the GOP majority rather than the 91 felony counts against him.  

For example, the latest episodes of indulging the “man-child” occurred during closing arguments of Trump’s $370M civil fraud trial as well as his second sex abuse defamation civil trial in two Manhattan courtrooms located in close proximity.  

In the latter case, which ended Friday with a jury judgment that Trump must pay E. Jean Carroll over $83 million in damages, Judge Lewis Kaplan had this testy exchange with Trump. “I understand you’re probably very eager for me” to remove “you from the trial.” To which Trump sitting between his two lawyers at the defense table shouted back, “I would love it.” Of course, Trump would.

Trump had already been warned that he could be expelled for continuing to disrupt the trial. Nevertheless, the judicially found rapist of Carroll could be heard remarking loud enough to his lawyers for the jurors to hear, “it is a witch hunt” and “it really is a con job.” Never mind that Trump in a previous lawsuit by a jury of his peers had already been found civilly liable for sexual assault as well as defamation of character to the tune of $5 million. It’s little wonder he stormed out of the courtroom on Friday.

In the former case, Judge Arthur Engoron bent the rules and allowed Trump “to go on a courtroom rant lasting several minutes,” which had nothing whatsoever to do with either the law or the facts of the case.  Instead, Trump made another political speech claiming that the New York civil trial is a ‘fraud on me’ and that he was “an innocent man” who claimed among other things that the New York Attorney General Letitia James “hates” him and “doesn’t want me to get elected.” Trump also stated to the presiding judge, “I know this is boring you. I know you have your own agenda” here as well. 

Procedurally, either Trump as the defendant or one of his attorneys, but not both, was entitled to make the closing argument. However, Judge Engoron made an exception allowing Trump and his attorney Chris Kise to speak during closing arguments. Before doing so, the judge re-iterated what he had previously spelled out one week earlier about what Trump could or could not comment about as part of his closing arguments. Predictably, Trump totally disregarded Judge Engoron’s instructions the same as he had Judge Kaplan’s.

On Friday, former federal judge Barbara Jones, appointed by Engoron to monitor the Trump Organization's finances, told the judge that Trump had failed to provide "information required to be submitted to me pursuant to the terms of the monitorship order and review protocol."

Engoron coddled the former president and permitted his procedural misconduct because the judge knew that after his final decision — dismantling Trump’s New York base business empire – to be rendered later this month, Trump and his attorneys would be appealing and filing an avalanche of motions mostly to delay rather than rectify justice. By allowing Trump to speak, Engoron figured there would be one less bogus motion to be made about how the former president had been denied his right to speak on his own behalf.   

Again, I do not want to get caught up in these procedural abuses by Trump and his attorneys because their claims are primarily smokescreens designed to deflect attention away from the substantive lawlessness or fraudulent behavior involved in his adversarial conflicts with the administration of justice. 

In the case of the fraudulent business trial brought by the New York Attorney General, Trump’s phony legal defense pertaining to his illegal acquisition of money or to his financial looting from both the Internal Revenue System and the US monetary system is that these lending transactions allegedly caused no injuries to the parties involved. 

To paraphrase Trump: nobody was injured here or there were no harms to speak of. Of course, that is pure fiction or nonsense as the summary judgment has already been declared and as the final verdict will be revalidated in the next couple of days when Trump and company find themselves liable for at least $300 million.

Trump’s fraudulent business dealings involved in this civil case, like using other people’s money vis-à-vis deceitfully acquired lower interest rates along with tax evasion, are consistent with the former president’s modus operandi and sheds light on some of the other ways in which the 45th  president’s appointments of free marketers and deregulators facilitated financial looting on a much grander scale. The GOP’s $1.9 trillion tax break for the wealthy, signed by Trump, is perhaps the most infamous example

As I have argued in Indicting the 45th President, “the Racketeer-in-Chief as POTUS had established from the top down an administrative apparatus marked by placing self-interest, profiteering, and corruption above the public welfare.” In similar fashion, Trump’s “networks for raising and flowing cash loads of electronic money also helped to contribute to the ‘deadly insurrection that was rooted in the same self-serving ethos’.”

By the end of 2023, the ex-president had already spent more than $57 million of other people’s money on his legal fees, which will very likely continue to grow for the foreseeable future. While raising money to steal the election was unlawful, raising money to defend those people from trying to steal an election is perfectly lawful.  

As we have learned in some detail from the New York civil fraud trial, Trump has spent most of his dishonest life in search of money. His business history has been filled with overseas financial deals and missed deals. Some of these have involved the Chinese state where Trump “spent a decade unsuccessfully pursuing projects in China, operating an office there during his first run for president and forging a partnership with a major government-controlled company.”  

China along with Britain and Ireland are three nations that we know about where Trump maintains bank accounts. These foreign accounts do not show up on  Trump’s public financial disclosures where he must list his personal assets because these accounts are not in his name. In the case of China, the bank account is controlled by Trump International Hotels Management, LLC, whose tax records reveal that TIHM paid $188,561 in pursuing licensing deals there from 2013 to 2015 that did not pan out. During those same pre-MAGA years Trump had been paying the IRS less than $1,000 annually. 

Until 2019, China’s biggest state-controlled bank rented three floors in Trump Tower stateside, a very lucrative lease that had generated accusations of conflicts of interest for the former president. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) in its January 15, 2021, report on corruption identified more than 3,700 conflicts of interest while Trump was president because of his decision while in office not to divest from his business interests. 

As far as offshore banking laws and accounts go, the release of Trump’s taxes from 2015 to 2020 revealed that for at least 2016 he had an offshore bank account in the Caribbean nation of St. Martin, a popular place to avoid paying taxes. Nevertheless, recall when he was asked during the 2016 campaign whether U.S. citizens should be allowed to save or invest in offshore bank accounts, Trump responded: “No, too many wealthy citizens are abusing loopholes in offshore banking laws to evade taxes.” 

At the time, key planks in Trump’s tax reform plan would have allegedly ended the practices of U.S. multinationals stockpiling offshore hundreds of billions of dollars and millions of jobs. For the record, the sheltered tax dollars did not come home nor did outsourced jobs ever come back to America. Those were merely “talking points” that were never going to materialize during a Trump administration.

When it came to stocking the laissez-faire policy swamps, Trump’s political appointments included more than its share of high rolling donors with no expertise in anything let alone with an appropriate area of specialty. As for those appointments where expertise was required, those were located primarily in the areas of business, finance, and the law.

The economic orientation or philosophy of these appointments reinforced generally a “hands off” approach to regulation and taxation. These free marketers were not about recouping billions let alone trillions of dollars from the tax avoiding and tax evading superrich or mega corporations. Quite the contrary, these appointments involved persons who had specialized in tax avoidance. For example, four of Trump’s key economic appointments had been beneficiaries of shell companies and offshore banking accounts including Gary Cohn, Rex Tillerson, Steven Mnuchin, and Randal Quarles.  

Chief economic adviser Gary Cohn was the driver behind the White House tax reform act. Leaked documents reveal that between 2002 and 2006 Cohn was either president or vice-president of 22 separate offshore entities in Bermuda for Goldman Sachs. That was before Cohn eventually became the president and COO of Goldman Sachs, one of the foremost banking, securities, and investment management firms in the world.

As for secretary of state Rex Tillerson, leaked documents reveal that before he ascended to chairman and CEO of ExxonMobil in 2006 and while still presiding as president of ExxonMobil Yemen division, Tillerson was also a director of Marib Upstream Services Company that was incorporated in Bermuda in 1997. 

And Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, before joining the Trump administration, was an offshore specialist and deputy chairman of CIT Bank. Mnuchin provided “financing structures for personal aircraft priced at tens of millions of dollars, which customers used to legally avoid sales taxes and other charges.”

Randal Quarles, Trump’s most senior banking “watchdog” was also outed in connection with offshore banks and tax evasion as he appeared prominently in the infamous Paradise Papers.

As we all know the only shining accomplishment of President Trump during his four years in office was a $1.9 trillion tax gift or cut enjoyed primarily by super-wealthy individuals, mega-corporations, and multinational businesses – to the ongoing detriment of the general population — who already had enjoyed the lowest tax rates in the corporate world. 

According to a Joint Committee on Taxation the 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act between 2021 and 2031 will have increased the governmental deficit by $1 trillion. The Tax Foundation analysis stated over the same period that the tax cuts would cost $1.47 trillion in decreased revenue while adding only $600 billion in growth and savings.  

These economic projections are consistent with the negative or not “trickling down” benefits and failures to increase production after the same types of Reagan and Bush II administrations’ tax cuts or benefits for the corporate wealthy had also occurred.

What is consistent is that these same types of neoliberal taxing policies or practices of financial looting from other commonwealths around the global economy have yielded the same dismal outcomes in Argentina, Brazil, Russia, and every other nation where they have been employed.

To summarize, reducing the top income tax rates for the rich has to date had no appreciable effect on economic growth anywhere in the world, but it has always been a bonanza for uber capitalists and oligarchs alike.

For the record, the U.S. national debt was $5.6 trillion in 2000 and as of January 2024 stands at over $33.99 trillion. Democratic Presidents Barack Obama (2008-2016) and Joe Biden (2020-2023) in 11 years accounted for $10.3 trillion while Republican Presidents George W. Bush (2000-2008) and Donald Trump (2016-2020) in 12 years accounted for a $10.9 trillion.   

Head-to-head: Trump accounted for the largest deficit growth in the 21st century of $6.7 trillion in four years while Biden accounted for only $2.5 trillion in his first three years in office.

In stark contrast, however, the deficits accumulated during the Obama and Biden administrations have benefitted the American people in numerous ways, for example, from health care coverage to infrastructure development. Meanwhile, the deficits accumulated by Bush II and Trump had only benefited the wealthy. 

 

UBI

Austin experimented with giving people $1,000 a month. They spent the no-strings-attached cash mostly on housing, a study found.

Kenneth Niemeyer
Sun, January 28, 2024 

Austin experimented with giving people $1,000 a month. They spent the no-strings-attached cash mostly on housing, a study found.


Austin, Texas.Evan Semones

• A guaranteed basic income program in Austin gave people $1,000 a month for a year.

• Most of the participants spent the no-string-attached cash on housing, a study of the program found.

• Participants who said they could afford a balanced meal also increased by 17%.

A guaranteed basic income plan in one of Texas's largest cities reduced rates of housing insecurity. But some Texas lawmakers are not happy.

Austin was the first city in Texas to launch a tax-payer-funded basic income program when the Austin Guaranteed Income Pilot kicked off in May 2022. The program served 135 low-income families, each receiving up to $1,000 monthly. Funding for 85 families came from the City of Austin while philanthropic donations funded the other 50.

The program was billed as a means to boost people out of poverty and help them afford housing. "We know that if we trust people to make the right decisions for themselves and their families, it leads to better outcomes," the city says on its website. "It leads to better jobs, increased savings, food security, housing security."

While the program ended in August 2023, a new study from the Urban Institute, a Washington DC-based think tank, found that the city's program did in fact help its participants pay for housing and food. On average, program participants spent more than half of the cash they received on housing, the report's authors wrote.

After the yearlong program, the participants were "substantially more housing secure" than when they enrolled, while other Texas residents with low incomes became "modestly less housing secure" over the same period, the authors found.

The program also helped reduce food insecurity among participants — 17% fewer families were unable to afford a balanced meal, the report says.

Taniquewa Brewster, a single mother who started receiving payments from the program in September 2022, told KXAN, a local NBC affiliate, that the money she received helped her pay for medical expenses and medicine following an eight-day hospital stay.

While Austin was the first city in Texas to test a basic income program, it's not the only city. But not everyone in the state supports them.

Last week, State Sen. Paul Bettencourt sent a letter to the state's attorney general asking him to declare a new program in Houston unconstitutional.

Harris County, which includes Houston, earlier this month launched a guaranteed basic income program that gives low-income residents up to $500 a month.

The program's attorney told the Houston Chronicle that Bettencourt was "more focused on political games and weaponizing government institutions than making life better for the people of Harris County."

Many other cities around the United States are also experimenting with basic income projects to address rising homelessness and support their most vulnerable residents. In Baltimore, the Baltimore Young Families Success Fund gives young mothers up to $1,000 a month. The campaign's director of policy, Tonaeya Moore, previously told Business Insider that surveys show that participants mostly spend their money on the same general necessities, like housing and food.

And in Denver, a basic income program that gives people up to $1,000 a month was recently extended after finding it also increased housing security among its participants.

Elon Musk's New Whim: Tesla Workers Must Sleep on Assembly Line

Sharon Adarlo
Sun, January 28, 2024 

Production Hell

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is warning his workers that they'll have to sleep — and from the sounds of it, practically live — at the company's Texas manufacturing plant so that the carmaker can produce an affordable electric vehicle for the masses, Business Insider reports.

"That will be a challenging production ramp," the news outlet reports Musk saying during an earning's call on Wednesday. "We'll be sleeping on the line, practically. Not practically, we will be."

The electric vehicle in question apparently has the codename "Redwood," Reuters previously reported, and Tesla plans to build it sometime in 2025.

This won't be the first time Tesla workers have had to sleep inside company factories during periods of what he has previously called "production hell." Musk himself has been known to slumber at Tesla during production ramp ups, something which he loves to brag about.

Quality Control

But it remains to be seen whether these kind of production rushes are good for the company. Customers and reporters have pointed out that Tesla vehicles can suffer from significant quality problems, from the suspension failing to driving range issues.

The most visible quality control issues have been exterior finish problems, such as misaligned doors in the Cybertruck and protruding exterior molding above the window of Model Ys.

We don't know if there is a direct correlation between quality issues and the lack of work-life balance at Tesla facilities, but it's telling that X-formerly Twitter has been known to have staff sleep at the headquarters after Musk bought it in October 2022.

And X has been noticeably more buggy ever since Musk became involved.

Whether a truly affordable Tesla will ever see the mass market is also a lingering question. Musk has been promising a vehicle at a $25,000 price point for years, but it has yet to actually materialize.

US Muslim group condemns Pelosi for saying Gaza ceasefire protests have Russia link

Updated Sun, January 28, 2024 

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators protest at Jamaica Station, New York City

By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A U.S. Muslim group criticized former House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday after she suggested, without offering evidence, that some protesters demanding a ceasefire in Gaza could be linked to Russia and urged the FBI to investigate.

Her comments were dismissed as "unsubstantiated smears" by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), who said such remarks amounted to dehumanization of the Palestinian people.


Pelosi made the remarks in a CNN interview after she was asked whether opposition to President Joe Biden's policy in the war in Gaza could hurt the Democrat in November's presidential election.

"For them to call for a ceasefire is Mr. Putin's message, Mr. Putin's message. Make no mistake, this is directly connected to what he (Russian President Vladimir Putin) would like to see," Pelosi told CNN.

"I think some of these protesters are spontaneous, and organic, and sincere. Some I think are connected to Russia," she said. "Some financing should be investigated and I want to ask the FBI to investigate that."

Pelosi's comments marked the first time a prominent U.S. lawmaker has accused Russia's leader of backing U.S. protesters calling for a ceasefire.

The Russian embassy in Washington was not immediately available to comment.

Protests demanding a ceasefire in Gaza have recently occurred across the U.S., including near airports and bridges in New York City and Los Angeles, vigils outside the White House and marches in Washington. Demonstrators have also interrupted Biden speeches and events.

The protests have been organized by a range of human rights, Jewish and anti-war activist groups.

"It is unconscionable that an individual with such influence in this nation would spread unsubstantiated smears targeting those who seek an end to the slaughter of civilians in Gaza and a just resolution to that conflict," said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesperson for CAIR.

Pelosi's comments "echo a time in our nation when opponents of the Vietnam War were accused of being communist sympathizers and subjected to FBI harassment," CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad added.

When asked about the protests against Biden's policy in Gaza, Democratic U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told NBC News on Sunday that opposition by many to the war was based on "the indiscriminate loss of life" in the region.

The U.N. has demanded an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, but Washington has vetoed resolutions for such calls in the United Nations Security Council, saying it would let Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which governs Gaza, regroup and rebuild.

Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies. Israel's subsequent assault on Gaza has killed more than 26,000 Palestinians, over 1% of the 2.3 million population there, according to Gaza's health ministry. Many are feared buried in rubble.

Israeli bombardments have flattened much of the densely populated enclave, leaving most Gazans homeless, sparking food shortages that threaten famine and incapacitating most hospitals.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington

Editing by Heather Timmons, Matthew Lewis and Lisa Shumaker


Nancy Pelosi suspects pro-Palestine protesters of being in cahoots with Russia

Kelly McClure
Sun, January 28, 2024

Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images

Former U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a number of controversial statements during an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, voicing her opinion that protesters calling for a cease-fire in Gaza are in someway in cahoots with Russia, urging the FBI to conduct a probe.

"For them to call for a ceasefire is Mr. Putin's message. Make no mistake," Pelosi said. "This is directly connected to what he would like to see . . . I think some of these protesters are spontaneous, and organic, and sincere. Some I think are connected to Russia. Some financing should be investigated and I want to ask the FBI to investigate that."

As Reuters points out in its coverage of Pelosi's interview, her comments "marked the first time a prominent U.S. lawmaker has accused Russia's leader of backing U.S. protesters calling for a ceasefire."

Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesperson for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, issued a statement on Pelosi's comments, saying, "It is unconscionable that an individual with such influence in this nation would spread unsubstantiated smears targeting those who seek an end to the slaughter of civilians in Gaza and a just resolution to that conflict. Her comments once again show the negative impact of decades of dehumanization of the Palestinian people."

Pelosi said she will ask FBI to investigate pro-Palestine protesters
Adam Schrader
Sun, January 28, 2024 

Outgoing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, holds the gavel as she calls the House to order on the first day of the 118th Congress at the U.S. Capitol on January 3, 2023. File Photo by Ken Cedeno/UPI

Jan. 28 (UPI) -- Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday she will ask the FBI to investigate the financing of pro-Palestine protesters, seemingly indicating they may be Russian plants.

"For them to call for a cease-fire is Mr. Putin's message, Mr. Putin's message. Make no mistake, this is directly connected to what he would like to see. Same thing with Ukraine. It's about Putin's message," Pelosi said in an interview with CNN.

She said she thinks only "some" of these protesters are "spontaneous and organic and sincere" but that some "are connected to Russia."

Interviewer Dana Bash then specifically asked Pelosi if she believed some of the protests are Russian plants.

"I don't think they're plants. I think some financing should be investigated. And I want to ask the FBI to investigate that," Pelosi said.

She then said she has confidence that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will win reelection, despite growing criticism of the president among Democratic voters over his handling of Israel's war in Gaza.

Pelosi, as a leading congresswoman, has had a history of sparking controversy in the wake of recent political tensions abroad. The lawmaker led a delegation to Ukraine in May 2022 to meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky and followed it with a trip to Armenia that September, sparking internal debate in the country over its long alliance with the Kremlin.

But that same year, Pelosi also made her trip to the self-governed province of Taiwan, sparking increased tensions with mainland China.

 

Where Is Hamas Getting Its Weapons? Increasingly, From Israel.

Maria Abi-Habib and Sheera Frenkel
Sun, January 28, 2024 

Israeli soldiers stand in what they described as a rocket factory, during an escorted tour by the military for international journalists in the central Gaza Strip on Jan. 8, 2024. (Avishag Shaar-Yashuv/The New York Times)


LONDON — Israeli military and intelligence officials have concluded that a significant number of weapons used by Hamas in the Oct. 7 attacks and in the war in the Gaza Strip came from an unlikely source: the Israeli military itself.

For years, analysts have pointed to underground smuggling routes to explain how Hamas stayed so heavily armed despite an Israeli military blockade of the Gaza Strip. But recent intelligence has shown the extent to which Hamas has been able to build many of its rockets and anti-tank weaponry out of the thousands of munitions that failed to detonate when Israel lobbed them into Gaza, according to weapons experts and Israeli and Western intelligence officials. Hamas is also arming its fighters with weapons stolen from Israeli military bases.

Intelligence gathered during months of fighting revealed that, just as Israeli authorities misjudged Hamas’ intentions before Oct. 7, they also underestimated its ability to obtain arms.

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What is clear now is that the very weapons that Israeli forces have used to enforce a blockade of Gaza over the past 17 years are now being used against them. Israeli and American military explosives have enabled Hamas to shower Israel with rockets and, for the first time, penetrate Israeli towns from Gaza.

“Unexploded ordnance is a main source of explosives for Hamas,” said Michael Cardash, the former deputy head of the Israeli National Police Bomb Disposal Division and an Israeli police consultant. “They are cutting open bombs from Israel, artillery bombs from Israel, and a lot of them are being used, of course, and repurposed for their explosives and rockets.”

Weapons experts say that roughly 10% of munitions typically fail to detonate, but in Israel’s case, the figure could be higher. Israel’s arsenal includes Vietnam-era missiles, long discontinued by the United States and other military powers. The failure rate on some of those missiles could be as high as 15%, said one Israeli intelligence officer who, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.

By either count, years of sporadic bombing and the recent bombardment of Gaza have littered the area with thousands of tons of unexploded ordnance just waiting to be reused. One 750-pound bomb that fails to detonate can become hundreds of missiles or rockets.

Hamas did not respond to messages seeking comment. The Israeli military said in a statement that it was committed to dismantling Hamas but did not answer specific questions about the group’s weapons.

Israeli officials knew before the October attacks that Hamas could salvage some Israeli-made weapons, but the scope has startled weapons experts and diplomats alike.

Israeli authorities also knew that their armories were vulnerable to theft. A military report from early last year noted that thousands of bullets and hundreds of guns and grenades had been stolen from poorly guarded bases.

From there, the report said, some made their way to the West Bank, and others to Gaza by way of Sinai. But the report focused on military security. The consequences were treated almost as an afterthought: “We are fueling our enemies with our own weapons,” read one line of the report, which was viewed by The New York Times.

The consequences became apparent Oct. 7. Hours after Hamas breached the border, four Israeli soldiers discovered the body of a Hamas gunman who was killed outside the Re’im military base. Hebrew writing was visible on a grenade on his belt, said one of the soldiers, who recognized it as a bulletproof Israeli grenade, a recent model. Other Hamas fighters overran the base, and Israeli military officials say some weapons were looted and returned to Gaza.

A few miles away, members of an Israeli forensic team collected one of the 5,000 rockets fired by Hamas that day. Examining the rocket, they discovered that its military-grade explosives had most likely come from an unexploded Israeli missile fired into Gaza during a previous war, according to an Israeli intelligence officer.

The Oct. 7 attacks showcased the patchwork arsenal that Hamas had stitched together. It included Iranian-made attack drones and North Korean-made rocket launchers, the types of weapons that Hamas is known to smuggle into Gaza through tunnels. Iran remains a major source of Hamas’ money and weapons.

But other weapons, like anti-tank explosives, rocket-propelled grenade warheads, thermobaric grenades and improvised devices were repurposed Israeli arms, according to Hamas videos and remnants uncovered by Israel.

Rockets and missiles require huge quantities of explosive material, which officials say is the most difficult item to smuggle into Gaza.

Yet Hamas fired so many rockets and missiles Oct. 7 that Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system could not keep up. Rockets struck towns, cities and military bases, giving cover to the militants who stormed into Israel. One rocket hit a military base believed to house part of Israel’s nuclear missile program.

Hamas once relied on material like fertilizer and powdered sugar — which, pound for pound, are not as powerful as military-grade explosives — to build rockets. But since 2007, Israel has enforced a strict blockade, restricting the import of goods, including electronics and computer equipment, that could be used to make weapons.

That blockade and a crackdown on smuggling tunnels leading into and out of Gaza forced Hamas to get creative.

Its manufacturing abilities are now sophisticated enough to saw into the warheads of bombs weighing up to 2,000 pounds, to harvest the explosives and to repurpose them.

“They have a military industry in Gaza. Some of it is above ground, some of it is below ground, and they are able to manufacture a lot of what they need,” said Eyal Hulata, who served as Israel’s national security adviser and head of its National Security Council before stepping down early last year.

One Western military official said that most of the explosives that Hamas is using in its war with Israel appear to have been manufactured using unexploded Israeli-launched munitions. One example, the official said, was an explosive booby trap that killed 10 Israeli soldiers in December.

The military wing of Hamas, the Qassam Brigades, has flaunted its manufacturing abilities for years. After a war in 2014 with Israel, it established engineering teams to collect unexploded munitions like howitzer rounds and American-made MK-84 bombs.

These teams work with the police’s explosive ordnance-disposal units, allowing people to safely return to their homes. They also help Hamas gear up for the next war.

“Our strategy aimed to repurpose these pieces, turning this crisis into an opportunity,” a Qassam Brigades commander told Al Jazeera in 2020.

Qassam’s media arm has released videos in recent years showing exactly what they were doing: sawing into warheads, scooping out explosive material — usually a powder — and melting it down to reuse.

In 2019, Qassam commandos discovered hundreds of munitions on two World War I-era British military vessels that had sunk off the coast of Gaza a century earlier. The discovery, Qassam boasted, allowed it to make hundreds of new rockets.

Early in the current war, a Qassam video showed militants assembling Yassin 105 rockets in a sunless manufacturing facility.

“The most essential way for Hamas to obtain weaponry is through domestic manufacture,” said Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a Middle East policy analyst who grew up in Gaza. “It’s just a tweak of chemistry and you can make pretty much whatever you want.”

Israel restricts the mass importation of construction materials that can be used to build rockets and other weapons. But each new round of fighting leaves behind neighborhoods of rubble from which militants can pluck pipes, concrete and other valuable material, Alkhatib said.

Hamas cannot manufacture everything. Some things are easier to buy from the black market and smuggle into Gaza. Sinai, the largely uninhabited desert region between Israel, Egypt and the Gaza Strip, remains a hub for arms smuggling. Weapons from conflicts in Libya, Eritrea and Afghanistan have been discovered in Sinai, according to Israeli intelligence assessments.

According to two Israeli intelligence officials, at least a dozen small tunnels were still running between Gaza and Egypt before Oct. 7. A spokesperson for the Egyptian government said its military had done its part to shut down tunnels on its side of the border. “Many of the weapons currently inside the Gaza Strip are the result of smuggling from within Israel,” the spokesperson said in an email.

But the besieged streets of Gaza are increasingly a source of weapons.

Israel estimates that it has conducted at least 22,000 strikes on Gaza since Oct. 7. Each often involves multiple rounds, meaning tens of thousands of munitions have likely been dropped or fired — and thousands failed to detonate.

“Artillery, hand grenades, other munitions — tens of thousands of unexploded ordnance will be left after this war,” said Charles Birch, the head of the U.N. Mine Action Service in Gaza. These “are like a free gift to Hamas.”

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Biden considers halting some US military aid to force Israel to scale back its offensive in Gaza

Katie Balevic
Sun, January 28, 2024 

Protesters in Los Angeles denounce the Biden administration's support of Israel.

David McNew/Getty Images


Biden is considering curtailing some weapons support for Israel, NBC reported.


Biden wants to use the weapons as leverage to force Israel to scale back its attack.


Israel's Netanyahu has so far refused Biden's requests to dial back the offensive in Gaza.

President Joe Biden's patience with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been running low for months.

Biden has repeatedly asked Netanyahu to show restraint and dial back attacks on Gaza, and to open humanitarian corridors so that aid can reach Palestinians. Biden has also asked Netanyahu to plan for a two-state solution after the conflict. Netanyahu has publicly refused all of these requests.

It's an embarrassing situation for the United States, which has propped up Israel's military with billions in annual funding for decades. The continuing conflict is also politically dangerous for Biden, who has faced criticism from within his own party and younger voters for his refusal to force a cease-fire.

More than 26,000 Palestinians, the majority of them women and children, have so far been killed during Israel's scorched-earth retaliation for Hamas' October 7 attacks. The scale of the destruction has led to worldwide protests and anger toward Israel.

So to finally force Netnayahu's hand, the Biden administration is now quietly considering holding back support, NBC News reported.

Biden has asked the Defense Department to review the weapons Israel has requested and to determine which ones could be used as leverage, four current and former US officials told NBC. Israel has asked for aerial bombs and air defenses, as well as ammunition, NBC reported.

The officials told NBC they would likely continue delivering air defenses for the sake of Israeli citizens, though they may scale back on artillery rounds and joint direct attack munitions, which can make bombs more precise.

NAKBA 2

Israeli settlers hold conference on resettlement in Gaza
Reuters
Sun, January 28, 2024 







Convention calling for Israel to rebuild settlements in the Gaza Strip and the northern part of the Israeli-occupied West Bank


JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Hundreds of members of the Israeli settler community gathered for a convention in Jerusalem on Sunday calling for Israel to rebuild settlements in Gaza and the northern part of the Occupied West Bank.

Israel withdrew its military and settlers from Gaza in 2005 after a 38-year occupation, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said it does not intend to maintain a permanent presence again, but that Israel would maintain security control for an indefinite period.

There has been little clarity, however, about Israel's longer-term intentions, and countries including the United States have said that Gaza should be governed by Palestinians.


The conference was organized by the right-wing Nahala organization, which advocates for Jewish settlement expansion in territories including the West Bank, where they are classified as illegal by international and humanitarian groups and where violent clashes between settlers and Palestinians are frequent.

The conference, titled "Settlement Brings Security," was not organized by the Israeli government, though its hard-right coalition has been criticized for supporting settlement expansion, a position seen as hindering a possible future two-sate solution with the Palestinians.

Israel's Channel 12 reported that 12 ministers from Netanyahu's Likud party, along with public security minister Itamar Ben Gvir and finance minister Bezalel Smotrich - both from far-right parties in the governing coalition - attended the conference.

Smotrich said that many of the children who were evacuated from settlements in Gaza had returned as soldiers to fight in a war with Hamas and that he stood against the government's decision to evacuate Jewish settlements from Gaza in the past.

"We knew what that would bring and we tried to prevent it," Smotrich said in a speech. "Without settlements there is no security."

The crowd roared with enthusiastic chants to rebuild Jewish communities in Gaza.

Ben Gvir said he had protested the evacuation of Jewish settlements from Gaza and warned it would bring "rockets upon Sderot" and "rockets upon Ashkelon" in southern Israel.

"We yelled and we warned," Ben Gvir said. "If don't want another October 7, we need to return home and control the land."

(Reporting by Emily Rose; Editing by David Holmes)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hits out at hostages' families for helping Hamas, say reports

Rebecca Rommen
Sun, January 28, 2024


Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu criticized protests by the families of hostages in Gaza.


He said the protests were helping harden Hamas' demands, The Jerusalem Post reported.


Hamas took around 240 hostages during its October 7 attacks on Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said protests organized by families of hostages in Gaza were helping Hamas, say reports.

Speaking at a Tel Aviv press conference on Saturday night, Netanyahu criticized the hostage families' protests.

"I understand that it is impossible to control one's emotions," he said. But, the hostages' protest movement "doesn't help" and only "hardens Hamas' demands and delays the results that we all want," The Jerusalem Post reported.

The hostages' families hit back in a statement, per The Jerusalem Post. it said the "Prime Minister should remember that he is an elected official whose job it is to correct the mistakes" — a reference to the security failings on October 7 and the terror attacks on Israel by Hamas — "not to scold those whose family members were kidnapped."

Netanyahu added that the goal of his government was to eliminate Hamas, and the war would not end until the mission was completed.

"There are people among us who doubt our capabilities, but they are a minority," he added, per a report by Anadolu Agency, the Turkish state news outlet.

He also said that investigations into Hamas' October 7 attacks "should be opened after the end of the war, not during its peak," per the report.

Jonathan Pollard, a former US Navy intelligence analyst who was convicted of spying for Israel, previously said the families of those taken captive in Gaza should have been silenced.

"When Israel declared war, the first thing that the government should have done was declare a state of national emergency and told all the hostages: 'You will keep your mouth shut or we will shut them for you,'" he said.

"If that means imprisoning to silence certain members of the hostage families, then so be it — we're in a state of war," he continued.

During a temporary ceasefire in November, Hamas released 105 hostages from Gaza.

A destroyed Israeli tank in Gaza City, Gaza on October 7, 2023.Hani Alshaer/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

The Palestinian militant group's October 7 attacks killed around 1,200 people in Israel, while about 240 others were taken hostage.

Israel responded to the attacks by bombarding the Gaza Strip with airstrikes and launching a ground invasion of the territory.

Its strikes have destroyed more than 60% of the homes in Gaza and left the area "uninhabitable," according to a report from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

UN experts also said that Gazans now make up 80% "of all people facing famine or catastrophic hunger worldwide," per the report.

Gaza Health Ministry urges 7,000 wounded people to leave occupied Palestine

Adam Schrader
Sun, January 28, 2024 

Displaced Palestinians receive flour bags at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) school in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Sunday, January 28, 2024, amid ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian fighters. Israel has alleged several UNRWA staff were involved in Hamas's October 7 attack, leading some key donor countries to suspend funding and the agency to fire several staff over the claims, in a row between Israel and UNRWA a day after the UN's International Court of Justice ruling. Photo by Ismael Mohamad/UPILess


Jan. 28 (UPI) -- The Gaza Health Ministry on Sunday urged at least 7,000 wounded Palestinians to leave the occupied territory of Gaza for treatment as Israel's war continues in the wake of genocide allegations.

"We urgently need 7,000 injured and sick people to leave for treatment abroad to save their lives," the Gaza Health Ministry said in a statement.

In an earlier statement Sunday, the Gaza Health Ministry said that the Nasser Medical Complex, besieged by Israeli occupation forces, has accumulated medical and non-medical waste "everywhere" inside and outside the facility.

Palestinian officials are also urging for the safe passage to transfer the wounded in need of neurosurgery to the nearby Jordanian Field Hospital.

In total, Israeli forces have killed 26,422 people in Gaza and injured 65,087 more since the violence between Israel and Hamas -- the governing entity of Gaza considered a terrorist organization by Israel and the United States -- escalated last year.

Displaced Palestinians receive flour bags at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) school in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Sunday, January 28, 2024, amid ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian fighters. Israel has alleged several UNRWA staff were involved in Hamas's October 7 attack, leading some key donor countries to suspend funding and the agency to fire several staff over the claims, in a row between Israel and UNRWA a day after the UN's International Court of Justice ruling. Photo by Ismael Mohamad/UPI.More

The families of 150 people killed were forced to bury their dead in the courtyard of the Nasser Medical Complex on Sunday while the bodies of at least 30 unidentified people remain in a freezer in the hospital, which is estimated to run out of fuel for power within four days.

Ayman Safadi, the foreign minister of the Kingdom of Jordan, said Sunday that the allegation that 12 people who worked for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees participated in the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas should not justify intentionally starving people in Gaza - a consequence of nations including the United States pulling funding.

Displaced Palestinians receive bags of flour at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) school in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Sunday, January 28, 2024, amid ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian fighters. Israel has alleged several UNRWA staff were involved in Hamas's October 7 attack, leading some key donor countries to suspend funding and the agency to fire several staff over the claims, in a row between Israel and UNRWA a day after the UN's International Court of Justice ruling. Photo by Ismael Mohamad/UPI.Less

"UNRWA is the lifeline for over two million Palestinians facing starvation in Gaza. It shouldn't be collectively punished upon allegations against 12 persons out of its 13,000 staff," Safadi said. "UNRWA acted responsibly and began an investigation. We urge countries that suspended funds to reverse decision."

Meanwhile, a Palestinian man was shot and injured by Israeli forces in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian state news agency WAFA. He was taken to a local hospital in the city of Salfit.

Displaced Palestinians receive food aid at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) school in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Sunday, January 28, 2024. Amid ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian fighters, Israel has alleged several UNRWA staff were involved in Hamas's October 7 attack, leading some key donor countries to suspend funding and the agency to fire several staff over the claims, in a row between Israel and UNRWA a day after the UN's International Court of Justice ruling. Photo by Ismael Mohamad/UPILess

Opinion: Why International Court of Justice ruling against Israel's war in Gaza is a game-changer

Raz Segal
Sat, January 27, 2024 

Ronald Lamola, center, South Africa's minister of justice, stands with Ammar Hijazi, right, the Palestinian assistant minister of multilateral affairs, outside the International Court of Justice in The Hague on Jan. 11. (Patrick Post / Associated Press)

On Friday, the International Court of Justice issued an interim ruling against Israel and its war in Gaza. In the case, brought by South Africa last month, the court ruled that it is plausible that Israel is perpetrating genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. This ruling marks an end to the era of Israeli impunity in the international legal system.

The judgment pointed to dozens of explicit statements of “intent to destroy” by Israeli state leaders, wartime Cabinet ministers and senior army officers as well as the unprecedented levels of killing and destruction. The court also issued provisional measures, recognizing the dire situation: more than 26,000 Palestinians killed and more than 64,000 wounded in Israel’s bombardment, as well as almost 2 million people forcibly displaced now facing famine and the spread of infectious diseases.

The provisional measures did not include an order for a cease-fire, which South Africa had requested, but they did instruct Israel — by an overwhelming majority vote of the ICJ judges of 15 to 2 — to prevent any acts of genocide in Gaza and ensure that its military does not perpetrate such acts.

As part of the court’s provisional measures, Israel must also prevent and punish incitement to genocide; ensure the provision of urgent aid to Gaza; prevent the destruction of evidence and ensure its preservation; and provide the court with a report on these measures within a month. In effect, these orders do require a cease-fire, for there is no other way to carry them out.

The International Court of Justice ruling stems from the United Nations’ genocide convention, which was created in December 1948 and based on the view that Nazism and what we now call the Holocaust were exceptional.

This served a purpose: It separated the Holocaust from the piles of bodies and destroyed cultures that European imperialism and colonialism — still very much ongoing at the time — had left around the world in the preceding few centuries.

The exceptional status of the Holocaust rendered the new Jewish state that was established in May 1948 also exceptional, especially in view of the many Holocaust survivors who chose to try to rebuild their lives there.

Israel’s exceptional status led to a willful blurring of its foundational crime, the Nakba: the mass expulsion of more than 750,000 Palestinians and the destruction of hundreds of villages and towns in the 1948 war. That Israel could commit any crime under international law immediately became, in this exceptional framework, almost unimaginable. Impunity for Israel was thus baked into the international legal system after World War II. The urgent need to obscure the Nakba also emerged from the broader impetus to deny the nature of the Israeli state as a settler-colonial project. Paradoxically, Israel’s creation reproduced the racism and white supremacy that had targeted Jews for exclusion and, ultimately, destruction in Europe.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog expressed this white supremacy and colonial mind-set quite explicitly in an interview on MSNBC on Dec. 5: “This war is a war that is not only between Israel and Hamas,” he said in response to a question about the mass killing of Palestinians in Israel’s attacks on Gaza. “It’s a war,” he continued, “that is intended, really, truly, to save Western civilization.… We are attacked by a jihadist network, an empire of evil.” This empire, he said, “wants to conquer the entire Middle East, and if it weren’t for us, Europe would be next, and the United States follows.”

The concept of genocide functioned to protect the exceptional status of the Holocaust and Israel in the international legal system and to enable rather than challenge this long-held view. Until now.

With the ICJ ruling that Israel’s attack on Gaza is plausibly genocidal, every university, company and state around the world will now need to consider very carefully its engagement with Israel and its institutions. Such ties may now constitute complicity with genocide.

A few hours after the International Court of Justice ruling, another court heard a related case: In San Francisco, the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a lawsuit in federal court on behalf of Palestinian organizations and individuals, against President Biden and other U.S. officials for failure to abide by U.N. legal obligations to prevent genocide in Gaza and for complicity with genocide, because of the continued U.S. military and diplomatic support to Israel.

One after the other, Palestinian plaintiffs testified Friday about their family histories during the Nakba; their own experiences of Israeli mass violence; relatives they have lost since Oct. 8; neighborhoods in which they grew up that are no more; schools that Israeli bombings and invasion have turned to rubble; and cafes where they will never be able to drink tea again.

As it happens, these accounts came just before the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which marks Jan. 27, 1945, when Soviet forces liberated the Nazi annihilation camp at Auschwitz.

We are entering a new era of international law. For the first time, we have seen courts consider the crime of genocide as a legal framework to describe what Palestinians are enduring. Through these cases, the voices of Palestinians point to a new era of Holocaust memory, beyond the denial of the Nakba, to a world that will finally put the voices, knowledge, histories and perspectives of all people who face state violence front and center.

Raz Segal is an associate professor of Holocaust and genocide studies and endowed professor in the study of modern genocide at Stockton University in New Jersey.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.


Why both South Africa and Israel are welcoming the UN court’s ruling in a landmark genocide case

Analysis by Nadeen Ebrahim and Abbas Al Lawati, CNN
Sat, January 27, 2024 



Editor’s Note: A version of this story appears in CNN’s Meanwhile in the Middle East newsletter, a three-times-a-week look inside the region’s biggest stories. Sign up here.

A historic ruling by the United Nations’ top court in a genocide case against Israel on Friday was welcomed by the three main parties it involved: Israel, South Africa and the Palestinians. But at the same time, no one got what they asked for.

The International Court of Justice in The Hague, the Netherlands, ordered Israel to “take all measures” to prevent genocide in Gaza after South Africa accused Israel of violating international laws on genocide in its war in the territory.

It rejected Israel’s request for the case to be thrown out, but it also stopped short of ordering Israel to halt the war as South Africa has asked.

“I would have wanted a ceasefire,” said South African foreign minister Naledi Pandor after the ruling in The Hague. She said that she was still satisfied with the outcome.

Israel went to war with Hamas in Gaza after the Palestinian militant group launched a brutal attack on the country on October 7, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 people hostage.

The war has resulted in the death of more than 26,000 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, and left much of the enclave in ruins. Israel has pledged not to stop its campaign until all the remaining hostages are released and Hamas is destroyed.

The case at the ICJ marks the first time Israel has been brought before the court on accusations of violating the 1948 UN Genocide Convention, which was drafted in part due to the mass killings of Jewish people in the Holocaust during the Second World War.

Still, many Israelis hailed the ruling on Friday as a win for the Jewish state. Eylon Levi, an Israeli government spokesperson, said the court “dismissed (South Africa’s) ridiculous demand to tell Israel to stop defending its people and fighting for the hostages.” Avi Mayer, the former editor in chief of the Jerusalem Post called it “a devastating blow to those accusing the Jewish state of ‘genocide’.”

“The most dramatic thing is that no ceasefire was ordered,” Shelly Aviv Yeini, head of the international law department at the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum, told CNN, adding that a potential ceasefire order was Israel’s biggest fear, especially as it would have come as over a hundred hostages remain in Gaza.

The discourse in Israel has so far focused on only ending the war once the hostages are freed, she said, adding that Israel would have “struggled to live” with a ceasefire order that doesn’t guarantee the return of the captives.

“So, I think this is quite (an) expected outcome, and something that Israel will be able to comply with,” she said, adding that the court’s order for Israel to deliver humanitarian aid and report back to the ICJ on its actions is “doable.”
A ‘dark day’ in Israel’s history

Despite the outcome being perceived by some as being in Israel’s favor, experts warned of the reputational damage faced by the Jewish state.

“I would not call it a win, but I would say it could have been worse,” Robbie Sabel, professor of international law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, told CNN. “The fact that in public eyes there’ll be an association that Israel’s acts could have led to genocide, clearly this is harmful public relations.”

Friday’s measure was an interim measure by the ICJ as the court considers a full ruling on whether Israel is guilty of violating the Genocide Convention. That ruling could take years.

Sabel said that while he is “absolutely convinced” that the ICJ will eventually find Israel not guilty of genocide, he worries that by that time “the public may have forgotten that.”

“If they had asked us to stop defending ourselves, we would have had a problem, and at least we don’t have that problem,” he said.

Yeini said it was nonetheless a “a very dark day” in Israel’s history.

For some Palestinians, however, the court’s ruling didn’t go far enough.

Mohammed el-Kurd, a Palestinian activist from Jerusalem, said the ICJ failed on South Africa’s “most important request” to suspend the military operations. “Not shocking, but stings nonetheless,” he said on X, formerly Twitter.

“Until the Israeli regime’s genocidal assault on Gaza stops, we should keep protesting and disrupting in every way possible. This is today’s lesson,” he said.

CNN’s Christian Edwards contributed to this report.




South Africa Invokes Mandela Legacy With Case Against Israel

S'thembile Cele
Sat, January 27, 2024 



In a landmark ruling on Friday, the International Court of Justice ordered that Israel must take action to protect human life in Gaza, siding with South Africa after it accused Israel of committing genocide in the territory — while stopping short of demanding a ceasefire.

South Africa accused Israel of genocide on Dec. 29, three months after a Hamas attack killed 1,200 people and took many more hostage. Israel responded by launching a war on Hamas in Gaza which, at the time of the ICJ filing, had killed more than 23,000 people, according to Hamas-run authorities.

The case, which won widespread support across the Global South, represents a step by President Cyril Ramaphosa to reclaim the moral authority that South Africa gained after Nelson Mandela became president and then lost during Jacob Zuma’s corruption-tainted decade in power, according to political analysts.

“Some have told us to mind our own business,” Ramaphosa said in remarks after the ruling. “Others have said it was not our place. And yet it is very much our place, as people who know too well the pain of dispossession, discrimination, state-sponsored violence.”

With Ramaphosa’s African National Congress facing the prospect of losing its majority in this year’s elections, the Gaza issue is at the center of what his party hopes will be his administration’s legacy. South Africa’s stance against Israel is the latest in a series of outspoken positions Ramaphosa has taken on foreign policy, even as his government has struggled with domestic issues such as a crippling power crisis.

According to Sanusha Naidu, an independent foreign policy analyst, after years of losing its standing in the world order, the ICJ case represents a “moral victory” for South Africa. “History will remember this as the moment that defines a precedent in international law and a precedent in international relations,” she said.

The case has unified the ANC, which has been divided in recent years, and helped rally the party around Ramaphosa. The fate of Israel and the Palestinian people is a particularly charged issue in the country, as South Africa’s white supremacist apartheid government was established in 1948, the same year the state of Israel was founded, and the two developed strong economic ties right from the beginning.

The ANC, the black liberation party that in later years would take up arms against the government, recognized a counterpart in the Palestinian cause. Since the war began on Oct. 7, South African critics of Israel have drawn parallels between the killing of civilians in Gaza and the violence of South Africa’s own apartheid regime.

South Africa’s delegation was led by the youngest minister in Ramaphosa’s cabinet, 40-year-old Ronald Lamola, who delivered the opening speech before the court. In it, he outlined how the decades-long conflict had escalated, and why urgent intervention was needed.

“The international community has now seen in forensic detail the atrocities of what is happening in the Gaza strip,” Lamola told Bloomberg before the ruling was handed down. “We believe we have exposed the propaganda by the state of Israel under the guise of hunting for Hamas.”

Israel has denied any intent to commit genocide and characterized the South African case as “absurd blood libel.” It maintains its right to self-defense against Hamas, which is categorized as a terrorist organization by the EU and US. Despite mounting international pressure, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has maintained that the war will continue until Hamas is eradicated and all of the hostages have been freed.

According to Sydney Mufamadi, a former security minister under Mandela and now Ramaphosa’s envoy to conflict zones, South Africa’s reckoning with its own dark history has given it a “moral authority” in matters of international law, including Israel’s intervention in Gaza.

After more than four decades of repressive white minority rule, the country negotiated a relatively peaceful transition to democracy in 1994 with the election of Mandela. His conciliatory approach towards the outgoing regime was credited with averting the kinds of violence then taking place in other former colonial territories.

Partly as a result of this legacy, Mufamadi noted that South Africa has been consistent in its view that warring parties must be open to dialogue. “We don’t know of a conflict which does not end up at the table,” he said.

At the same time, the ICJ decision is likely to further polarize an increasingly fragmented global order. Dozens of countries have aligned themselves with South Africa’s bid to bring about a ceasefire in Gaza, while Western nations including the US, UK, Germany and France continue to side with Israel.

To many South Africans, the country’s outspoken advocacy on behalf of Palestinians has become a point of national pride. Sithembile Mbete, a political analyst, characterized the ICJ case as having “cemented” a global reckoning that was already underway.

“The majority of states in the world, judging by the decisions in the UN general assembly,” she said, “support South Africa’s position on this. South Africa is not deviating from the commonly accepted international line.”

(Bloomberg) -- Within South Africa, the case has also helped bring together the ANC at perhaps the most challenging moment in its history. After being propelled to power on a commitment to “a better life for all,” the party’s standing eroded under former President Zuma, who presided over the hollowing out of key state institutions.

Zuma has yet to be indicted for alleged corruption, and nor have friends of the former leader who stand accused of looting an estimated 500 billion rand from state coffers been held to account. As a result of protecting Zuma, the ANC suffered major losses in the last election, though still retained majority control.

When Ramaphosa, Zuma’s former deputy, took office in 2017, his first task was to address the corruption and malfeasance that had grown under his predecessor.

In recent years, Ramaphosa has tried to position himself as a voice of justice and moral clarity in international affairs. He lobbied the World Trade Organization to provide broader vaccine access during the Covid-19 pandemic, spearheaded an initiative to help bring an end to Russia’s war with Ukraine and led the charge to expand the BRICS economic bloc by inviting six nations, among them major oil producers, to join.

While these moves have been criticized as political opportunism — or as a way for Ramaphosa to deflect attention from internal politics — they have also increasingly made South Africa the voice of the Global South.

Read More: El Al Stops South Africa Route After ICJ Case Against Israel

Despite his global ambitions, Ramaphosa will have to rely on envoys in coming months as he campaigns for re-election. After 30 years in power, the ANC is more vulnerable than ever, with some polls indicating that the party will lose its majority and be forced either to govern through a coalition or out of power. Concerns about sluggish economic growth, failing state-owned companies and energy insecurity are top of mind for voters, who are unlikely to reward Ramaphosa’s international efforts so long as their quality of life continues to deteriorate.

Yet inside the party, Ramaphosa’s crusading has won him support he previously lacked.

“He’s proven to have instincts around this that are much sharper than what he was given credit for,” said Mbete.

“Whatever happens with the election,” she added, “he will have set a good foundation for himself to continue playing an international role.”

©2024 Bloomberg L.P.


It's not enforceable. It doesn't say if Israel is committing genocide. What's ICJ's Gaza ruling for?

Kim Hjelmgaard, USA TODAY
Updated Sat, January 27, 2024

A panel of 17 judges at the Hague-based International Court of Justice on Friday ordered Israel to implement a series of measures aimed at averting genocide in the Gaza Strip.

The order is part of a wider case brought by South Africa at the U.N.'s highest court into whether Israel is already committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza as it fights the war against Hamas.

Even though the ruling is not enforceable, and the actual legal case as to whether Israel is guilty of genocide is expected to take several years to wend its way through the court, the order is more than just symbolic.

A Palestinian man holds a portrait of late Palestine Liberation Organisation leader Yasser Arafat and South Africa's anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela outside a municipality building in Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, on Jan. 12, 2024.

Here's what the ICJ's order, which Palestinian Minister of Foreign Affairs Riyadh Maliki has described as a ruling in "favor of humanity and international law," means for the Israel-Hamas war.

What impact will the ICJ ruling have on Gaza?

Perhaps not a lot immediately in terms of a material change to conditions on the ground.

South Africa had asked the court to issue an emergency order to compel Israel to commit to a cease-fire in Gaza. It didn't do that. Instead, it ordered Israel to undertake actions to prevent the killing and harming of civilians in Gaza, such as refraining from killing members of a group and not imposing conditions that could prevent women from giving birth. It ordered Israel to prevent and punish public comments that incite genocide.

Still, even if the ICJ had demanded that Israel halt its military campaign, the court has no formal way to implement this order -- and Israel has made it clear that it only intends to stop fighting when Hamas is defeated, and Israel gets all of its hostages back. "We will continue to do what is necessary to defend our country and defend our people," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday, speaking after the court's ruling.

Meanwhile, Palestinian lawmaker Mustafa Barghouti said that because of the scale of destruction and ongoing fighting in Gaza, "Israel cannot implement ICJ decisions without an immediate and permanent ceasefire."
What pressure does this put on the U.S.?

There are some big potential implications for the U.S., long Israel's staunchest military and diplomatic ally. The U.S. is facing increasing pressure to twist Israel's arm and stop a war that has killed more than 26,000 Palestinians, mainly civilians, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.

For a start, because the ICJ has no real mechanism to enforce its decisions, the matter could be pushed to a vote in the U.N. Security Council, where members can order economic sanctions or military action.

If a U.N. Security Council vote does happen, "the Biden administration will once again face the choice of protecting Israel politically by casting a veto, and by that, further isolate the United States, or allowing the Security Council to act and pay a domestic political cost for 'not standing by Israel,'" said Trita Parsi, the co-founder and executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a Washington, D.C. think tank.

Nancy Okail, president and CEO of the Center for International Policy think tank in Washington, D.C., said that the ruling from the ICJ "is more than a legal technicality; it's about safeguarding human rights on a global scale."

So far, the White House hasn't said much about the ICJ's ruling − even whether it respects the decision.

Okail said this sends the wrong message.

"If we support the creation of a global community based on shared rules rather than simply might makes right, it is absolutely essential that all countries, including the United States, acknowledge the legitimacy of this ruling and take necessary steps in response," said Okail, in emailed comments.

What happens now?

The ICJ has ordered Israel to report, within a month, back to the court detailing what it's doing to uphold all the measures within its power to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza. Israel has not said whether it will comply with this.

In fact, after the ruling some of Israel's most senior officials such as its Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Foreign Minister Israel Katz expressed disappointment, as well as a tone of defiance.

"The state of Israel does not need to be lectured on morality in order to distinguish between terrorists and the civilian population in Gaza," Gallant posted to social media. "The IDF and security agencies will continue operating to dismantle the military and governing capabilities of the Hamas terrorist organization."

Katz said Israel was committed to international law that existed "independently of any ICJ proceedings."

Attention now turns to reports in recent days suggesting President Joe Biden plans to dispatch CIA Director William J. Burns to the Middle East to help broker a deal between Hamas and Israel that would involve the release of all remaining hostages held in Gaza and the longest cessation of hostilities since the war began last year.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Here's what the ICJ's Gaza order means for Israel-Hamas war

Thousands in Italy rally for Palestinians despite Holocaust Day ban

DPA
Sat, January 27, 2024 

People protest during a pro-Palestine demonstration. Claudio Furlan/LaPresse via ZUMA Press/dpa


Several thousand people took to the streets in different parts of Italy, joining demonstrations in support of Palestinians despite a police ban on the events that come as the world marks Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Hundreds of participants joined demonstrations in Rome and other cities on Saturday in rallies that were almost all peaceful, police said.

Around 1,200 people took to the streets in Milan, where there were scuffles with the police. Some demonstrators chanted and carried posters accusing Israel of genocide.


The demonstrations were banned at short notice by the municipal authorities in Rome on Friday after an appeal by the right-wing government, in order to prevent hate speech about Israel on Saturday.

January 27 is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, for the more than 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis.

The rally in Rome was called under the banner "Stop the genocide of the Palestinian people" and is now due to be held on a different date.

On January 27, 1945, the Soviet Red Army liberated the German concentration camp Auschwitz in occupied Poland. The day has been marked as Holocaust Memorial Day in Germany since 1996. The United Nations made the date a day of remembrance in 2005.

People protest during a pro-Palestine demonstration. Claudio Furlan/LaPresse via ZUMA Press/dpa

People protest during a pro-Palestine demonstration. Claudio Furlan/LaPresse via ZUMA Press/dpa