Darfur at Risk of Imminent New Wave of Mass Atrocities: UN Security Council Must Act; UAE Must Restrain RSF

By Jeremy Konyndyk |

 April 23, 2024

Statement from Refugees International President Jeremy Konyndyk:

“Refugees International is gravely concerned about the high likelihood of a new wave of mass atrocities in Darfur. Multiple signals of imminent attacks by the Rapid Support Forces on the city of El Fasher – home to 800,000 civilians – are gravely alarming and demand urgent action. Across Darfur, some 9 million Sudanese need immediate humanitarian assistance. A battle for El Fasher would trigger further violence across the region and throw the population into a deeper crisis.

There are numerous indications that a new wave of mass atrocities could be imminent. Tensions have been rising in and around El Fasher amid advances by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in other parts of Sudan, and desires by the opposing RSF to capture the last Darfur city outside its control. Formerly neutral local armed groups have sided with the SAF in the face of the RSF threat to the city. The RSF–- the paramilitary force composed of former Janjaweed fighters responsible for the genocide in Darfur two decades ago – and its allied militias have staged their troops around El Fasher and have burned multiple surrounding villages in recent weeks.

Over the past year, the RSF has carried out extensive ethnically targeted violence elsewhere in Darfur, and previous RSF attacks on major towns in Darfur have resulted in widespread atrocity crimes. Refugees International reported on some of these massacres in a recent report titled “Bearing Witness: Atrocities and Looming Hunger in Darfur.” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made an official atrocity determination on Sudan in December 2023, finding that the RSF and allied militias have committed crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.

The United States and other UN Security Council members must take urgent action to deter the belligerents. In early March 2024, the UN Security Council passed a resolution calling for an immediate cessation of hostilities. The recent Paris conference on Sudan in a Declaration of Principles called for “all foreign actors to cease providing armed support or material to the warring parties.”

The Declaration was signed by several key actors, including the UAE. Yet the UAE remains the principal supplier of arms and diplomatic support to the RSF, in direct violation of the existing UN Security Council Sudan arms embargo. If the RSF commits a mass atrocity event in El Fasher, they will do so using arms supplied illegally by the UAE and with the benefit of extensive UAE diplomatic promotion. As a nation that seeks to act as a humanitarian leader, the UAE must stop arming those responsible for atrocities, and intervene urgently with RSF leadership to prevent an imminent atrocity. More than any other country, the UAE has both the capacity and the obligation to restrain the RSF and prevent this catastrophe.

It is also imperative that the Sudanese Armed Forces halt their law-of-war violations. The SAF has used aerial bombardment, including on civilian areas. The SAF’s international supporters must also urge restraint and halt the flow of weapons: both Egypt and Iran have supported the SAF financially and reportedly with attack drones, which have been used on civilian targets.

As another bout of mass atrocities appears on the verge of unfolding in Darfur, the United States and other UN Security Council members must act urgently. Refugees International calls for an emergency Security Council session and clear denouncement of the UAE and other actors continuing to enable atrocities across Sudan, including once again, in Darfur.”

For more information or to schedule an interview, please contact Etant Dupain at edupain@refugeesinternational.org.

 

Disease X: Scientists warn next pandemic could be triggered by virus of ‘deadly infectious illness'

ByAditi Srivastava

Apr 21, 2024 11:24 AM IST

Experts warn of Disease X as a potential cause of the next 

pandemic, with influenza identified as a major threat.

Sounding the alarm for a potential future crisis, scientists warn that the next pandemic might be caused by Disease X. Influenza, a familiar foe associated with seasonal illness, has emerged as a possible threat for this unpredictable and potentially devastating role. An international survey, to be published next weekend, will reveal that 57% of senior disease experts now believe a strain of influenza virus is the most likely cause of the next global outbreak of “deadly infectious illness.”

Influenza can trigger the next pandemic

The World Health Organization (WHO) warns that seasonal flu isn't just a winter nuisance. Every year, flu affects an estimated 1 billion people worldwide, with millions more suffering from severe complications. Even worse, it claims hundreds of thousands of lives annually. The WHO emphasises the dangers of new flu strains, for which people have no immunity, urging us to take influenza seriously.

Cologne University's Jon Salmanton-García's research backs up this concern. His research indicates that influenza is the biggest threat to the upcoming worldwide pandemic because of its continual evolution and mutation properties. “Each winter influenza appears, you could describe these outbreaks as little pandemics. They are more or less controlled because the different strains that cause them are not virulent enough – but that will not necessarily be the case forever.” He said as cited by the Guardian.

Scientists warn of Disease X

The survey results will be announced at the ESCMID congress next weekend. The unidentified “DiseaseX” virus is seen as the next most likely pandemic-causing virus, after influenza, according to experts. Experts believe a new strain of this virus could emerge ‘out of the blue’ just like Covid-19, which claimed the lives of millions across the globe and still remains a threat.

Also read: ‘100 times worse than Covid pandemic’: Experts on risk of H5N1 bird flu outbreak

These concerning details come on the heels of the World Health Organization raising concerns about the alarming spread of the H5N1 strain of influenza spreading rapidly in parts of the US. The organisation has warned of an “unprecedented surge” in the number of cases.

“This appears to be 100 times worse than Covid, or it could be if it mutates and maintains its high case fatality rate. Once it’s mutated to infect humans, we can only hope that the [fatality rate] drops.” John Fulton a pharmaceutical company consultant, said in a statement earlier.

According to WHO records, the data highlights that since 2003, 52 out of every 100 patients infected with the H5N1 virus have died, resulting in a fatality rate exceeding 50 percent. This rate is comparatively much higher than the current COVID-19 fatality rate, which stands at 0.1 percent.

Australian PM calls Elon Musk an 'arrogant billionaire' after X owner says government wants to 'control the entire Internet' over stabbing videos

By Mickey Carroll, science and technology reporter
Tuesday 23 April 2024 

Australia's prime minister said Elon Musk is an "arrogant billionaire who thinks he is above the law" over his reluctance to remove footage of last week's Church stabbing from X.

In response, Elon Musk thanked him "for informing the public that this platform is the only truthful one".


The spat comes after a week of legal battles and public arguments between X and the Australian government.

So what's going on?

Last week, two clerics at Sydney's Assyrian Christ the Good Shepherd church were stabbed while live streaming a service.


Soon after, videos of the stabbing began circulating on social media. The Australian eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, issued notices to Meta and X to get them removed.

Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was stabbed during a livestream of his church service

The videos were classified under Australian law as 'class 1' material, depicting gratuitous or offensive violence with a high degree of impact or detail

Sky News ran some footage of the moments before the stabbing.

When the notice was issued, Meta complied and removed the videos from their platforms. X, however, announced it would challenge it.

X did block the videos in Australia but the government's eSafety department argued this wasn't good enough as the posts were still accessible globally.

Debate over 'control' of internet

On Monday night, eSafety got a legal injunction requiring X to hide the videos globally but it hasn't responded to that yet.

Now, Elon Musk has accused the eSafety commissar, whom he previously nicknamed the "censorship commissar", of wanting to control the internet.

"Our concern is that if ANY country is allowed to censor content for ALL countries, what is to stop any country from controlling the entire Internet?" he posted on X.


Anthony Albanese, the Australian prime minister, weighed in on the row during media rounds.

He told the Australian Broadcasting Company the country would "do what's necessary to take on this arrogant billionaire who thinks he's above the law, but also above common decency".

Anthony Albanese has called Elon Musk an 'arrogant billionaire who thinks he is above the law'. Pic: AP

He called Elon Musk "a bloke who has chosen ego and violence over common sense", in an interview with Sky News Australia.

"Australians will shake their heads when they think this billionaire is willing to go to court, fighting for the right to sow division and to show violent videos which are very distressing," he said.

'Road to freedom'

He also confirmed that other platforms had removed the videos.

In response, Mr Musk posted an image showing a 'road to freedom' with X at the end.

"Don't take my word for it, just ask the Australian PM!" he wrote.


What happens if X doesn't comply?

If X doesn't comply with eSafety's injunction, the company can be fined and face legal sanctions.

eSafety also has the power to get links to the content removed from search engines and remove X from app stores but there are no indications this is being considered.

SPACE

After months of sending gibberish to NASA, Voyager 1 is finally making sense again

By Sascha Pare published 5 hours ago


NASA's Voyager 1 probe has resumed sending usable data back to Earth after engineers fixed a computer error that caused the interstellar spacecraft to only transmit gibberish for five months.

NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is depicted in this artist’s concept traveling through interstellar space, or the space between stars, which it entered in 2012. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

NASA's Voyager 1 probe is once again sending readable radio signals back to Earth after engineers fixed a computer glitch that caused the spacecraft to malfunction in November.


For the first time in five months, Voyager 1 is now transmitting usable data about the health and status of its onboard engineering systems back to our planet, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced Monday (April 22). However, engineers have yet to fix the software that enables the spacecraft to return science data.


Voyager 1 is cruising through interstellar space roughly 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) away from Earth, which means mission control teams have to wait 22.5 hours for their commands to reach the spacecraft and another 22.5 hours for a response. Voyager 1 and its twin probe — Voyager 2, which continues to operate normally after a 2-week blackout last year — were launched almost 47 years ago and are the most distant human-made objects in existence.

Engineers first noticed something wrong with Voyager 1 on Nov. 14, 2023, when the probe suddenly began transmitting a nonsensical stream of ones and zeros instead of its usual neatly packaged science and engineering datasets.

Mission controllers could tell the spacecraft was still receiving their commands, however, indicating that its vital systems were operating normally.


Related: A mysterious 'hum' vibrates interstellar space. Voyager 1 has a recording of it.

In early March, after three months of unsuccessful tinkering, NASA engineering teams determined the issue was tied to one of Voyager 1's three onboard computer systems known as the "flight data subsystem" (FDS). The FDS is essential for packaging data harvested by the probe before they are sent to Earth, according to NASA's announcement.

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Engineers located the glitch by sending a command — or "poke" — that prompted the FDS to try new sequences of code in its software in case the issue could be resolved by skirting a corrupted section. The command triggered a signal that differed from the stream of gibberish the spacecraft had been sending back, and that engineers were able to decode.




After receiving data about the health and status of Voyager 1 for the first time in five months, members of the Voyager flight team celebrate in a conference room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory on April 20. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

It turned out a single chip responsible for storing a portion of the FDS memory, including some of its computer software code, had stopped working. The loss of that code meant the probe's science and engineering data were unusable, according to NASA. To get around the issue, engineers broke up the code once stored in the chip and squeezed sections of it into functioning portions of the FDS memory.

—Historic space photo of the week: Voyager 2 spies a storm on Saturn 42 years ago

The team then rewrote some of the reshuffled code so it could work as a whole again.

Engineers saved these modifications to the FDS memory on April 18. Two days later, they received a response from Voyager 1 showing that the reshuffle worked. For the first time in five months, the probe's message contained readable data, prompting celebrations at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

However, solving the spacecraft's science data transmission will take further mending of the corrupted portions of the FDS software, NASA said in its announcement.

NASA's Voyager 1 phones home after months

Agence France-Presse
April 23, 2024 

NASA's Voyager 1

NASA's Voyager 1 probe -- the most distant man-made object in the universe -- is returning usable information to ground control following months of spouting gibberish, the US space agency announced Monday.

The spaceship stopped sending readable data back to Earth on November 14, 2023, even though controllers could tell it was still receiving their commands.

In March, teams working at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory discovered that a single malfunctioning chip was to blame, and devised a clever coding fix that worked within the tight memory constraints of its 46-year-old computer system.

"Voyager 1 spacecraft is returning usable data about the health and status of its onboard engineering systems," the agency said.

"The next step is to enable the spacecraft to begin returning science data again."

Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 was mankind's first spacecraft to enter the interstellar medium, in 2012, and is currently more than 15 billion miles from Earth. Messages sent from Earth take about 22.5 hours to reach the spacecraft.

Its twin, Voyager 2, also left the solar system in 2018.

Both Voyager spacecraft carry "Golden Records" -- 12-inch, gold-plated copper disks intended to convey the story of our world to extraterrestrials.

These include a map of our solar system, a piece of uranium that serves as a radioactive clock allowing recipients to date the spaceship's launch, and symbolic instructions that convey how to play the record.

The contents of the record, selected for NASA by a committee chaired by legendary astronomer Carl Sagan, include encoded images of life on Earth, as well as music and sounds that can be played using an included stylus.

Their power banks are expected to be depleted sometime after 2025. They will then continue to wander the Milky Way, potentially for eternity, in silence.

Biden campaign hammers Trump on anniversary of 'inject bleach' comment

David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement
April 23, 2024 




Four years ago today then-President Donald Trump, on live national television during what would be known as merely the early days and weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, suggested an injection of a household "disinfectant" could cure the deadly coronavirus.

The Biden campaign on Tuesday has already posted five times on social media about Trump's 2020 remarks, including by saying, "Four years ago today, Dr. Birx reacted in horror as Trump told Americans to inject bleach on national television."

Less than 24 hours after Trump's remarks calls to the New York City Poison Control Center more than doubled, including people complaining of Lysol and bleach exposure. Across the country, the CDC reported, calls to state and local poison control centers jumped 20 percent.

"It was a watershed moment, soon to become iconic in the annals of presidential briefings. It arguably changed the course of political history," Politico reported on the one-year anniversary of Trump's beach debacle. "It quickly came to symbolize the chaotic essence of his presidency and his handling of the pandemic."

How did it happen?

"The Covid task force had met earlier that day — as usual, without Trump — to discuss the most recent findings, including the effects of light and humidity on how the virus spreads. Trump was briefed by a small group of aides. But it was clear to some aides that he hadn’t processed all the details before he left to speak to the press," Politico added.

“'A few of us actually tried to stop it in the West Wing hallway,' said one former senior Trump White House official. 'I actually argued that President Trump wouldn’t have the time to absorb it and understand it. But I lost, and it went how it did.'"

The manufacturer of Lysol issued a strong statement saying, "under no circumstance should our disinfectant products be administered into the human body (through injection, ingestion or any other route)," with "under no circumstance" in bold type.

Trump's "disinfectant" remarks were part of a much larger crisis during the pandemic: misinformation and disinformation. In 2021, a Cornell University study found the President was the "single largest driver" of COVID misinformation.

What did Trump actually say?

“And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out, in a minute,” Trump said from the podium at the White House press briefing room, as Coronavirus Task Force Coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx looked on without speaking up. “Is there a way we can do something like that? By injection, inside, or almost a cleaning, ’cause you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that. You’re going to have to use medical doctors, right? But it sounds interesting to me.”

Within hours comedian Sarah Cooper, who had a good run mocking Donald Trump, released a video based on his remarks that went viral:

The Biden campaign at least 12 times on the social media platform X has mentioned Trump's infamous and dangerous remarks about injecting "disinfectant," although, like many, they have substituted the word "bleach" for "disinfectant."

Tuesday morning the Biden campaign released this video marking the four-year anniversary of Trump's "disinfectant" remarks.

Hours after Trump's remarks, from his personal account, Joe Biden posted this tweet:

       

WOLA Applauds Efforts to Declassify U.S. Documents on Brazil’s Military Dictatorship


23 APR 2024 | NEWS

The Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) alongside the Washington Brazil Office and other Brazilian civil society organizations supported a congressional letter that circulated this month calling on President Biden to declassify documents related to the period of Brazil’s military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985. In addition to Reps. Nydia Velázquez (D-N.Y.) and Susan Wild (D-Penn.), who organized the effort, the letter garnered the signatures of 14 members of the U.S. House.

Coming on the heels of the 60th anniversary of the coup that ushered in two decades of military rule in Brazil, still classified documents may hold clues to the U.S.’s role in supporting the dictatorship. Declassifying the trove of 13 documents outlined in the letter would represent an important step toward truth and reconciliation. Similar to the Biden administration’s decision last year to declassify documents on the 1973 Chilean coup d’état, this gesture of transparency would serve to fortify the U.S.’s stated commitment to human rights in the region.

“As we strive to foster open dialogue and strengthen the ties between our nations, we believe that declassifying these documents will demonstrate our dedication to transparency, justice, and the advancement of democratic principles. By doing so, we can contribute to healing historical wounds and ensuring that the lessons of the past guide our efforts toward a shared future founded on democracy and human rights.”

French MP summoned by police for questioning over support for Palestine

'Our stance against genocide perpetrated against Palestinian people remains steadfast,' says Mathilde Panot

Anadolu Staff |23.04.2024 



ANKARA

Mathilde Panot, a member of parliament representing the La France Insoumise in France, has been summoned by authorities for questioning on charges of "terrorism propaganda."

Panot, known for her vocal support for Palestine, finds herself at the center of a legal storm following a statement she made on her social media platform.

The summons, issued by the Paris Police Headquarters, has sparked widespread debate and condemnation among political circles. As the deputy group leader of LFI in the parliament, Panot took to social media to announce the development, expressing her unwavering commitment to advocating for the rights of the Palestinian people.

"I will not be deterred by any summons or intimidation tactics," she asserted.

"Our stance against the genocide perpetrated against the Palestinian people remains steadfast."

She further called upon the public to recognize the "disturbing attacks" being made on freedom of expression and democracy.

The news of Panot's summons reverberated beyond national borders, drawing reactions from fellow politicians, including member of the European Parliament, Manon Aubry.

In a statement posted on her social media account, Aubry characterized the summons as "unprecedented and extremely serious," urging individuals to stand in solidarity with Panot.

Similarly, MP Farida Amrani joined the chorus of voices condemning the move, highlighting the broader implications of attempting to silence voices speaking out against the alleged genocide in Palestine.

 

Elites In The Global North Are Scared To Talk About Palestine

Wednesday, 24 April 2024
Article: Globetrotter

Israeli bombs continue to fall on Gaza, killing Palestinian civilians with abandon. Al Jazeera published a story about the destruction of 24 hospitals in Gaza, each of them bombed mercilessly by the Israeli military. Half of the 35,000 Palestinians killed by Israel were children, their bodies littering the overwhelmed morgues and mosques of Gaza. The former United Nations assistant secretary-general for human rights Andrew Gilmour told BBC Newsnight that the Palestinians are experiencing “collective punishment” and that what we are seeing in Gaza is “probably the highest kill rate of any military, killing anybody, since the Rwandan genocide of 1994.” Meanwhile, in the West Bank section of Palestine, Human Rights Watch shows that the Israeli military has participated in the displacement of Palestinians from 20 communities and has uprooted at least seven communities since October 2023. These are established facts.

Yet, these facts—according to a leaked memorandum—cannot be spoken about in the “newspaper of record” in the United States, the New York Times. Journalists at the paper were asked to avoid the terms “genocide,” “ethnic cleansing,” and “occupied territory.” Indeed, over the past six months, newspapers and television shows in the United States have generally written about the genocidal violence using passive voice: bombs fell, people died. Even on social media, where the terrain is often less controlled, the ax fell on key phrases; for instance, despite his professions of commitment to free speech, Elon Musk said that terms such as “decolonization” and phrases such as “from the river to the sea” would be banned on X.

Silence on the College Campuses

At the University of Southern California (USC), Asna Tabassum, a South Asian American, was to deliver an address on campus to 65,000 people as the valedictorian of the class of 2024. Involved in the conversation around the Israeli war against the Palestinians, Tabassum was targeted by pro-Israeli activists who claimed to feel threatened. On the basis of this feeling of endangerment, whose source the university refused to disclose, USC decided to cancel her speech. In a thoughtful response, Tabassum—who majored in biomedical engineering and history (with a minor in resistance to genocide)—implored her classmates “to think outside the box—to work towards a world where cries of equality and human dignity are not manipulated to be expressions of hatred. I challenge us to respond to ideological discomfort with dialogue and learning, not bigotry and censorship.” Tabassum is 21 years old. The USC provost who canceled her speech, Andrew Guzman, is 56 years old. His reasons for shutting her down are less mature than her plea for dialogue.

College students across the United States have been trying desperately to raise awareness about what is happening in Gaza and have sought to get their campuses to divest from companies with investments in Israel and in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Early protests were tolerated, but then U.S. politicians got involved with congressional hearings and rash comments about these students being funded by the Chinese and Russians. College administrators, afraid of their donors and of political pressure, buckled and began to censor the students from one end of the country (Columbia University) to the other (Pomona College). College presidents invited local police departments onto their campuses, allowed them to arrest the students, and suspended them from their colleges. But the mood is undeniable. Student unions across the country—from Rutgers to Davis—voted to force their administrations to divest from Israel.

What’s Repugnant?

On April 12, 2024, the Berlin police closed a Palestine conference that brought together people from across Germany to listen to a range of speakers, including from other parts of Europe and from Palestine. At the airport, the police detained and then deported the British-Palestinian doctor, Ghassan Abu Sitta, who had volunteered in Gaza and had witnessed the genocidal war firsthand. The former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis was to give an online speech at the conference. He was not only prevented from giving that speech, but also was issued a betätigungsverbot—or a ban from any political activity in Germany (ban from entry into Germany and a ban from doing an online event). This, Varoufakis said, is essentially the “death knell of the prospects of democracy in the Federal Republic of Germany.”

A few days before the conference in Berlin, Professor Jodi Dean published an essay on the Verso Blog called “Palestine Speaks for Everyone.” The essay is rooted in the simple, and unobjectionable, idea that oppressed people have the right to fight for their emancipation. This is the basis of the International Declaration of Human Rights, also cited frequently by Varoufakis. The day after the Palestine conference was shut down in Berlin, Jodi Dean’s employer, President Mark Gearan of Hobart and William Smith Colleges in the United States, published a statement announcing that Professor Dean cannot teach the rest of her classes this term. Gearan wrote that not only was he in “complete disagreement” with Dean, but he also found her comments to be “repugnant.” It is interesting that since October, Gearan has only released a public statement condemning Hamas, but nothing about the horrendous genocidal violence against the Palestinians.

What did Jodi Dean write that was so “repugnant”? Gearan focused on the word “exhilarating,” which Dean used to describe her reaction to paragliders that went beyond the Israeli occupation fence around Gaza. She did not actually celebrate the attacks of October 7, but merely used the paragliders as a metaphor to consider the politics of hope and liberation from a Palestinian standpoint (citing the last poem of Refaat Alareer, killed by Israel on December 6, 2023, with its meditation on kites to highlight the idea of soaring above oppression). Gearan did not want a dialogue about the occupation or about the genocide. Like the editors and publishers of the New York Times, like the German government, and like other U.S. college presidents, Gearan wanted to curtail conversation. Tabassum’s plea for “dialogue and learning” was muzzled; too scared to actually talk about Palestine, people like Gearan prefer “bigotry and censorship.”

By Vijay Prashad

Author Bio: This article was produced by Globetrotter. Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor, and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter. He is an editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He has written more than 20 books, including The Darker Nations and The Poorer Nations. His latest books are Struggle Makes Us Human: Learning from Movements for Socialism and (with Noam Chomsky) The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of U.S. Power.

© Scoop Media

The US and the Erosion of the Two-State Solution

Opinion


Nabil Amr
Palestinian writer and politician
Tuesday - 23 April 2024

The veto... is a consistent feature of US policy towards Palestine. The US explained its position by asserting that the United Nations is not the right place to address this issue. In fact, the US claims that raising this matter at the UN is the main obstacle to resolving the issue, as there is no alternative to direct negotiations between the parties to the conflict.
Since the Madrid peace process, which was taken to Washington and then Oslo, the Palestinian question has been in limbo. There has not been a solution; instead, we saw a war that goes beyond the confines of Palestine-Israel, and there are now real fears that it could expand to become a regional war. Here we are now, standing at the abyss, and there is nothing to reassure us that the current formula, which is grounded in the premise that neither Iran nor the US wants such a war, will hold.

Gaza remains the main flashpoint, and its current regional extension, due to the shared border, is the northern front. All that it would take for us to find ourselves in the midst of a regional war are surprises on the battlefield and an Israeli venture to impose one as it continues to draw the US into the conflict.

After the consulate attack, and the retaliation and counter-retaliation drills, it was leaked that the US, which is keen on keeping the military developments in the region under control and minimizing their scope to the greatest extent possible, had traded limiting the scope of Israel’s retaliation to the missile and drone “spectacle” for approval of the Israeli military campaign on Rafah.

Despite the US denying that such a deal had been made, developments on the ground do not demonstrate the contrary. The attack on Rafah is being discussed by the Israelis and Americans. They are not discussing whether the invasion should take place, but how to account for humanitarian considerations. These considerations can be circumvented by programming military operations and tying them to the provision of relatively safe zones for civilians. That is not very different from the formula of trading a limited response to Iran for Rafah.

Israel has far more freedom in operations in the Gaza Strip than it does on Iranian territory. Since the beginning of the war, Israel has seemed completely unrestrained in Gaza, as it has been shielded by the laxity of the US, which nominally expresses reservations about its actions on the ground while fully backing its goals.

There is nothing new here. The Gaza war has been on this trajectory since it began. However, what is new is that the US has walked back on framing the two-state solution as the sole only way to avoid inflaming the region. If we compare US statements regarding this particular issue with its current rhetoric, we find a clear difference, not only in terminology but also in content and the direction being taken.

In their previous statements about the aftermath of the conflict, the Americans had gone as far as saying that they were looking for a way to recognize the Palestinian state. They said that they had consulted with numerous parties on this matter and discussed the need to reform the Palestinian Authority as a first step to solving the post-war quagmire. The plan would involve handing over Gaza to an "improved" PA and making serious efforts that would lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state. President Biden even said that this would happen within the framework of a “regional solution.”

The shift in rhetoric and behavior became clear after Israel mobilized all of its forces to prevent the US position from evolving, even reverting back to older premises. In this context, the Knesset voted, with an overwhelming majority, to reject the “imposition” of a Palestinian state and to insist that not only the question of establishment but also characteristics, should be negotiated rather than imposed.

The effectiveness of the "brakes" Israel put on the US initiative is obvious. Not only did the US persistently and keenly seek to prevent the UN Security Council from passing a vote on this matter, the US diplomatic top brass’s explanation of its "veto" also fully aligns with the Israeli position: there is only one path to resolving the Palestinian question, Israel, with a thin added veneer of negotiations that Israel categorically rejects.

With the Iranian-Israeli skirmishes, the involvement of the US and NATO in those skirmishes, the persistence of the war on Gaza, the American-Israeli understandings regarding Rafah, and Israel's ongoing operations on the northern front that abide by long-standing rules, we have seen a rapid erosion of the US position on the two-state solution that had been laid out as part of the plan for "the day after.”

The bottom line is that US policy towards Palestine has reverted back to where it had been in the past. The most dangerous aspect of this stance is that the solution has been placed in the hands of Israel. Recently, President Biden settled the matter by saying that now is not the time to recognize the Palestinian state. It reminds us of his statement in Bethlehem. “The Palestinians have the right to a state, but that will not be achieved, in the long term or longer term.” That means that the matter will continue to be discussed but no efforts will be made to bring it about!

RAPE IS MISOGYNISTIC FEMICIDE 

50% increase in conflict-related sexual violence cases in 2023: UN official

'In 2023, women and girls accounted for 95% of the verified cases,' says Pramila Patten

Merve Aydogan |23.04.2024 -




HAMILTON, Canada

The UN on Tuesday highlighted the alarming surge in conflict-related sexual violence globally, shedding light on the devastating effect on women and children caught in the crossfire of armed conflicts.

"It records 3,688 UN-verified cases of conflict-related sexual violence committed in the course of 2023, reflecting a dramatic increase of 50% as compared with the previous year," Pramila Patten, special representative on sexual violence in conflict, told a UN Security Council meeting on women, peace and security.

Patten emphasized the dire situation where resources meant to help victims are dwindling while military spending skyrockets, adding that the Council gathered "at a time when military spending has soared to over US $2.2 trillion, while humanitarian aid budgets have been slashed."

Underscoring the disproportionate effect on women and girls, Patten said, "In 2023, women and girls accounted for 95% of the verified cases, with 5% recorded against men and boys."

She drew attention to the Middle East, where ongoing bloodshed and terror have left survivors of gender-based violence with nowhere to turn.

"Regarding the occupied West Bank, according to UN-verified information, the arrests and detention of Palestinian women and men by Israeli security forces, following the 7th of October attacks, have often been accompanied by ill-treatment, including forms of sexual violence. Similar allegations have emerged from Gaza," she noted.

Patten echoed UN chief Antonio Guterres' demand for a cease-fire, "to end the unspeakable suffering of Palestinian civilians and to bring about the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages."

She said, “We cannot condemn the perpetrators of sexual violence in our speeches, while continuing to fund and arm them for our supply chains."

Danai Gurira, UN Women Goodwill Ambassador, echoed Patten's sentiments, highlighting the widespread nature of the crimes across 25 conflict situations globally.

"Nothing is more dangerous than crimes that are not acknowledged, crimes that are unseen and allowed to persist," Gurira emphasized.

She emphasized the urgent need for action, pointing to the impunity that perpetrators often enjoy in conflict zones.

"It is still largely cost-free to rape in the chaos of conflict," she lamented, calling for stronger measures to end cultures of impunity.