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Israeli Cabinet Members Join Settler Event of Thousands Calling for Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza (VIDEO)

By Mustafa Barghouthi, Oren Ziv , Amy Goodman , Juan Gonzalez 

January 31, 2024

Source: Democracy Now!

We speak with an Israeli reporter who covered a major conference in Jerusalem calling for Palestinians to be removed from Gaza in order to rebuild Jewish settlements. The conference was attended by about a third of the Israeli Cabinet, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, both of whom have long been involved in the extremist settler movement in the West Bank. Conference-goers were greeted by a huge map of planned illegal settlements in Gaza, and the atmosphere was joyful and celebratory, in contrast to what Israeli journalist Oren Ziv with +972 Magazine says is a somber atmosphere in Israeli public life following the October 7 Hamas attack. “This is not just a bunch of extremists; it’s the government,” adds Palestinian physician and activist Mustafa Barghouti in Ramallah.

Meet the Washington Post’s Leading Apologist for Israeli Genocide

BY MELVIN GOODMAN

JANUARY 31, 2024
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Photograph Source: Lance Cheung, U.S. Department of Agriculture – CC BY 2.0

Ruth Marcus is the Deputy Editorial Page Editor for the Washington Post, and a regular oped writer for the paper.  Marcus is an attorney, who decided to remain in journalism rather than practice law.  She identifies herself ideologically and politically as a liberal and as a Zionist.  In her most recent oped (“U.N. court’s ruling on Israel and Gaza is a perversion of justice”) she referred to herself as a “proud Jew,” who was no supporter of the “Israeli government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ultra-Orthodox and settler allies.”  Her oped, however, is an apology for Israel that accepts virtually every Israeli argument against accusations of genocide in Gaza.

Marcus falsely argues that Israel has “taken extraordinary steps to prevent civilian casualties and otherwise mitigate the suffering of innocents.” The facts on the ground argue the opposite.  More than 70 percent of Gaza’s homes have been destroyed and more than half of its buildings have been damaged or destroyed.  Much of the water, electrical communications and health care infrastructure that made Gaza function is beyond repair.  Only a handful of Gaza’s 38 hospitals can accept patients.  Two-thirds of Gaza’s school buildings have been damaged or destroyed, as have several churches and more than 100 mosques.

The brutal bombardment that caused this destruction is consistent with the remarks of an Israeli military officer who warned recently that “Whoever returns here, if they return here after, will find scorched earth.  No houses, no agriculture, no nothing.  They have no future.” Official Israeli statements and the actions of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) demonstrate the intention to ensure that Gaza will never be habitable again.  Even worse, the Israelis have destroyed shelters, even those they have directed Palestinian civilians to occupy, and they have destroyed more than a dozen Gaza cemeteries.

Marcus takes issue with the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which charged that “some of the acts…committed by Israel in Gaza appear to be capable of falling within the provisions of the [Genocide] Convention.”  Marcus attacks the Court for focusing on “a few statements by Israeli officials in the immediate aftermath of Oct. 7” that were consistent with genocidal intent.  In fact, there are numerous examples of such statements at every level of Netanyahu’s administration, the Israeli government, and an Israeli society that treat the Palestinians as less than human.  This has been true for the past fifty years, starting with Prime Minister Golda Meir’s dismissal of Palestinians as “roaches.”

Marcus also claims there have been Israeli efforts to “mitigate civilian harm by warning them through leaflets, radio messages and telephone calls of impending attacks,” and its “facilitation of humanitarian assistance.”  Marcus couldn’t be more wrong.  What is particularly sinful is the Israeli efforts to cut off electricity, water, fuel and food to a trapped Palestinian population of 2.2 million, and to attack the very shelters that they have been told to occupy.  The blockade itself is consistent with the war crime of collective punishment.

Marcus’s claims of Israeli warning is belied by a particularly savage attack in October, when the Israelis used 2,000-pound bombs that killed and wounded nearly 400 civilians in an effort to kill a senior Hamas commander.  An Israeli spokesman acknowledged that no warning was given because “that would have allowed” the commander to escape.  The IDF killing of three Israeli hostages who were trying to escape Hamas demonstrated that the white flag of surrender and raised hands mean nothing to Israeli soldiers.

Marcus echoes the Israeli representative to the Court who claimed there was “scant evidence” of genocidal intent in comparison to the ICJ’s finding regarding Myanmar’s treatment of the Muslim Rohingya, which took two years of “meticulous collection of evidence.”  I would argue the opposite.  It’s our knowledge of Myanmar and the Rohingya, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Armenia that compel us to compare Israeli savagery.  If we merely research and study the problem for the next two years, there may be no Gaza to examine and many more Palestinians who have been killed or placed in refugee camps that have existed since the original Israeli displacement of Palestinians 75 years ago.

One of Marcus’s most bizarre comments is that “Killing civilians…undermines [the interests] of Israel.”  If so, how does one explain the killing of so many innocent civilians and children.  Even Marcus acknowledges that the Genocide Convention requires “both acts and intent.”  And the acts must cause “serious bodily or mental harm,” and the deliberate “inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”  That is exactly what we have been witnessing on a daily basis for the past four months.

The last line of Marcus’s oped is particularly egregious.  She argues that Israel is being treated differently for the same reason that “necessitated the existence of a Jewish state to begin with.”  In other words, she echoes the standard Israeli response that any criticism of Israel is simply another form of anti-semitism.  Sadly, we are witnessing a text book case of genocide.

Melvin A. Goodman is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and a professor of government at Johns Hopkins University.  A former CIA analyst, Goodman is the author of Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA and National Insecurity: The Cost of American Militarism. and A Whistleblower at the CIA. His most recent books are “American Carnage: The Wars of Donald Trump” (Opus Publishing, 2019) and “Containing the National Security State” (Opus Publishing, 2021). Goodman is the national security columnist for counterpunch.org.

Ruling by ICJ Means Canada Could be Complicit in Gaza Genocide

BY HEIDI MATTHEWS, FAISAL A. BHABHA AND MOHAMMAD FADEL

 JANUARY 30, 2024
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The International Court of Justice has issued a ground-breaking decision in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel, ordering Israel to comply with six provisional measures to safeguard the right of Palestinians in Gaza to be protected from genocidal violence.

The court’s order is binding on Israel and formalizes the international legal obligations of other countries that are parties to the UN Genocide Convention.

Properly understood, the order should dramatically alter both the foreign and domestic policy decisions of Israel’s allies, including Canada and the United States.

Israel and its allies cannot dismiss or minimize the importance of this decision. In granting interim relief, the court concluded that South Africa’s allegations of genocide are, at a minimum, legally and factually plausible.

Other countries must act

Crucially, the court expressly concluded, by an overwhelming majority, that Palestinians in Gaza face a “real and imminent risk” of genocide. This puts other countries on notice that they have an international legal duty to take steps to prevent genocide in Gaza in accordance with the court’s order.

As the court stated in a 2007 ruling when Bosnia accused Serbia of genocide, countries that are parties to the Genocide Convention have an obligation to prevent and a corresponding duty to act “the instant that the state learns of, or should normally have learned of, the existence of a serious risk that genocide will be committed.”

Both Canada and the U.S. have construed the court’s decision narrowly, suggesting it merely reiterates Israel’s right of self-defence and obligation to comply with international humanitarian law.

This is a legally indefensible reading of the court’s ruling.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration says it believes the court’s decision is consistent with existing American policy on Israel and that it continues to view South Africa’s case as “meritless.”

Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly reiterated that Canada’s “support for the ICJ does not mean that we accept the premise of the case.”

Statements of political support by the U.S. and Canada that Israel is abiding by the laws of war — contrary to the facts — cannot shield Israel or its allies from their legal obligations under the Genocide Convention. Those obligations — including to prevent genocide — are created via treaty and are interpreted by courts, the highest of which is the International Court of Justice.

The obligation to prevent genocide, combined with the court’s finding of a serious risk of genocide, means that all parties to the Genocide Convention must refrain from taking steps that would actively frustrate the effective implementation of the court’s order.

Canada in violation of its obligations

As South Africa stated, “the ICJ has determined that Israel’s actions in Gaza are plausibly genocidal and has indicated provisional measures on that basis.”

Among other measures, the court directed Israel to “take all measures within its power to prevent the commission” of acts of genocide, to prevent and punish incitement to genocide and to “enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”

The court emphasized evidence from the World Health Organization indicating that “93 per cent of the population in Gaza is facing crisis levels of hunger” and “that maternal and newborn death rates are expected to increase due to the lack of access to medical care.”

But just hours after the court’s ruling, the U.S. announced it was suspending funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.

The funding cuts came after Israeli allegations that 12 UNRWA employees had participated in the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas against Israel. UNRWA has terminated the accused employees and launched an investigation.

The U.S. is the biggest financial contributor to UNRWA. Several other key donor countries, including Canada, quickly followed suit.

UNRWA is the largest aid provider in Gaza and a trusted lifeline to civilians in the territory. Even if the allegations are true, defunding the entire organization openly defies the court’s order and amounts to collective punishment of the civilian population in Gaza.

Disturbingly, moves to defund UNRWA appear to help implement Israeli government plans to undermine the organization’s capacity to deliver aid to Palestinians in Gaza. Earlier this month, policy experts told the Knesset that UNRWA “must be dismantled and thrown in the dustbin of history” and that “no country that is a friend of Israel should provide them any money.”

The ICJ found that “the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is at serious risk of deteriorating further,” plausibly inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza.

Accordingly, any country’s action knowingly contributing to further deterioration would violate the obligation to prevent genocide and could amount to complicity in genocide.

Canada must halt arms sales to Israel

The court’s provisional measures also impact Canada’s compliance with its own laws on military exports.

In 2022, Canada sent more than $21 million worth of military exports to Israel. The Export and Import Permits Act forbids arms permits to be issued if there’s a “substantial risk” that the goods could be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international humanitarian or human rights law.

Because the ICJ found a serious risk of genocide in Gaza, continuing to export arms to Israel would be illegal. It would also be flagrantly inconsistent with Canada’s obligation to prevent genocide, and could expose Canada and Canadian officials to liability for participation in genocide.

We must reject the politics of deliberate indifference to atrocity currently on display in the Canadian government’s reactions to the ICJ ruling.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Heidi Matthews, Assistant Professor of Law, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University; Faisal A. Bhabha, Associate Professor of Law, York University and Mohammad Fadel, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto.