NATO/US Complicity in the Relentless Israeli Genocide of Gaza

By Ann Wright

July 19, 2024

Source: World Beyond War

Image by Hatem Ali

As Israel continued its relentless genocide on steroids of Palestinians in Gaza with over 140 killed in the past weekend, imprisonment without charges of thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank and destruction of the hospitals, universities, schools (8 UNRWA schools bombed in the past 10 days), cultural centers and indiscriminate bombing of markets, soccer fields and “safe area” residents of Gaza have been forced into, an assassination attempt was made on former President Trump and NATO finished its gala 75^th Anniversary celebrations in Washington, DC.

Biden Says “U.S. Politics Should Never Be A Killing Field,” While He is complicit in the Israeli “Killing Fields” in Gaza

As the genocide continued and a few days after the end of the NATO celebrations, an assassination attempt on former President Trump caused President Biden to address the nation and orate that “political violence has no place in America and U.S. politics should never be a killing field.”

The statement of no political violence and no killing fields in America rings totally hollow as the Biden administration and NATO countries fuel the Israeli killing fields in Gaza with over 90 Palestinians killed and 300 wounded by multiple Israeli rocket attacks in Khan Yunis on Saturday, July 12, and 80 Palestinians killed in the past 24 hours of July 13 in several refugee camps.

NATO members fuel the Genocide of Gaza by Selling/Sending Weapons to Israel

Heads of 32 NATO member states and 10 NATO “global partners” , Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Colombia, Mongolia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, met in Washington, DC at the 75^th Anniversary events of NATO.

Some of the NATO members and partners are the same countries that are aiding and abetting the Israeli genocide of Gaza.

An Office for the State of Israel Located in the NATO Headquarters

NATO has a long, close and relatively unknown relationship with Israel that, eight years ago, resulted in establishment of an Israeli office in NATO headquarters in Brussels in 2016.  Underscoring the importance to Israeli association with NATO, Prime Minister Netanyahu said upon the opening of the office, “This is an important step that helps Israel’s security. It is further proof to the status of Israel and the willingness of many organizations to cooperate with us in the field of security.”

The invitation from NATO for Israel to have an office in NATO headquarters was a result of pressure by other NATO members on Turkey to drop its veto of the invitation. The invitation arose through a new NATO partnership policy beginning in 2014 but Turkey vetoed the invitation until 2016.

Behind the scenes negotiations between Turkey and Israel in 2015 warmed the chilly relationship that had been essentially severed between the countries in 2010 over Israeli commandos killing 10 Turkish activists and wounding over 50 participants on the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish ship bound for Gaza as a part of the 7-ship Gaza Freedom Flotilla.

According to NATO documents, NATO and Israel have worked together for almost 30 years, cooperating in science and technology, counter terrorism, civil preparedness, countering weapons of mass destruction and women, peace and security. To strengthen NATO naval interoperability NATO brought on Israel as a partner for NATO’s Operation Sea Guardian.  Israel’s military medical academy now serves as a “unique asset” for NATO’s Partnership Training and Education Centers community.

Israel is not officially integrated in NATO but is part of the Mediterranean Dialogue, a program sponsored by NATO in cooperation with seven countries of the Mediterranean.

Only 4 of 32 NATO Members do NOT Sell Weapons to Israel or Buy Weapons from Israel

NATO’s long-standing working relationship with Israel has translated into NATO countries selling weapons to Israel and other countries buying weapons from Israel’s big weapons industry.

With the exception of Canada, the Netherlands, Spain, and Belgium, the remainder of the 32 NATO members continue to sell/send weapons to Israel as Israel conducts genocide operations on Palestinians in Gaza. Due to a court case, Denmark may suspend export of F-35 fighter jet parts to the U.S., because the U.S. sells the jets to Israel.

Even Latvia sold weapons to Israel, while Lithuania bought weapons from Israel. Greece,  Albania,  Slovakia, and many other NATO countries have purchased military equipment from Israel.

The Action on Armed Violence has a comprehensive worldwide listing of weapons sales and transfers to Israel.

The US is the mammoth supplier to Israel, providing an estimated 68% of Israel’s foreign-sourced weapons.

Israel has been the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign aid since its founding in 1948, having received about $310 BILLION dollars in economic and military assistance.  Since October 7, 2023, the U.S. has passed legislation that has provided at least $12.5 billion in military aid to Israel, which included $3.8 billion from legislation in March 2024 and $8.7 billion from a supplemental appropriation in April 2024.

Since October 7, only two of the more than one hundred military aid transfers to Israel have reportedly met the congressional review threshold of $250 million to be made public, and since the records for the other weapons transfers have not been made public, we can’t be sure.  Additionally, the Israeli military received expedited deliveries of weapons from a strategic stockpile of weapons  that is normally used to replenishment weapons for U.S. units in the Middle East.  The U.S. has maintained massive warehouses for the stockpile of huge variety and amount of weapons since the 1980s.

All of the Israeli Air Force’s manned aircraft that are bombing people in Gaza are American-made, with the exception of one helicopter built by France’s Airbus Helicopters.  Israel is the first international operator of the U.S. F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the most technologically advanced fighter jet ever made, and had taken delivery of 36 of 75 F-35s by the end of 2023, paying for them with U.S. assistance.

In 2016 the U.S. and Israel signed a third 10-year Memorandum of Understanding covering the 2018-2028 period providing for $38 billion in military aid, $33 billion in grants to buy military equipment and $5 billion for missile defense systems. Israel received 69% of its military aid from the U.S. in the 2019-2023 period, according to a March fact sheet issued by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

Israel ranks 98^th in world population, with a population of only 9.4 million, only 0.11% of the world’s population, and ranks 154th of all countries in land mass. Despite its small population and land, a study by SIPRI ranks Israel as the world’s 15th top weapons importer, receiving 2.1% of all imports, according to globally available data from 2019-2023. Israel is the world’s 9th top weapons exporter, responsible for 2.4% of exports.

Germany is the second largest weapons provider to Israel providing around 30% of all foreign weapons to Israel.

Germany is the second largest weapons provider to Israel providing around 30% of all foreign weapons to Israel. In 2023, Germany approved military equipment and arms exports to Israel worth $353.70 million, a 10-fold increase compared with 2022, This includes 4 submarines. according to the German Economy Ministry data and data submitted to the International Court of Justice in Nicaragua’s case against Germany for complicity in the genocide of Gaza.

In April 2024, Nicaragua argued that Germany had breached the UN genocide convention by sending military hardware to Israel, thereby aiding and abetting genocide and violating international humanitarian law in Gaza.

Remarkably, after the International Court of Justice called on nations and citizens to do more to prevent the genocide, the ICJ ruled against issuing emergency orders to stop Germany’s arms sales to Israel.

As a slap-in-the-face to reality, after denying the emergency request to halt German weapons to Israel, presiding Judge Nawaf Salam had the gall to say that the court “remains deeply concerned about the catastrophic living conditions of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, in particular in view of the prolonged and widespread deprivation of food and other basic necessities to which they have been subjected.”

Adding, that the court “considers it particularly important to remind all states of their international obligations relating to the transfer of arms to parties to an armed conflict, in order to avoid the risk that such arms might be used” to violate international law.

The dissenting opinion in the ICJ ruling noted that the German government was not honest in its case: “Indeed, since the closure of oral hearings, Nicaragua has brought to the Court’s attention information from the German Government concerning the export licences granted for Israel in 2024. These include war weapons and other military equipment, apparently not for training or test purposes, as Germany had suggested in respect of certain earlier licences. Licences granted in 2024 concern, among other things, ammunition for machine guns; propellant charges; items falling within the category of warships (surface or underwater), specialized naval equipment, accessories, components and other surface vessels; and, most ominously, an item falling into the category of chemical agents, biological agents, irritants, radioactive substances, associated equipment, components and materials. It is also worth pointing out that the Court dealt with “other military equipment” as exclusively relating to non-lethal equipment. This was an oversimplification dealt with summarily by the Court since, under German law, certain lethal weapons may fall under the “other military equipment” category.”

In April 2024, citing international law and the ongoing genocide in Gaza, human rights lawyers asked the Berlin administrative court to suspend the German government’s decision to send 3,000 anti-tank weapons to Israel, according to Reuters. An export permit application for 10,000 rounds of ammunition to Israel had yet to be approved.

Conveniently, the US, which provides Israel with twice as much weaponry as Germany, does not recognize the ICJ’s compulsory jurisdiction.

The US, which provides Israel with twice as much weaponry as Germany does not recognize the ICJ’s compulsory jurisdiction.

While the United States initially accepted the general compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ, it withdrew  consent in 1985 after the ICJ issued an unfavorable jurisdictional decision in a case relating to U.S. military intervention in Nicaragua. Subsequently, ICJ jurisdiction over the United States became contingent on specific treaty provisions—creating a limited exposure that the United States has generally sought to avoid, particularly in more recent years. In 2005 and 2018, the United States responded to another series of unfavorable ICJ decisions by similarly withdrawing from the Optional Protocol for the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (VCCR).

Sevim Dagdelen, member of the German Parliament, Opposes German Weapons Sales and Transfers to Israel

Member of the German Parliament Sevim Dagdelen spoke in Washington, DC on July 6, 2024 at the NO to NATO; YES to PEACE symposium and on July 7 at the rally for peace at the White House.

In her talks, she said that while from 2019 to 2023, 30 percent of weapons into Israel came from Germany,  in 2023, the percentage of weapons sent to Israel dramatically increased to 47 percent from Germany while the USA supplied 53 percent.

Dagdelen spoke of three myths concerning NATO.

First myth: That NATO is a defensive alliance abiding by international law.

Dagdelen said that “over the last quarter century, NATO has waged unprovoked, illegal wars of aggression against Yugoslavia and Libya; and the United States, the leader of the alliance, invaded and occupied Iraq, in a catastrophic adventure – to name three notorious examples.”

Second myth: That NATO stands for democracy and the rule of law.

“The reality is that NATO has never had a problem with counting military dictatorships or fascist regimes among its members. Portugal, one of NATO’s founding members, murdered thousands of Africans in its colonial wars and tortured hundreds to death in concentration camps. That was never a problem for this particular collective of shared values, just as Erdoğan’s Türkiye, with its support for jihadists terrorist groups in Syria, poses no particular ethical problem for it today.”

Third myth: That NATO is a community of shared values and stands for human rights.

“In reality, the wars conducted by the United States and its Allies over the last 20 years alone have killed four and a half million people, as calculated by researchers at the esteemed Brown University. The torture and detention camp at Guantánamo Bay Naval Base is still in operation to this day. The journalist Julian Assange was tormented nearly to death for 14 years because he had published evidence of US war crimes. Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government continues to receive American and European support in the form of arms deliveries for its onslaught against Gaza, which cannot credibly be justified by recourse to the right of self-defense.”

Italy is Number 3 provider of Weapons to Israel; UK still grants export licenses for weapons to Israel; France still providing weapons to Israel

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), from 2013-2013, Italy is the third highest weapons seller to Israel providing 4.7% of foreign weapons.

In 2023, Britain granted export licenses to sell at least $52.5 million of military equipment to Israel – mainly munitions, unmanned air vehicles, small arms ammunition and components for aircraft, helicopters, and assault rifles.

The UK government does not give arms directly to Israel but rather licenses companies to sell equipment components into U.S. supply chains, such as for F-35 jets.

The most recent shipment of war equipment to Israel from France was electronic equipment for drones from the French firm Thales. The shipment took place on May 26, 2024.

Not Just NATO Members, but Many of NATO’s Partners Sell Weapons to Israel

South Korea’s weapons trade with Israel has grown significantly over the past decade. South Korea sold weapons worth $47 million to Israel over the past 10 years and the Hyundai corporation has sold equipment to Israel that is used to demolish Palestinian homes for Israeli settlement.

Penny Wong, the Australian foreign affairs minister, has said her country has not supplied weapons since the start of the Gaza conflict yet data from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) shows that in February 2024 alone Australia directly exported over l$1.5 million in ‘arms and ammunition’ to Israel. At an Australian Senate Estimates hearing, the Chief Economist of DFAT acknowledged that Australia has exported $10 million worth of ‘arms and ammunition’ to Israel over the past five years.

Of the larger NATO partners, Japan and New Zealand have stopped selling weapons to Israel during the genocide period.

NATO’s Washington Final Statement includes no mention of the genocide of Gaza and only a short reference to the Middle East

While NATO members are deeply complicit in the Israeli genocide of Gaza, the final statement of the NATO summit in Washington mentioned nothing about the Israeli genocide of Gaza, the deaths of 38,000 Palestinians, the wounding of over one hundred thousand and the destruction of housing, hospitals, schools, universities, religious buildings and UN facilities for 2.1 million Palestinians.

Instead, NATO included only a brief reference to the Middle East, referring to the region as the “southern neighbor.”  The paragraph on the Middle East concludes that the NATO Secretary General will designate a Special Representative for the southern neighborhood, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan has agreed to have a NATO Liaison Office located in Amman, the NATO-ICI Regional Centre will continue in Kuwait and “based on the request of the Iraqi authorities, we have broadened the scope of our support to the Iraqi Security Institutions and will continue our engagement through the NATO Mission Iraq (NMI).”

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About the Author: Ann Wright served 29 years in the US Army/Army Reserves and retired as a  Colonel. She served 16 years as a US diplomat and resigned from the US government in 2003 in opposition to the US war on Iraq.  She is a co-author of “Dissent: Voices of Conscience.”

US Naval Efforts Falter as Yemen’s Blockade Bankrupts Israel’s Eilat Port

By Robert Inlakesh

July 19, 2024

Source: Mint Press News


Image by Mint Press News



Despite the formation of a multinational naval coalition led by the United States, the Israeli-controlled Port of Eilat has reportedly gone bankrupt and is seeking a government bailout. The situation underscores the failure of U.S.-led efforts against Yemen’s Ansar Allah–known pejoratively as the Houthis–blockade in the Red Sea, enforced until Israel ends its war on Gaza.

“It must be acknowledged that the port is in a state of bankruptcy,” said Gideon Golber, CEO of the Port of Eilat, who has been vocal about the port’s dire economic condition for months and is now appealing for financial support from the Israeli government. Speaking to the Knesset’s Economic Affairs Committee on July 7, Golber noted that economic activity ceased following Ansar Allah’s Red Sea blockade.

On November 19, Yemen’s Ansar Allah seized the Israeli-linked shipping vessel ‘Galaxy Leader’ off the coast of Hodeidah, declaring the operation an act of solidarity with Gaza. Brigadier General Yahya Saree, spokesperson for the Yemeni Armed Forces, subsequently announced that no Israeli-linked ships would be allowed passage through the Red Sea.

Although Ansar Allah began firing missiles and drones at Israel on October 19, the comprehensive blockade in the Red Sea to prevent ships from reaching the Israeli-operated Port of Eilat wasn’t fully enforced until late November. In December, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced that the U.S. would lead a multinational naval coalition named Operation Prosperity Guardian to ensure the free passage of ships to Eilat.

Within the first month of the blockade, economic activity at the Port of Eilat dropped by 85%, according to Reuters. Despite efforts from the U.S. and U.K. navies to combat the blockade, they remained confident they could restore the flow of ships to Israel.

However, after continued defeats inflicted by Ansar Allah, which prevented ships from passing through waters defended by the U.S.-led coalition, another military operation, ‘Operation Poseidon Archer,’ was announced. This operation aimed to destroy Yemeni military infrastructure but failed to locate critical targets. Following a large-scale Yemeni attack on American vessels on January 10, periodic airstrikes and retaliatory attacks on ships continued.

In June, the CEO of the Port of Eilat declared, “There has been no work at all for seven months.” He attributed this to the coalition’s weakness in dealing with Ansar Allah: “This issue cannot be neglected despite the war. But there are no solutions, so I am not ashamed to tell clients to pay the Houthis $100,000 to cross, and I will participate in the financing. I don’t sleep at night, and if you have to pay the Egyptians to go through the Suez Canal, or the Houthis to go through Bab al Mandab, then that’s what’s needed.”

A month earlier, the Port of Eilat faced criticism for threatening to fire half of its approximately 120 workers. This move drew condemnation from Israel’s top labor union, the Histadrut, and even involved the Israeli Knesset.

While the economic collapse of the Port of Eilat has been unfolding over the past eight months, it has been covered in Israeli Hebrew media but received little attention in Western media. This is likely due to the stunning military failure of Operation Prosperity Guardian, which drained significant resources and U.S. taxpayer funds in an embarrassing and ultimately failed attempt to save an Israeli port.

NAKBA II

Israel Is Reviewing a Proposal to Install a “Moderate Muslim” Puppet Regime in Gaza

THEY TRIED THAT HIS NAME IS ABBAS

The plan, which Israeli officials have called “brilliant,” calls for re-educating Palestinians, destroying UNRWA, and razing refugee camps

By Yaniv Cogan

July 20, 2024

Source: Drop Site News

Image of the remains of the beseiged Al Shifa Hospital complex, the largest in Gaza. Photo: @sahouraxo/X

On Thursday, the Israeli Knesset voted overwhelmingly to thwart any effort to establish an independent Palestinian state and, in effect, doubled down on Israel’s longstanding project of confining Palestinians in increasingly isolated and uninhabitable ghettos. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made clear he opposes any ceasefire with Hamas that does not allow for him to continue his military campaign in Gaza and has worked to sabotage a negotiated end to the war.

At the same time, the Israeli government has been entertaining dystopian and fundamentally unrealistic “post-war” plans for governing Gaza—either through occupation, or, as one influential paper suggests, installing a “moderate Muslim” puppet regime.

Israeli security officials praised the recent academic paper recommending the elimination of democracy in Gaza and the rebuilding of Gazan society into a “moderate Muslim entity” in the mold of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. In the plan are several ideas for entirely remaking Gazan society, including razing refugee camps, banning “every existing” schoolbook, and establishing total control of the media. The proposal also calls for the elimination of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency and shutting down the social and humanitarian programs run by Hamas and replacing them with an alternative Israeli-controlled structure.

“We, at the [Israeli] National Security Council, have read [this] excellent document,” its director Tzachi Hanegbi told i24 News in a recent interview, “and at the end of the day we, the decision makers, will have to take into account this analysis, because it’s a brilliant analysis.”

While some prominent Israeli political leaders and government officials have advocated a more extreme plan for Gaza that would entail a permanent military occupation or even the removal of the entire Palestinian population, the academics’ proposal opens a window into the range of options being contemplated at the highest levels of power in Israel. As Israeli officials conduct intellectual war games for a future in Gaza, Palestinians remain trapped in a hellscape of constant bombardment, military occupation, starvation, and threats of annihilation.

According to the four Israeli academics who authored the paper, which is titled “From a Murderous Regime to a Moderate Society,” it has had significant influence in the halls of power. “It was very well received. We know it was well read and circulated. Very senior people got it more than once with a recommendation of reading and discussing it,” Israeli professor Netta Barak-Corren said on a recent podcast hosted by Dan Senor, the former spokesperson for the U.S.’s military occupation regime in Iraq.

The “day after” plan for Gaza received praise from the prominent American neoconservative who was a key player in Iraq in 2003, when the Bush administration imposed a sweeping agenda to forcibly erase the Ba’ath Party ideology from Iraqi society. “The entire effort, I think it’s extraordinary,” said Senor on his podcast. “I know a number of Israeli officials who feel that way as well. It’s certainly having an impact, and making the rounds.” Senor was a senior advisor to L. Paul Bremer, who ran the Iraqi occupation in its early stages and implemented a regime that was disastrous for Iraqis and helped spark a decade-long insurgency against American forces.

The paper was distributed to senior officials in Israel’s national security establishment, including staff at the National Security Council, the upper echelons of the Israeli Defense Forces and the Shin Bet intelligence agency starting in February 2024. It was also presented to the five members of the War Cabinet—the decision-making body which, up until its recent disbandment, had the final say over Israel’s policies in Gaza.

Israeli news outlets did not report on it until June, however, noting that the 28-page document hadn’t been released to the public. Danny Orbach, one of the paper’s authors and a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, explained in a Facebook post that they kept it private because of “specific operational recommendations” in the original. Drop Site News obtained a copy shortly after that—which, at 32 pages, appears to be an edited or updated version—and the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University recently posted the 32-page version, as well.

The paper, which you can access in full here, aggregates lessons from four different historical regime change operations—Japan and Germany after the Second World War, and Iraq and Afghanistan after the U.S.-led invasions—and outlines recommendations for Israel’s current efforts to overthrow the democratically elected Hamas government in Gaza.

The social order before October 7, the authors claim, facilitated the emergence of a “socio-political structure which … directly benefited Hamas.” Its breakdown, due to “the movement of many residents into ad-hoc safe zones…. the destruction of houses, public buildings and infrastructure…. the death of tens of thousands of the residents of the Strip, a significant portion of them terrorists, but alongside them more than a few civilians…. the humanitarian hardship and hunger” has created a “spectrum of possibilities,” which Israel must navigate carefully to ensure its desired outcome.

In December 2023, one of the paper’s authors, Dr. Harel Chorev of Tel Aviv University, appeared on the official IDF podcast, Ma’arachot, to discuss the question, “Can Hamas be eliminated?” He emphasized that Israel’s destruction of Gaza was an essential component of the efforts to marginalize Hamas: “Once you make it clear that [Hamas] not only did not win, but that it has brought about a horrific catastrophe upon itself, and also upon its people … and when this ends with Hamas’s metaphorical and non-metaphorical corpse laying on the floor, robbed and finished off, this will have a very positive echo.”

Chorev’s framing of the destruction of Gaza and the immense human suffering it is causing as achievements of the IDF is consistent with recent comments from IDF field commanders like Brigadier General Yair Palai, who oversees thousands of Golani Brigade soldiers in Gaza. “When the residents of Gaza come back here, someday, they will not believe what Hamas did to them and their homes,” Palai said in an interview published by Israel Hayom. “It’s all [Hamas’s] responsibility. It destroyed their lives, their possessions.”

The strategic mentality reflected in these comments long predates the current Gaza war. More than a decade prior to the October 7 attacks, Dan Schueftan, a former lecturer at the IDF’s National Security College, the equivalent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, explained: “Ground invasions should be carried out, perhaps under the banner of ‘harming enemy forces,’ but their real significance is the devastation they leave behind them. I don’t mind that as a pretext we claim that there is some military objective, because that’s required by all these International Law people, so we can bring in some lawyer to explain how to do it, but the main thing is that [we understand] very clearly [the real purpose].”

The fourth co-author of “From a Murderous Regime to a Moderate Society,” Nathaniel Palmer of Bar-Ilan University, also articulated his view that the damage the war brings upon the Palestinian population as a whole is a benefit. “Who should [be made to] feel defeated? Hamas or the ordinary Palestinian? My position is quite clear and it is that based on the lessons from the historical record, it is the ordinary Palestinian[s who] should feel defeated,” Palmer said in an interview with Yediot Aharonot. The regime change proposal itself notes: “It’s important that among the Palestinian public, too, there will be widespread understanding that Hamas has been defeated.”

The post-“total defeat” rehabilitation plan envisioned in the paper seems increasingly irrelevant. Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades and its allies from other armed factions in Gaza have demonstrated a significant capacity to sustain a guerrilla war against the Israeli assault. At the same time, the Israeli military and political leadership remains committed to the implementation of a genocidal policy that would render Gaza permanently uninhabitable. And reviewing the plan’s details offers important insight into some of the concrete ambitions of Israeli policy planners, undermining claims that the assault on Gaza is a targeted operation focused solely on Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Among its recommendations, the paper calls for:
Razing refugee camps and replacing them with “orderly” Israeli-built housing

The camps themselves, the paper notes, make up a significant portion of Hamas’s social base. “We recommend destroying the infrastructure of the refugee camps to the ground, and building orderly neighborhoods in their stead, which will ensure appropriate living conditions, and into which Gazan families will return,” it concludes. But the authors state this supposed rebuilding process, which is both technically impossible and politically unlikely, will have to wait until after a “total defeat” is inflicted on Hamas: “the historical record shows that until a total defeat [has been achieved]—there is no point in initiating attempts to carry out … restoration of systems.”
Imposing a censorship regime on the education system, media broadcasts, and youth movements

The plan calls for the removal of “particularly extremist educators,” as well as an immediate ban on “every existing school book” and suggests replacing them with alternative textbooks based on the curricula used in UAE and Saudi Arabia. In February, around the time the paper was first distributed, the former head of the Mossad and Israel’s National Security Council, Yossi Cohen, stated: “The Emiratis did an amazing job with their school books. There were multiple examples [changes they’ve made], saying Israel is with us, an ally, an important ally. If only there was a [Palestinian] leader of the caliber of Mohammed bin Zayed, who is a giant.”

The paper also proposes the imposition of a censorship regime over media broadcasts, higher education institutions, and youth movements. The commissions overseeing the censorship would be staffed by “moderate Palestinians,” so as not to be perceived as an arm of the Israeli occupation.

The paper rounds out its reeducation plan by proposing to circulate to Palestinians in Gaza materials about “Israeli history and culture” aimed at “developing empathy and encouraging peace and tolerance.” Similar mechanisms of surveillance and subjugation have been honed by Israel’s Shin Bet and employed continuously against Palestinians citizens of Israel ever since its founding.
Installing limited government under constant threat by Israel

While Palestinians would be subjected to an Israeli-mandated brainwashing program, the day-to-day administration of Gaza would be handled by a mix of local leaders amenable to Israel’s agenda, and foreign Arab forces. In order to compel their collaboration, the authors suggest wielding over them the constant threat of a permanent Israeli military rule: “Israel must make it clear to its partners that it has an alternative: if no effective day-after solution for the control of Gaza is achieved, it will have no choice but to take the responsibility of itself and reassume control over Gaza. This has major significance, seeing as in the current Palestinian state of mind, loss of land is a much greater threat than the destruction of buildings or the loss, even if massive, of human lives.”

Similar allusions to, and in some cases explicit calls for a “second Nakba” have been made by several Israeli politicians. Knesset member Gideon Sa’ar, head of the right wing New Hope party, which joined the emergency unity government established in October and quit the coalition in late March 2024, proclaimed: “Gaza must be smaller by the end of the war. … They must lose that territory … they must pay a price, with them, human life or damage to property is less important—but this, they understand.”
Pushing UNRWA out of Gaza

The Israeli government has long sought to obliterate from existence the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA. Established in 1949 to protect the right of return of Palestinians violently expelled from their land and homes during the establishment of the state of Israel, UNRWA serves as the premiere provider of humanitarian and educational programs in Gaza. Throughout the 9 months of war in Gaza, Israel has falsely characterized UNRWA as an affiliate of Hamas and has bombed its facilities and killed its staff. Israel also convinced the U.S. and other major Western powers to suspend funding to the group by waging a propaganda campaign accusing its staff of complicity in the October 7 attacks.

The authors assert the UN agency uses its schools to spread “terroristic indoctrination” and that it publishes “reports that falsify the information about the conditions in the [Gaza] Strip”—presumably a reference to UNRWA’s carefully compiled situation reports documenting IDF attacks on civilian targets in Gaza and efforts by Israel to impede the delivery of humanitarian aid.

Israeli politicians have frequently expressed a desire to shut down UNRWA: On Twitter/X alone, members of the Knesset and Israeli government ministers have posted 277 tweets referring to the agency between October 7, 2023, and June 1, 2024. Of these, 135 alleged that UNRWA workers were terrorists or aiding terrorism, 65 called for UNRWA to be dismantled, another 66 called upon other nations to defund UNRWA, and 10 called for unspecified “reforms” in UNRWA. Only one post asserted UNRWA’s legitimacy.

A similar prescription is made in relation to Hamas’s Dawa (charity and social services) networks. The academics assert that Hamas must be prevented from providing any “rehabilitation, welfare, aid, charity, or religious” services to the Gazan population, or “any other actions which might allow it to capture the hearts of the residents.”
Introducing “humanitarian bubbles”

After shutting down UNRWA’s and Hamas’s vast networks of humanitarian services in Gaza, the paper advocates establishing alternative institutions under Israel’s control.

The paper envisions an Israeli central command structure to coordinate a mechanism staffed by workers of international aid organizations and employees of the Palestinian Authority, who would distribute humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in certain designated “bubbles.” Recent reporting in the Washington Post and the Financial Times suggests the IDF is beginning to implement a version of the “humanitarian bubbles” model, with the latter attributing the scheme to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Details of the plan were reported in the Israeli media in April, but no mention of the term “humanitarian bubbles” appeared prior to the circulation of the academics’ paper in February.

By all available indications, the “bubbles” model would merely be a distraction from Israel’s actual policy of starving the Palestinian population. Gallant, who reportedly championed the implementation of the bubbles model, had previously vowed to impose a total siege on the city of Gaza: “There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.” Months into Israel’s assault on the Strip, when IDF soldiers confronted him and demanded “no aid goes in, we will stop the aid,” Gallant appeared to endorse their demands. Such statements, coupled with the IDF’s manifest efforts to limit the entry of aid into Gaza, have led the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor to recommend the issuance of an arrest warrant against Gallant, for, among other charges, the crime of starvation.

His fellow Israeli decision makers are similarly determined to deny basic humanitarian relief to Gaza. Members of the hawkish Ministerial Committee on National Security Affairs, also called the Security Cabinet, reportedly proclaimed, “In this war—there’s no such term as ‘humanitarianism.’”

The War Cabinet was similarly single-minded: At the liberal end of the spectrum, both Benny Gantz and Gadi Eizenkot of the Blue and White party have called for limiting the humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza in order to “increase the pressure.” Eizenkot reportedly presented the War Cabinet with his own “day after” proposal, which stated: “Israel does not have a policy of starving the residents of Gaza despite the deep involvement of the Gazan [civilian] population in the atrocities of October 7 and in holding hostages ever since. However, the aid will be limited until the abductees are returned and will be provided by any positive international agency that coordinates this with Israel.”

Eizenkot’s plan was authored by the MIND Israel institute, a national security think tank headed by Major General Amos Yadlin. The former IDF military attaché to Washington, Yadlin has reportedly been engaging in second-track diplomacy with Biden administration officials while praising the blocking of humanitarian aid trucks by Israeli civilians as a way to circumvent Israel’s public commitments to provide sufficient aid to Gaza.

Despite the talk of various proposals for what comes after the war, Israel appears dedicated to implementing a policy of “no day after” for the Palestinians in Gaza. This is consistent with the recommendations by the former head of the National Security Council, Yaakov Amidror, who advised Netanyahu in the early days of the war. “Israel has a huge freedom to retaliate … and yes, there will be many casualties on the other side,” he said. “I think it was the decision of the people of Gaza. They elected Hamas in open elections, so they’ll have to take the consequences.” He added: “Nothing is too much, in this case.”

NAKBA II

Why are North American Synagogues selling Palestinians’ Real Estate in the West Bank?

By Yoav Litvin

July 20, 2024

Source: The New Arab





The marketing of ‘Anglo neighbourhoods’ in the occupied West Bank at real estate events in synagogues in Toronto, Los Angeles, New Jersey, and other locations wouldn’t be out of place 30 years ago in apartheid South Africa or Rhodesia. But perhaps that’s the point.

Branded ‘Anglo Neighbourhoods’, the marketing of illegal settlement real estate in the Israeli-occupied West Bank primarily target Zionist Jews from the US, Canada and the rest of the English-speaking West.

Corporate real estate investment by companies both within and outside Israel have long been integral to settlement policies, with new developments reinforcing this trend.

A Human Rights Watch report reveals how Israeli and international companies build, finance, service and market settlement communities. Settlement businesses thrive on Israel’s unlawful confiscation of Palestinian land and resources, supporting the growth and functioning of settlements.

These businesses, from real estate to construction, benefit from Israel’s discriminatory policies in planning, zoning, land allocation and access to natural resources, financial incentives, utilities and infrastructure.

These policies displace Palestinians and disadvantage them compared to settlers. Consequently, the Palestinian economy suffers, forcing many Palestinians to work in settlements; a dependency used to justify settlement businesses.

But the sale of real estate in stolen land, while outrageous, is not surprising. It is just a recent tactic in a longstanding systematic problem that is now escalating beyond the point of no-return.

The establishment and expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem are widely recognised as violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.

These initiatives accurately encapsulate the function of Zionism in Palestine as a settler colonialist, capitalist and white supremacist movement which opportunistically and antisemitically coopts Judaism to justify its criminal practices of apartheid and genocide against Indigenous Palestinians.

Its strategy, tactics, and goals focus on land grabs and demographic dominance, utilising both official state-sponsored and unofficial methods, such as corporate real estate.
Official colonisation of Palestine

Contrary to the Zionist movement’s duplicitous claims that Palestine was largely uninhabited, Zionist leaders have recognised the necessity of assuming control over Indigenous Palestinian land to realise their exclusivist goals.

For this purpose, they’ve applied a variety of tactics orchestrated by official and unofficial state actors, ranging from peaceful appropriation within questionable legal confines to genocidal aggression.

Numerous official acts of genocide have been executed through deliberate warfare. A defining genocidal episode in Israel’s establishment, during the Palestinian Nakba, was Plan Dalet, a military initiative orchestrated by the Haganah under David Ben-Gurion’s leadership.

Further genocidal bouts of “mowing the lawn,” have demonstrated the Zionist settler colonial dynamic since Israel’s establishment to this day.

The current Israeli government has enhanced its military aggression and prioritised illegal settlement construction, bolstered by the presence of several far-right ministers residing in illegal West Bank settlements.

Indeed, since the departure of former Defense Minister Benny Gantz from Israel’s emergency war cabinet amid disagreements over the Gaza war strategy and the return of Israeli hostages held by Hamas, Netanyahu has increasingly leaned on far-right factions within his coalition government.

In April 2024, the government expanded its control over West Bank land, setting the stage for unprecedented levels of settlement construction. At present, Israel’s Supreme Planning Council is poised to discuss proposals for 6,016 new housing units in West Bank settlements, underscoring the ongoing expansionist policies of the Netanyahu administration.

Notably, annexation and the acquisition of territory through military conquest are prohibited under international law, including the founding principles of the UN Charter.

Bezalel Smotrich, who resides in the illegal settlement of Kedumim, personifies Israel’s genocide-for-land-grab policies. Holding dual roles as Finance Minister and minister within the Defense Ministry overseeing Civil Administration, Smotrich has called for genocide and expulsion of Palestinian people both in Gaza and the West Bank.

In response to international pressures and increased European recognition of a Palestinian state, Smotrich has pursued legal recognition for settler outposts, announcing plans to advance thousands of housing units. Further, Smotrich has spoken in favour of illegally annexing the entirety of the West Bank under the Hebraized name “Judea and Samaria.”

In June, the Israeli military quietly transferred significant legal powers in the occupied West Bank to pro-settler civil servants under Smotrich. He and his allies have long viewed control of the Civil Administration, or substantial portions of it, as a means to extend Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank.

Their ultimate goal is direct control by the central government and its ministries. This transfer methodology diminishes the likelihood of legal checks on settlement expansion and development. By consolidating power, they aim to facilitate and accelerate settlement growth, thereby entrenching Israeli presence and diminishing Palestinian claims.

Unofficial colonisation in the West Bank

Genocidal actions not directly affiliated with the state of Israel have assisted in the circumvention of state accountability before international bodies.

These include settler vigilante rampages often emboldened by military protection and legal cover. Claiming a fictional divine sanction, radical far-right settlers seize hilltops on Palestinian land, forcibly evicting residents to establish illegal outposts. These outposts are subsequently fortified by the Israeli military and eventually legitimised by Israel.

This dynamic has played out in the occupied West Bank since 1967, spanning administrations led by both Labor “liberal” Zionists and right-wing “revisionist” governments alike.

In quasi-legalistic efforts to appropriate Palestinian land, unofficial state organisations antisemitically conflate Zionism and Judaism, appealing to sympathetic Jewish and Christian Zionists globally.

The Jewish National Fund (JNF) has played a pivotal role since its establishment in 1901 as a key land appropriation agency of the Zionist movement. The JNF’s efforts have included land acquisition, settlement development and influencing land policy.

Since its foundation, it has employed various methods to prevent the return of land to its original owners, including land title acquisition, development of Jewish-only colonies, discriminatory practices, forestation, legal frameworks, political influence, land confiscation, settlement construction and legal actions.

These strategies, often cloaked under the guise of ‘environmental sustainability,’ perpetuate the dispossession and displacement of Palestinians, preventing their return to their land.

The JNF has also served a propaganda function by Hebraizing and renaming Palestinian lands, effectively erasing Palestinian heritage. For instance, the JNF named a forest after Coretta Scott King.

This act sought to appropriate American and Christian Zionist culture and belief, fostering a notion of a shared struggle between African Americans and Jewish people, promoting the conflation of Zionism and Judaism, while undermining the natural alliance between Black people and Palestinians against white supremacy and rebranding white settler colonialism as a popular, victorious struggle of victims against their oppressors.

Nowadays, and in line with the government’s shamelessness and unlimited impunity, a large section of the JNF’s function has been superseded by brazen private capitalist companies.

Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and destruction of infrastructure serves to bolster Zionist capitalist fantasies of a real estate bonanza. In March, Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law who may return to the White House in January, praised the “very valuable potential of Gaza’s waterfront property.”

Whether Kushner’s statement was a slip or wishful thinking, an Israeli real estate firm based in the occupied West Bank had already developed building plans dating back to December 2023, only three months into the Gaza genocide, with several of its employees directly participating in the aggression. It is unclear whether Israel’s alleged use of depleted uranium bombs, or threats of nuclear war will affect sales at future real estate marketing events.

With impunity from the white supremacist West and especially the US, Zionist praxis of genocide-for-land-grab can replicate without restraint in Gaza, the West Bank, in historic Palestine, South Lebanon and even the Sinai peninsula.

Unless the Zionist regime, including its corporate proxies, is held accountable with its crimes ended and impunity challenged and abolished, Israel’s malign process will continue indefinitely, destroying the lives and futures of countless Indigenous Palestinian people and endangering the wider Middle East and global communities, including the growing number of conscientious Jewish people who support Palestinian rights and do not identify with Israel and Zionism.