Kurdish association in Bremen reacts to racist threat

"The criminalization policy of the state organs paves the way for racist attacks by racist people and circles," said the Bremen Democratic Kurdish Community Center, reacting to the threat with a bullet with the word SS written on it.

ANF
BREMEN
Sunday, 25 Feb 2024, 

Four days ago, cartridges bearing a swastika were discovered in the letterbox of the Kurdish association Biratî in Bremen. The association's premises in Bremen's Neustadt district are under constant surveillance by the police. This is known from various criminal proceedings against alleged PKK cadres. The surveillance logs from the past even contain details of who smoked a cigarette or drank tea in front of the club and when.

In a written statement, the Kurdish Democratic Community Center said, "On November 23, 2023, a letter was sent to Kurdish businesses in Bremen saying, 'I will blow you up'. On February 21, 2024, a letter containing bullets with the word SS and a swastika was left in the mailbox of the Bremen Kurdish Community Center Brati."

The statement said: "Kurds are the most organized community living in Germany. They are among the largest immigrant group in the State of Bremen. As part of Bremen society, the Kurdish community is an integral part of the multicultural structure of the city. However, the recent discriminatory, criminalizing and threatening practices against the Kurdish community in the city of Bremen have caused great reaction in our society in Germany in general and in Bremen in particular after the details of the anti-immigrant and racist meeting organized by the AfD and right-wing groups in Potsdam in November were covered by the press.

Millions of people in favor of democracy, human rights and a multicultural life took to the streets and reacted by saying "Never Again". The reaction of the German society has brought some relief to the Kurdish community, which is part of the immigrant communities and has become part of Germany. As a matter of fact, Kurds are subjected to many racist attacks in Germany. A look at the identity of those murdered in Hanau with racist delusions will reveal the Kurds' uneasiness. On the other hand, at a time when the AfD is on the rise, we observe that the criminalization policy against Kurds is being continued by state organs. It should not be forgotten that the criminalization policy of state organs paves the way for racist attacks by racist individuals and circles. Thus, Kadri Saka was arrested on January 13, the Kurdish Community Center in Bremen was raided. On February 21, a threatening letter with a bullet was left at the Kurdish Community Center, indicating that racists have an opportunity to send threatening messages.

As Kurds living in Germany, we demand the following from the German state organs: Stop criminalizing us!

Investigate racist attacks and threats against the Kurdish community and share all findings with us in detail.

Show the same sensitivity to anti-Kurdish racism as you do to anti-Semitism and protect Kurdish institutions."

Naela Quadri: Kurdish women's struggle against ISIS is a historic epic

Naela Quadri, the Prime Minister of the Balochistan government-in-exile, stated that the Balochi people are struggling against oppression just like the Kurdish people.

SEYÎD MISTEFA
CAIRO
Saturday, 24 Feb 2024, 13:11

Balochis living in Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan have been subjected to attacks and persecution by these states for years. The Balochi people, who have been struggling for their rights against attacks for many years, are still being massacred. Naela Quadri, the Prime Minister of the Balochistan government-in-exile, spoke to ANF about the experiences of the Balochi people.

When was the Balochistan government-in-exile established and what is its purpose?

The Government of Balochistan-in-exile was established in 2016. On March 21, 2022, we established diplomatic relations with international institutions, including the United Nations, and human rights organizations that support the liberation of Balochistan. The Balochi issue is not an internal issue in Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Baloch people want self-rule in their country. Our goal is to liberate Balochistan and establish a democratic and peaceful state. All surface and underground resources should be shared equally by the people of Balochistan. We are fighting for 60 million Balochistanis to get their rights.

How do you evaluate the attacks and rights violations against the Baloch people?

There are serious criminal attacks against the Baloch people. The states of Iran and Pakistan continue to persecute the Baloch people. The Baloch people are facing genocide as defined in Article 2 of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Hundreds of old graves have been found where the bodies of slaughtered women, children and men were dumped. Doctors who examined these graves found that the victims had been buried alive. Counter-terrorism management is itself an instrument of terror. There are also hundreds of unmarked bodies riddled with bullets and tortured. The bodies of thousands of Baloch were found mutilated. In October 2022, nearly 500 bodies were found on the roof of Noshtar Miltan hospital. At the same time, the Pakistani army has tortured and raped many Baloch women.

How do you see the struggle of Kurdish women against ISIS gangs?

The struggle of Kurdish women against ISIS is a historic epic in the world, an unforgettable story of these women defending their honor and sacrificing their lives. Kurdish women are a very important example in the world in terms of struggle. We hope that the women of the world will be like Kurdish women. The resistance and strength of Kurdish women cannot be measured.

RAWA: We take courage from our Kurdish sisters

The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan issued a message for the internationalists in Rojava on the anniversary of the International Conspiracy against Kurdish People's Leader Abdullah Öcalan.

ANF
NEWS DESK
Sunday, 18 Feb 2024, 15:47

The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) sent a message to the internationalist women struggling in Rojava on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the international conspiracy that led to Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan’s abduction from Kenya and handover to Turkey on 15 February 1999.

The RAWA's message includes the following:

"To Dear Internationalist Women Comrades in Rojava,

We, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, advocate united struggle and solidarity for the release of Abdullah Öcalan and all political prisoners.

For more than half a century, Afghan women have been living under the heavy burden of imperialism and oppressive fundamentalist regimes. Recently, the Taliban regime has further oppressed women and ignored everything related to them. It has usurped women's rights and dignity, confined them to their homes and imposed compulsory head covering, arresting those who do not comply.

Despite all, Afghan women, like their fellows around the world, resist imprisonment, violence and threats.

The bond between the Kurdish and Afghan peoples is not formed by common suffering. The bond between us is determined by common resistance and determination. We take courage from our Kurdish sisters who fight shoulder to shoulder with their male comrades.

Mr. Öcalan's leadership has shown that women have the power to change themselves and society.

To honor our imprisoned comrades and in memory of the fallen heroes, we must continue our work until freedom and justice prevail in our land. As imperialism and religious extremism join forces against us, we must stand together as revolutionaries and fighters against occupation, misogyny and injustice.

Let us build a future free of prison and torture in solidarity!"

Freedom and Democracy Rally: We will break the door of Imrali!

Speaking at the "Freedom and Democracy" rally organized in Esenyurt, Istanbul, DBP Co-Chair Keskin Bayindir said, "We will break the door of Imrali and provide a solution. We do not accept this isolation."

ANF
ISTANBUL
Sunday, 25 Feb 2024, 18:04

The "Freedom and Democracy" rally organized by the Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) Istanbul Provincial Organization on Sunday saw the participation of thousands of people.

The rally was also attended by politicians who staged the "Great Freedom March" to demand the physical freedom of Abdullah Öcalan, who is held in total isolation in Imrali Island Prison in the Sea of Marmara and has not been heard from for 35 months.

The Great Freedom Marchers took the stage together with the mothers holding a Justice Watch with the same demand and greeted the masses.

Democratic Regions Party (DBP) Co-Chair Keskin Bayındır demanded freedom for Kurdish People's Leader Abdullah Öcalan in his speech at the rally.

Bayındır, who also took part in the "Great Freedom March" launched for the physical freedom of Abdullah Öcalan and a solution to the Kurdish question, recalled that thousands of people had to migrate to metropolises in Turkey due to the burning of Kurdish villages 30 years ago.

"They were saying that they would destroy the Kurds and Kurdish organizations. Those who said this; look at this square, look at this state of organization, look at this freedom square," Bayındır said.

Referring to the Great Freedom March staged in Kurdistan between February 1-15, Bayındır said, "We came together with our heroic and resilient people in Kurdistan, province by province, district by district, village by village. Today, Istanbul is giving voice to this march for freedom. Kurdistan and Turkey are saying 'freedom' for Kurds and Kurdish People's Leader Abdullah Öcalan."

Noting that Kurdish was labeled as an "unknown language" in the Parliament of Turkey, Bayındır said, "Today we speak our language in the squares in Istanbul. They say 'speak Kurdish, but speak it at home.' Today we speak our language here. We are Kurds, we are from Kurdistan."

Referring to the hunger strike of PKK and PAJK prisoners in Turkish prisons, which has been ongoing since 27 November , Bayındır said: "Today is the day of freedom and winning. Today is the day to stand up. Today is our day. This is our time. There has been a hunger strike in prisons for 3 months. Thousands of our comrades are on hunger strike in tens of prisons. They are resisting in dungeons, we are resisting on the streets. We send greetings to those resisting in prisons. We resist oppression. For 100 years we have not bowed our heads and we will not bow today. This stance will definitely reach its goal. Those who miscalculate, those who think they can subjugate the Kurds should look at this square."

Bayındır stated that Kurdish People's Leader Abdullah Öcalan is the interlocutor for the solution of the Kurdish question and continued: "He is not far away. He is in İmralı. We will break the door of Imrali and provide a solution. We do not accept this isolation. If you don't want war and enmity, lift this isolation. The interlocutor of the Kurdish people is clear. And that is Mr. Öcalan. We send greetings to İmralı from here. Our struggle in Kurdistan will succeed. Do not make wrong calculations. Kurds want their rights. Kurds want a solution to the problem with their interlocutors."

Libya's oil guards shut oil fields over pay dispute

Libya holds Africa's largest crude reserves, but years of conflict have hobbled production, exports

Mohamed Artema |25.02.2024 -\



TRIPOLI, Libya

Libyan forces guarding oil facilities in the country announced on Sunday the closure of oil fields in a dispute over pay.

"We will unfortunately close all oil facilities," the Petroleum Facilities Guards (PFG) said in a video statement aired by broadcaster Libya al-Ahrar.

"If our demands are not met, we will take the damage to the judicial authorities," it threatened.

The PFG demands a pay raise for its members and the disbursement of bonuses similar to employees of the country's state-run National Oil Corporation.

On Feb. 15, the PFG gave a 10-day ultimatum to the Tripoli-based government to fulfil their demands, threatening to shut the country's oil fields.

There was no comment from the government on the PFG move as of 3.15 p.m. local time (1315GMT).

Libya holds Africa's largest crude reserves, but years of conflict and violence since the 2011 ouster of ruler Muammar Gaddafi have hobbled production and exports.

 COUNTER HEGEMONY

China’s reach is far and wide, tops US on Global Diplomacy Index

Mike Firn for RFA
2024.02.25
Bangkok

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken (left) and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi shake hands during their meeting at the Munich Security Conference, in Munich, Germany, Feb. 16, 2024.

 Wolfgang Rattay/Pool photo via AP

China has the world’s farthest-reaching diplomatic network, closely followed by the United States, as the two superpowers and economic rivals compete for influence across the globe, according to a new study by an Australian think-tank.

Beijing and Washington rank No. 1 and 2 on the Lowy Institute’s 2024 Global Diplomacy Index, published Sunday, and are at the forefront of a “diplomatic rush” to the vast region of the Pacific made up of small island nations.

Beijing has a bigger diplomatic footprint than the U.S. in Africa, East Asia and the Pacific islands, the report said. It also has a bigger presence in East Asia, following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Sydney-based institute said.

Washington’s reach is more extensive in Europe, North and Central America and South Asia, with the same number of diplomatic posts as Beijing in the Middle East and South America, the survey by the Sydney-based institute found.

“China and the United States lead the world, by some margin, in the size of their diplomatic networks. Beijing tops the Index with 274 posts in its global network, followed closely by Washington with 271,” Lowy said in its report.

“China’s rise to the top spot was rapid. In 2011, Beijing lagged behind Washington by 23 diplomatic posts. By 2019, China had surpassed the United States in having the world’s largest diplomatic network. In 2021, China pulled further ahead, leading the United States by eight posts, but by 2023, the gap narrowed again to China ahead by just three posts.”

Lionel Aingimea, Nauru’s minister of foreign affairs and trade, gives a speech after signing a joint communiqué on the resumption of diplomatic relations between China and Nauru, at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, in Beijing, Jan. 24, 2024. [Andrea Verdelli/Pool via Reuters]

China’s expansion has come at the expense of Taiwan, as Beijing courts lower-income nations with offers of infrastructure, economic and administrative assistance, Lowy reported. 

In January, Nauru switched diplomatic allegiance from Taipei to Beijing. The move by the Pacific island country reduced Taiwan’s diplomatic allies to 12 nations, including the Vatican, Paraguay and Eswatini.

The index showed a rapid growth in diplomatic missions in the Pacific islands, seen as key geopolitical allies by the world’s two leading superpowers. Since 2017, the Pacific region has been home to the fastest rate of outside nations pushing to establish diplomatic posts there, Lowy said.

“The Global Diplomacy Index shows that governments continue to invest in diplomacy to project power and achieve their interests,” said Ryan Neelam, the director of the Public Opinion and Foreign Policy Program at the Lowy Institute.

“The ongoing rivalry between the United States and China is reflected in the superpowers’ dominance in the 2024 rankings, while geopolitical competition has propelled Asia and the Pacific into focus.”

The index was launched in 2016. This year, it covers the diplomatic networks of 66 countries and territories in Asia, the Group of 20 nations and members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Data was collected between July and November last year.

This report was produced by Radio Free Asia (RFA), a news service affiliated with BenarNews. 

N.W.T. plans for early wildfire season start, holdover fires fume underground

PEAT BOGS AND MUSKEG



Published on Feb. 25, 2024

Aerial monitoring to begin early in spring, minister says


Fire officials in the N.W.T. say they'll bring in staff and resources earlier than usual this spring, to prepare for the coming wildfire season and also assess any fires still smouldering underground since last year.

"There's a plan to do aerial as well as drone scanning early in the spring as well as having staff on the ground also doing assessments on fires," said Jay Macdonald, minister of Environment and Climate Change, in the legislature on Wednesday.

Macdonald said climate change and drought conditions have shown the need to to be proactive when dealing with fires.

SEE ALSO: 'Holdover wildfires' from 2023 producing visible smoke again, says officials

One concern this year is that some of last year's fires are still burning beneath the snow and could flare up again in the spring. During the winter months, such fires can be noticed when smoke or steam appears to be coming out of the ground.

Macdonald said an over-wintering fire near Paradise Gardens, south of Hay River, N.W.T., raised concerns for residents there.

"There was significant smoke that was billowing from there," he said.
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N.W.T. fire information officer Mike Westwick said fires last year burned deep into the soil, partly because of how dry it was. (CBC News)

N.W.T wildfire information officer Mike Westwick said that fire received "action," meaning that workers cut off the fire's supply to oxygen, smothering it.

Westwick said there isn't an exact number of how many holdover fires there are in the N.W.T., but monitoring is focused on areas around Enterprise, the Hay River corridor, and Highway 3 between Behchokö and Yellowknife.

Westwick said it's not uncommon to see over-wintering after a heavy wildfire season. He said fires last year burned deep into the soil, partly because of how dry it was.

Visit The Weather Network's wildfire hub to keep up with the latest on the 2024 wildfire season across Canada.

"That heat stays trapped in there and with some ignition still underground there, you know, working with what it's got with diminished oxygen," he said, adding that material such as peat moss can fuel such fires.

Westwick said firefighters are being trained to deal with holdover fires, and aircraft are also being lined up to deal with those fires and prepare for any new ones that might start up in the coming season.
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He said he recognized the concern from residents, especially those who went through a traumatic fire season last year. But Westwick said that the over-wintering fires themselves are not a risk for communities right now.
Tied to climate change, researcher says

Jennifer Baltzer, a professor at Wilfrid Laurier University who has been studying holdover fires, said it's all tied to the changing climate.

"We're seeing more severe fires, we're seeing larger area burned," she said.

Baltzer said over-wintering fires can mean an earlier start to the wildfire season, which could put additional strain on firefighting resources. Such fires can also affect carbon emissions, and forest recovery.

A holdover fire this winter near Fort Nelson, B.C. Such fires smoulder underground during winter months and can reignite in the spring. (Submitted by Sonja Leverkus)

"The impact of these will be relatively small compared to the main fire season," she said. "But again, the bigger concern probably has to do with how this is extending the fire season."

According to the most recent water monitoring bulletin, it could be another dry summer in the territory. So far, data shows that there's been a lot less snow than usual in the areas of northern Alberta and B.C. that drain into the N.W.T.

Westwick said the speed of the spring melt also has an effect.

"A longer, more drawn-out melt can be beneficial, in terms of making sure that the ground is wetter and colder for longer — therefore not providing as good of an environment for wildfires to thrive," he said.

"A faster melt will result in faster evaporation, which results in drier ground, which results in greater levels of fire danger."

The territorial government is currently holding wildfire engagement sessions where residents can give feedback on wildfire management, both in person and online.

And on Thursday, MLAs voted for a public inquiry into the territory's response to the 2023 wildfires, though Premier R.J. Simpson said his government is making no promises about that.

This New Mud Home Built of Hemp and Earth Demonstrates Super Energy Efficiency in the UK

By Good News Network
-Feb 24, 2024

CobBauge house in Fakenham, Norfolk – Hudson Architects / SWNS

This modern British home with its thick mud walls was built as part of an EU project to pioneer the construction of more energy efficient homes.

Architect Anthony Hudson used a centuries-old construction method to build the bungalow, yet it still complies with modern building regulations.

Its walls, erected in Fakenham, Norfolk, are constructed from three simple ingredients: hemp straw, earth, and water. When mixed together, it is known as ‘cob’, so the project was named the CobBauge.

Walls built with cob is thermally insulated to modern standards.

The 3-bedroom project by Hudson Architects was built by local builders Grocott and Murfit in January, and the team has characterized it as being quite inexpensive (although the total cost was not revealed).

Mud is one of the most sustainable construction materials with some old cob buildings in Britain lasting more than 500 years.

The new house features large, south-facing triple-glazed windows for solar warmth in the winter and an air source heat pump to provide additional heating.

It’s part of an EU-funded project to bring mud construction into the 21st century with a focus on net-zero carbon construction—and this is their first regulations-complaint cob building.CobBauge test wall section at the University of Plymouth, showing the interlocking materials –Hudson Architects / SWNS

After the EU announced it was looking for architects to come up with new ways of using earth in houses, Mr. Hudson leapt at the opportunity.


“The challenge was to create a home using earth as the primary building material, but which could also be thermally insulated,” said the 68-year-old.

“Earth is a very sustainable way to build, especially because it’s so widely available here in the UK.

Although there is still a way to go before mud houses can be put on the mainstream market, Hudson believes that the homes will become the new normal.

“Although the materials are cheap and easy to source, the building method is very time-consuming. At the moment it all has to be done by hand, so labor costs run high.”

Laying and compacting the first CobBauge lift within the shuttering formwork system – Hudson Architects / SWNS

Their next step is to figure out how to fabricate building techniques to cut that labor intensity down.

“Once we’ve worked that out, my guess is this will be a very attractive method.”

In March, the mud house will be open to the public for viewing, with its “green roof” to support biodiversity and replace the loss of green space on the site.

Lula da Silva highlights the Palestinian suffering on his visit to Colombia

February 25, 2024 

Biden Caught in a Political Bind Over Israel Policy

Aaron Boxerman and Jonathan Weisman
Sun, 25 February 2024 


Palestinian men work to repair cars damaged, like the building behind them, in a February settler rampage in the West Bank village of Huwara, March 15, 2023

 (Samar Hazboun/The New York Times)

JERUSALEM — The Biden administration’s reversal of Trump-era policy on settlements in the occupied West Bank reflects not just its rising frustration with Israel, but the political bind the president finds himself in, just days before the Democratic primary in Michigan, where a large Arab American population is urging voters to register their anger by voting “uncommitted.”

During a trip to Argentina on Friday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken called any new settlements “inconsistent with international law,” a break with policy set under the Trump administration and a return to the decadeslong U.S. position.

The Biden administration is increasingly fed up with the Israeli government’s conduct in the war in the Gaza Strip and beyond, with officials speaking out more publicly on contentious issues, said Nimrod Novik, a fellow at the Israel Policy Forum think tank. As an example, he cited a U.S. decision to slap financial sanctions on four Israelis — three of them settlers — accused of attacking Palestinians in the West Bank at a time when settler violence against Palestinians has increased.

Yet, Novik called Blinken’s remarks “too little, too late,” adding that the administration’s moves “in practice, are disjointed. The message is there, but it’s a tactical statement where the overall strategy is unclear.”

The United States has long been Israel’s most important international ally. Since the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7 left 1,200 dead in Israel, mostly civilians, Washington has consistently backed Israel’s blistering campaign in Gaza. The Biden administration has also shielded Israel from international censure by blocking cease-fire resolutions at the U.N. Security Council, even as the death toll in Gaza nears 30,000, according to health officials in the enclave.

That stance has increasingly left President Joe Biden in a no-win situation. His recent moves to press the Israeli government to wind down the war in Gaza and enter negotiations toward a Palestinian state have angered some ardent supporters of Israel in the United States. Yet they have come nowhere close to placating Israel’s fiercest critics on the political left and the Arab American community.

Shortly after Oct. 7, Arab Americans and progressive voters were largely standing back as even Jewish Republicans were praising Biden’s pro-Israel response.

Those same Jewish Republicans are now castigating the president. The Republican Jewish Coalition, which had backed the administration after Oct. 7, called the new settlement policy “yet another lowlight to its campaign of undermining Israel.”

The group ticked off other policies the administration has aimed at reining in the Israeli response to the Hamas attacks, including sanctions against West Bank settlers who commit acts of violence and pressuring the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to recognize a Palestinian state.

“The communities at issue, located west of the West Bank security barrier, are not preventing peace,” said Matt Brooks, the group’s longtime CEO. “Palestinian terrorism is.”

But those steps fall far short of what young progressive voters and Arab Americans are demanding: an immediate cease-fire in the war in Gaza and a halt to U.S. military aid to Israel. Those calls are only getting louder as Netanyahu shows no sign of relenting.

“Biden’s sanctions on settler violence and the declaration that settlements are illegal would be inadequate at any time in recent years given how deep Israel’s apartheid has become entrenched,” said Yousef Munayyer, a Palestinian American who heads the Palestine-Israel program at the Arab Center in Washington. “But now he’s backing a genocide in Gaza. This is like showing up to a five-alarm fire with a cup of water while giving fuel to the arsonist.”

In fact, the political imperatives for the Israeli prime minister and for the U.S. president are opposite. Biden needs the war to end so he can reassemble the coalition that got him elected in 2020. But Netanyahu wants it to continue until the complete rout of Hamas, to stave off his own political reckoning from an angry electorate — and potentially help his ally, Donald Trump, return to power.

Blinken’s declaration appears to have been triggered by an announcement by Bezalel Smotrich, a senior Israeli minister, that a planning committee would soon discuss moving ahead with over 3,000 new housing units in the settlements. Most would be in Ma’ale Adumim, where three Palestinian gunmen killed one Israeli and wounded several others Thursday.

Smotrich called the new units “an appropriate Zionist response” to the attack.

Biden administration officials have repeatedly condemned settlement expansion in the West Bank — where roughly 500,000 Israelis now live among some 2.7 million Palestinians — as an obstacle to the long-standing U.S. goal of a two-state solution. In recent weeks, Netanyahu has repeatedly said he worked for years to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, which he has long said would endanger Israel’s security.

Palestinians hope the West Bank will be an integral part of their future independent state, but Israeli settlements have slowly taken over sizable chunks of the territory. Palestinian officials called Blinken’s declaration long overdue and not nearly enough.

“Reversing an illegal act by the previous administration has been overdue for 3 1/2 years,” Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian ambassador to Britain, said in a phone call Saturday. “For the love of God, I don’t understand why Blinken and President Biden sat on their hands on this issue — and many others — for all this time.”

Still, Blinken’s declaration was “better late than never,” Zomlot said, adding that Palestinians expected “real actions” against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank rather than “baby steps.”

But that expectation might be frustrated, at least in the short term, analysts said. Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. diplomat, said the Biden administration was unlikely to follow up Blinken’s declaration with “serious costs and consequences.” Alongside regional mediators, U.S. officials have been trying to cinch a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas, making a “sustained public war with Netanyahu” unpalatable for Biden, he said in an email.

Although Biden entered office pledging to reverse some of his predecessor’s policies on Israel, many remain intact. A separate Jerusalem consulate that effectively served as the U.S. liaison to the Palestinians was never formally reopened after it was closed by the Trump administration; the Palestinian diplomatic mission in Washington is still closed; and most financial aid to the Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the West Bank, is frozen under legislation signed by Trump.

During the first year and a half of Biden’s tenure, U.S. officials defended their cautious approach as an attempt to avoid rocking the fragile, fractious coalition of left, right and center that had temporarily toppled Netanyahu. But that government collapsed in mid-2022, leading to the fifth Israeli elections in four years.

After Netanyahu returned to power in late 2022 at the helm of a far-right coalition stacked with nationalists and settler leaders, settlement expansion exploded. A total of 12,349 housing units in settlements advanced through various stages of the bureaucratic planning process in 2023, compared with the 4,427 units recorded the previous year, according to the Israeli organization Peace Now.

But until the Hamas-led attack Oct. 7 prompted Israel’s four-month military offensive in Gaza, the Biden administration avoided clashing head-on with Israel over contentious issues regarding the Palestinians, preferring to focus on other regional goals, like normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia. U.S. officials instead expended their political capital elsewhere, focusing on rivals like Iran and later on normalizing relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, said Natan Sachs, who directs the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.

“It’s a significant step, given the Trump administration’s approach,” said Sachs, referring to Blinken’s remarks, “though less groundbreaking than the administration’s sanctions on violent settlers.”

“The latter was unprecedented and a real signal of new policy,” he said. “The latest declaration is a symptom of the administration needing to reengage.”

c.2024 The New York Times Company

Watching the watchdogs: Biden, US media and Arab-American political power

US media attacks on the Arab and Muslim American communities have only motivated them further to flex political muscle.

Rami G Khouri
Published On 25 Feb 2024

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators march during a February 1 visit by US President Joe Biden to Warren, Michigan, the United States

 [AP/Paul Sancya]

Arab- and Muslim-Americans and some 60 percent of all Americans have wanted for months for US President Joe Biden to pressure Israel into accepting an immediate ceasefire in the war on Gaza. The White House has all but ignored them.

So Arab- and Muslim-Americans decided to flex their political muscle by using their electoral power in critical swing states in this year’s presidential election. In December, community leaders from nine potential swing states met in Dearborn, Michigan under the slogan “Abandon Biden, ceasefire now”. They vowed not to vote for Biden in the November presidential polls unless he changes his policies that enable Israel’s genocidal attacks on Gaza, rob Palestinians of decent life conditions, and largely ignore the views of significant minority communities in the United States.

The campaign quickly attracted support in Michigan and other states with large Arab-American communities, along with criticism from Biden supporters who feared that the campaign to pressure the president might inadvertently guarantee a Donald Trump victory.

Arab- and Muslim-Americans intensified their campaign in February, when demeaning articles in the mainstream press helped mobilised even more community members.

On February 2, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published an op-ed by Steven Stalinsky, titled Welcome to Dearborn, America’s Jihad Capital, which alleged “Imams and politicians in the Michigan city side with Hamas against Israel and Iran against the US.” The article tarred the entire community as dangerous extremists.

On the same day, a New York Times op-ed by Thomas Friedman metaphorically compared Middle Eastern countries and political actors to animals in the jungle, including trap-door spiders and wasps.

Whatever these – and other offensive articles and cartoons – aimed to achieve, they inadvertently propelled Arab-American engagements in high-stakes electoral politics. The city of Dearborn, Michigan, singled out by name and smeared in the WSJ article, became ground zero for this effort.

The Michigan community reached out to mobilise nationally with other marginalised communities that the White House has often ignored – notably African-Americans, Hispanics, progressive Jews, labourers, women, university students, and others. They joined hands because they share concerns about foreign policy as well as the White House’s domestic priorities and its opportunistic and self-serving citizen engagement.

The activists demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the implementation of existing legal restrictions on the unconditional aid and arms the US has provided Israel for decades. They are fed up with being ignored by a White House that takes their votes for granted, as well as by the Democratic Party they have helped boost through voter-registration drives since the mid-1980s. They are also incredibly frustrated with mainstream, often racist, media that misrepresent, demean, and ignore them.

I asked Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud this week why his town joins hands with other disgruntled American communities to impact national politics and foreign policy at the highest level. He said: “This is all about trust and respect between officials and citizens. We must end the discrepancy we see today between elected officials and the values of citizens. There are no possible justifications or qualifiers for genocide or killing babies and civilians on such a large scale. None at all.”

In our conversation and his public statements, Hammoud spelled out how US foreign policy and media coverage directly impact ordinary citizens.

“It’s personal for us, as some of our families have experienced Israeli occupation or wars, or volunteered in refugee camps,” he said. “When foreign policy decisions directly impact the wellbeing of Dearborn residents, it is irresponsible to walk away from difficult policy conversations that can lead to saving the lives of innocent men, women, and children.”

Hammoud was clear on his community’s demands: “We want action, not words”.

But so far, Arab- and Muslim-Americans have received mostly words. Worried about the “Abandon Biden” campaign, the president’s campaign staff approached local leaders to meet, but they refused. They insisted they wanted to talk with policymakers at the White House. And it worked.

Biden quickly sent to Michigan several of his staffers, including Jon Finer, principal deputy national security adviser; Tom Perez, senior adviser to the president and director of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs; and Samantha Power, head of the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

But after the meetings, nothing changed yet again. The Arab- and Muslim-American community received more nice words, and no action.

So as Biden maintained the flow of arms and money for Israel’s assault on Gaza, community leaders, including US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, decided to raise the stakes. They launched the “Listen to Michigan” campaign that asks “people of conscience” to list themselves as “uncommitted” in the presidential primary on Tuesday, February 27. This signals to Biden and the party that they must listen to citizens’ concerns, and earn their votes, or else risk losing in state and presidential elections.
The community leaders and activists dare to do this because they enjoy unprecedented leverage from the size and distribution of Arab- and Muslim-American voters in swing states like Michigan, where elections are tightly contested. Michigan is home to more than 300,000 Arab-Americans. Trump won the state by less than 11,000 votes in 2016, and Biden in 2020 by 154,000 votes, including many cast by Arab-Americans. Biden also won by 10,500 votes in Arizona, which is home to 60,000 Arab Americans, and by 11,800 votes in Georgia, where 57,000 Arab-Americans live.

Veteran Arab-American activist James Zogby, co-founder and president of the Arab American Institute, told me that this burst of action builds on 40 years of community capacity-building across the country. It captures Arab-Americans’ mindset that “is moving from paralysis and despair in the early 1980s to today’s feeling that we can control our destiny.”

The other partners in the informal coalition to change US policy add clout. Michigan’s large United Autoworkers Union has called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, recalling how it had also opposed apartheid in South Africa. The African Methodist Episcopal Church has also demanded an immediate ceasefire and called the attacks on Gaza “mass genocide”.

Progressive groups, such as US Senator Bernie Sanders’s Our Revolution, have also joined the “Listen to Michigan” campaign.

Mayor Hammoud told me that coalitions of minority communities have always worked together on shared causes at the local level. But, he added, “I’ve never seen a paradigm shift on the Palestine issue like we see today, with up to 80 percent of Democrats and 50 percent of youth supporting the ceasefire we call for.”

One Arab-American who advised the White House in recent years also told me the newfound political leverage of the community “is unexpected, unfamiliar, and unprecedented.”

Indeed it is, and Tuesday’s Michigan primary should reveal precisely how impactful it might be – and if it can temper American war-making abroad by acknowledging its citizens at home who take seriously that their governance system is anchored in “the consent of the governed”.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance

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Rami G Khouri
Distinguished Fellow at the American University of Beirut
Rami G Khouri is a Distinguished Fellow at the American University of Beirut, and a journalist and book author with 50 years of experience covering the Middle East.

Demonstrations across Spain call for arms embargo on Israel

Organised by civil society groups and supported by several political parties, the protests resonated with chants calling for an end to "genocide in Palestine" and urged for severing ties with Israel.


Protests resonated with chants calling for an end to what demonstrators called the "genocide in Palestine" / Photo: AA

In a show of solidarity with Palestine and condemnation of Israel's actions, hundreds of thousands of people haven taken to the streets across Spain in a wave of demonstrations demanding an immediate halt to arms trade with Israel.

Organised by civil society groups and supported by several political parties, the protests resonated with chants calling for an end to what demonstrators called the "genocide in Palestine" and urged for severing ties with Israel.

Led by Podemos leader Ione Belarra, the rallies gained momentum as she announced plans to present a motion in parliament seeking an arms embargo on Israel.


We will submit to parliament to impose an arms embargo on Israel, protestors say. / Photo: AA

Belarra emphasized the need for sincerity from the government, accusing the current coalition of empty promises and no concrete action in its support for Palestine.

"We will see the sincerity of the government in the motion we will submit to parliament to impose an arms embargo on Israel. If they really want to stop the genocide and do not want to be an accomplice to Israel, they will ban arms trade," she said.

The protests, which drew significant attendance in the capital Madrid, featured slogans denouncing Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and calling for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza, where Israeli attacks have killed nearly 30,000 Palestinians.


Spain's ruling coalition, threw its weight behind the demonstrations, highlighting the unity among various factions in Spain in their support for Palestine./ Photo: AA

Podemos, despite not being part of Spain's ruling coalition, threw its weight behind the demonstrations, highlighting the unity among various factions in Spain in their support for Palestine.

Demonstrators also criticized Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares' claims that Spain's weapons trade with Israel had been halted since Oct. 7, dismissing them as false.

They cited commercial data indicating ongoing collaboration between Spanish companies and Israel in the military sector.

The demonstrations, spanning over 100 cities and towns including Barcelona, Coruna, Malaga, and Tenerife, signify a resounding call from the Spanish populace for solidarity with Palestine and condemnation of Israel's actions.

Craig Mokhiber on moving the world for Palestinian rights

Maureen Clare Murphy 

ELECTRONIC INFATADA

Rights and Accountability 

25 February 2024

Protesters in Paris, France, demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza on 17 December 2023. Anne PaqActiveStills

The US wielding its veto at the Security Council to prolong the genocide in Gaza for a third time last week will be remembered as one of the most shameful moments in the world body’s history.

“It’s outrageous,” former senior United Nations official and human rights lawyer Craig Mokhiber said during The Electronic Intifada livestream this week. Watch the full interview with Mokhiber below:
Mokhiber added that “thousands more have died each time” the US has obstructed a resolution demanding an end to Israel’s relentless airstrikes, field executions, destruction of civilian infrastructure and the engineered famine among other war crimes in Gaza.



More than 25,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since 18 October, the first time that the US used its veto to block a call for a humanitarian pause to hostilities.

Tuesday’s veto “will undoubtedly cause even greater suffering,” the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention states, “particularly if nothing is done to prevent an Israeli ground incursion into the last refuge for the Palestinians of Gaza.”

More than a million Palestinians are now concentrated in Rafah, along Gaza’s southern border with Egypt, after Israel issued evacuation orders across wide swathes of the territory and forcibly transferred civilians from one area to another.

Israel’s war cabinet is threatening a major ground offensive in Rafah, which even the Biden administration, fully complicit in the Gaza genocide, warns would be “a disaster” at the same time that it transfers more weapons for the slaughter.
Worst may be yet to come

Media reports on and satellite imagery showing major works on the Egyptian side of Rafah are heightening fears that escalated Israeli attacks in that area – where most of the inadequate aid that gets into Gaza is transferred – would result in yet another mass expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland.

Mokhiber said that the scale and pace of the Egyptian construction indicates that it may not be merely part of a contingency plan if such a mass expulsion occurs.

While Cairo publicly opposes the removal of Palestinians, “one can only imagine the pressure that’s being brought to bear on the Egyptian regime to collaborate in the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.”

Mokhiber said that Western powers, “embarrassed and politically compromised by Israel’s absolute lack of any limitations whatsoever in its genocidal assault,” are also applying diplomatic pressure on Israel, which may have delayed an even worse escalation in Rafah than the ongoing massacres.

But those efforts might not be enough to hold Israel back, and the worst may be yet to come.

For Israel, finishing the job in Gaza “means either killing everybody or killing enough people and making the conditions as unbearable as possible so that those survivors who do remain will force their way across the border,” Mokhiber said.

“And I think that all signs are that they’re going to go through with it.”

Meanwhile, in a further act of complicity in the genocide, Israel’s allies have dealt what may be a death blow to UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, by freezing funding following unverified allegations that a handful of its Gaza staff were involved in the 7 October raid led by Hamas.

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, told the UN General Assembly this week that “the agency has reached a breaking point” and its ability to fulfill its mandate and provide government-like services to millions of stateless Palestinians is “now seriously threatened.”

Why does Israel want to see the end of UNRWA, its demise a prominent feature of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “day after” plan?

“Because UNRWA stands in the way of their ethnonationalist plan for Gaza and the West Bank as well,” according to Mokhiber.

That Western states jumped to cut off funding after Israel “essentially gave an order” to do so should make the citizens of those countries very worried about the functioning of their own governments, he added.
Challenging Israel impunity

Israel’s impunity – and the complicity of its powerful allies – is being challenged in unprecedented and potentially irreversible ways, similar to how South Africa was made an international pariah in the last years of apartheid rule in that country.

Israel has ignored the International Court of Justice’s provisional measures ordering it to halt all genocidal acts. Meanwhile, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, a separate tribunal, has failed to prevent the genocide in Gaza.

But the genocide complaint brought by South Africa at the International Court of Justice has already prompted states and companies to cut ties with Israeli arms manufacturers and cancel arms export licenses to Israel.

And while the court lacks an enforcement mechanism, the General Assembly could eventually impose material consequences, Mokhiber said. These could include removing Israel from international organizations, calling for the nonrecognition of Israeli passports and imposing economic and political sanctions.

States also have an individual and collective obligation to take action “when there is genocide, or even a threat or risk of genocide,” he added.

But according to Mokhiber, “the real power is in civil society.”

“And if you see a change in tone, although not in action, on the part of a number of Western governments now,” Mohkhiber said, “it’s because of all the pressure from civil society for movements, protests, labor unions, all those sorts of things that have been … bringing shame on their own governments for their participation in the genocide.”
Israeli occupation on trial

In a separate case than the genocide complaint brought by South Africa, the International Court of Justice held hearings last week as it considers “the legal consequences arising from the policies and practices of Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.”

This examination was requested by the UN General Assembly after it passed with a strong majority a resolution asking the court to issue an advisory opinion on two questions:

What are the legal consequences arising from the ongoing violation by Israel of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, from its prolonged occupation, settlement and annexation of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem, and from its adoption of related discriminatory legislation and measures?

How do the policies and practices of Israel referred to … above affect the legal status of the occupation, and what are the legal consequences that arise for all States and the United Nations from this status?”

More than 50 countries and three organizations are addressing the court during the hearings that began this week – an “unprecedented number” of participants in a World Court case, according to Human Rights Watch.

The New York-based group says that “the broad participation in the hearings and the many written submissions reflect growing global momentum to address the decades-long failure to ensure respect for international law” in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

“Israel is already on trial for genocide,” Mokhiber said. “Now it’s on trial again at the World Court but this time, and very importantly, the occupation itself is on trial and support for that occupation by other states is on trial.”

The written submissions and oral interventions in the case demonstrate that also “the whole ideological project of Israel is also on trial to some degree,” according to Mokhiber.

Also on trial “is the Oslo paradigm, or the Oslo ruse … because that was the dominant framework for dealing with the question of Palestine for more than 30 years that sidestepped and subverted international law in favor of negotiations between occupier and occupied.”

The political wing of the UN – which played a key historical role in denying Palestinians’ right to self-determination by proposing the partition of their country against the wishes of the Indigenous population – continues to uphold the Oslo ruse by insisting on a negotiated two-state solution between two inherently unequal parties, rather than enforcing international law.

In his resignation letter to the UN high commissioner for human rights last October, Mokhiber stated that “the mantra of the ‘two-state solution’ has become an open joke in the corridors of the UN, both for its utter impossibility in fact, and for its total failure to account for the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people.”

But that framework has been increasingly challenged in recent years, with major international human rights groups calling for an approach centered on international law, rather than a “peace process” that has only fostered a culture of impunity and allowed Israel to accelerate its colonization of Palestinian land.

For years, Palestinian human rights groups have urged states “to address the root causes of Israel’s settler colonialism and apartheid imposed over the Palestinian people as a whole,” the Ramallah-based Al-Haq stated ahead of the General Assembly vote requesting the advisory opinion.

Those root causes – “dispossession, settler colonialism, Jewish supremacism, racism, racial discrimination, apartheid,” as Mokhiber said – are being addressed in the testimony heard by the court last week.

The statements made by Palestine and South Africa are “almost a perfect primer of the legal and moral cause of Palestine,” he added. The oral statements by those countries can be watched below:

“As a matter of law, the Palestinian people have human rights,” Mokhiber said

While the court deliberates, people must take action to end the genocide in Gaza and their governments’ support for Israel’s system of oppression as a whole.

“We have to demand accountability for the perpetrators, including those who are complicit, we have to demand redress for the victims and survivors.” Mokhiber said.

“And that’s only going to come from us,” he added.

 

Israel-Hamas: A globalised conflict

The Palestinian issue has never lost its resonance beyond the Middle East, especially in the Global South.

Malaysian rock star Ella, right, performs at a Gaza fundraising concert in Penang, October 2023 (Flickr/Budiey)

BEN SCOTT
Published 26 Feb 2024 


The atrocities perpetrated by Hamas on 7 October 2023 and the war in Gaza that followed caught much of the world off guard. Most governments appeared surprised both by the reignition of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its wider consequences, for regional stability and social cohesion. In a Foreign Affairs essay sent to print on 2 October, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan wrote that “although the Middle East remains beset with perennial challenges … the region is quieter than it has been for decades.”

The failure of Western capitals to appreciate the continuing global resonance of the Palestinian issue is reminiscent of earlier failures to anticipate the rise of populist politics.

Sullivan was far from alone in misjudging the region. At the root of a long list of Israeli intelligence failures in the lead-up to 7 October was an assumption that Hamas had essentially abandoned “resistance” in favour of improving conditions in, and its hold on, the Gaza Strip. To be sure, Hamas encouraged this mistake. But there were wider reasons to believe Palestinians were losing their “will to fight.”

For many decades the Palestinians were a cause célèbre for the region and the global anti-imperialist left. But when the Arab uprisings took off in early 2011, suddenly empowered Arab publics did not focus on the Palestinian cause. They devoted more attention to regional power struggles – from Libya to Yemen to Syria – than on the Palestinians, who were anyway split between the Fatah-ruled West Bank and Hamas-ruled Gaza.

As authoritarian Arab rulers reasserted themselves, they found that public animus to Israel was no longer the constraint it had once been. Regimes that had long sought covert cooperation with Israel discovered they could do so more openly and even enter formal diplomatic relations with the Jewish state. As part of the Abraham Accords, the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco did so in 2020, while paying only lip service to Palestinian interests. Until 7 October Saudi Arabia appeared set to follow suit.

But while the Palestinian issue seemed to be losing traction in the region, there was no evidence it had lost its global resonance, especially among the progressive and populist left and in the Global South. That was clear enough from the United Nations’ continued preoccupation with the issue but also evident in the boycott, divestment, sanctions movement and the strength of pro-Palestinian sentiment in countries like Indonesia and Malaysia.
At the root of a long list of Israeli intelligence failures in the lead-up to 7 October was an assumption that Hamas had essentially abandoned “resistance” in favour of improving conditions in – and its hold on – the Gaza Strip.

The failure of Western capitals to appreciate the continuing global resonance of the Palestinian issue is reminiscent of earlier failures to anticipate the rise of populist politics. In their ground-breaking book Six Faces of Globalisation, Anthea Roberts and Nicholas Lamp show how this failure flowed from inattention to the many competing narratives of globalisation, including populist narratives from the left and right. Roberts and Lamp are deliberately agnostic about the narratives they outline. They don’t want to preclude any of them. Instead, they urge policy makers to develop what Philip Tetlock terms “dragonfly eyes”:


Dragonflies have compound eyes made up of thousands of lenses that give them a range of vision of nearly 360 degrees. Dragonfly thinking involves synthesizing a multitude of points…people who integrate insights from multiple perspectives are likely to develop a more accurate understanding of complex problems than those who rely on a single perspective.

Simply insisting on the establishment narrative of globalisation (“everybody wins”) has done nothing to blunt anti-globalisation. Rather, it has blinded policy-makers to the genuine insights and animating power of alternative narratives.

It is hard to imagine a more direct assault on economic globalisation than the Houthi attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea. The Houthis purport to be fighting for the Palestinians but most experts agree they are doing it to boost their own domestic and international standing. To counter them, the US and its allies have sought to impose an “establishment narrative”: framing the issue in terms of freedom of navigation, the rules-based order and military deterrence.

Whether or not the Western framing is accurate, it has been ineffective. International support for US-led efforts to counter the Houthis has been minimal. UN voting indicates that most countries view Israel’s assault on Gaza as a more serious breach of the rules-based order than the Houthi attacks on shipping. Although China has an enormous stake in global maritime security, Beijing has found it more advantageous to blame Washington for failing to restrain Israel.

Meanwhile, the Houthis are continuing their attacks and enjoying international notoriety on a par with Hamas and Hezbollah. Palestinian supporters are willing to overlook the Houthis’ brutal and exclusionary rule in Yemen. Egypt has refused to criticise the Houthis even though the attacks are depriving Cairo of desperately needed Suez Canal revenue. Throughout the region, Sunni Arabs are downplaying sectarian divisions as they back Iran’s predominantly Shia “axis of resistance”.

Viewing the Houthi threat through dragonfly eyes would yield a better understanding of why the Houthis have sought – and apparently benefitted from – confrontation with the US. It would take account of the struggle for power within Yemen, the Houthi's role in Iran’s axis of resistance, and their use of the Palestinian narrative.

The Israel-Hamas conflict reverberates globally more than any comparable conflict, largely because both the Israelis and Palestinians have powerful and polarising narratives of righteous victimhood. Reconciling those narratives is almost certainly impossible. But, using dragonfly thinking, it should be possible to produce a wider international consensus on the outlines of a two-state solution.