Israeli weapons of mass destruction are a real-life Frankenstein

Israel's dystopian weapons industry poses a threat to humanity, with the Hezbollah pager attacks setting a dangerous precedent, says Richard Silverstein.

Perspectives
NEW ARAB
Richard Silverstein
14 Oct, 2024



Like a spoiled child, whatever Israel wants, Israel gets,

 writes Richard Silverstein [photo credit: Getty Images]

Israel specialises in weapons of mass destruction.

In the 1990s, Israel pioneered the use of armed drones in warfare and was the first to use exploding cell phones in assassinations. Thirty years later, Israel was among the first to use satellite-operated, AI-guided, autonomous weapons, to assassinate an Iranian nuclear scientist.

Israel has also spearheaded various forms of mass surveillance, including facial recognition and social media data mining. It does so via search algorithms targeting keywords which psychologists and intelligence agents have identified as indicators of radical inclination or concrete plans.

More recently, Israeli agents established an elaborate plan to sabotage a shipment of electronic pagers purchased by Hezbollah.

Thousands of the devices were distributed to their members. When they received a text message generated by the Mossad, they all exploded within an hour of each other. The next day they did the same thing with cell phones. They killed 40 Lebanese including three children. Nearly 4,000 were severely injured, many blinded as a result of eye injuries, as they looked at the messages on the screen.

Related

Why do Israel's weapons systems have Biblical names?

Unfiltered

Ravale Mohydin

Israel's brazen attack represents the first mass sabotage of everyday communication devices, used by much of the world. It sets an unimaginably dangerous precedent.

Imagine if, in the future, Israel or other states devise ways not just to hack, but to explode all communications devices of major companies such as Google or Apple in a specific country. The result could not only damage overall communications infrastructure but also cost the lives of massive numbers of users.

Israel also has mass cyberwarfare capabilities. It used some of them to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program and hack the communication devices of targeted Palestinians.

It has developed facial recognition technology, compiling databases to collect and analyse images of every Palestinian living in the West Bank.

In doing so, it can track their location, identifying who they meet, where, and when. The foremost military SIGINT entity among global armies, Unit 8200 intercepts every form of communication among Palestinians including email, telephone, texts and phone calls. They are used to recruit Shin Bet informants who spy on their families, neighbours and communities. Israeli intelligence uses such information to assassinate Palestinian resistance leaders.

While Israel gains a momentary advantage or degrades the capability of an enemy — these are tactics, not strategy. They attain a short-term gain instead of a long-term interest.

And to obtain even that small advantage, the costs keep rising. The weapons have to get more powerful, the risks increase, and the death count rises. Meanwhile, Israel grows uglier and more hated.

Israel also relies on old-fashioned military operations. In the past few days, it began what Biden national security officials have falsely labelled a “ground operation” or “limited incursion” into southern Lebanon.

Global media have followed suit. Some are calling it a “targeted operation”. The alleged military goal is the return of 70,000 northern Israeli residents to their homes.

In reality, the invasion will fail to achieve this objective. Despite absorbing blows, Hezbollah still retains 150,000 missiles, some among the most advanced in Iran’s arsenal. They are resisting the military assault on their country and will continue to do so, likely intensifying their resistance.

Israel's 'battle-tested' weapons industry

Israel field tests its weapons against enemies in Palestine, Lebanon and Iran. They provide proof of concept persuading armies, weapons engineers and intelligence agencies throughout the world to purchase them.

In turn, they impose precisely the same regime both inside and outside the country. This in turn fuels a lucrative weapons export market. Israel is ranked 10th in the world regarding the value of such products.

Its innovation in the development of such weapons systems is followed closely by the world’s weapons buyers. The former become products exported to failed states and repressive regimes like Myanmar, South Sudan, UAE, Philippines, etc. which use them to suppress dissent and settle scores with their enemies, just as Israeli does.

Whatever weapons Israel wants, but does not have it obtains from the US.

In the case of the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, US-made F35 warplanes, carried US-made bunker-buster bombs, while there are unconfirmed reports of AWAC planes monitoring the assassination in real-time. All were instrumental in the murder plot.

All the while, the Biden administration uses plausible deniability to excuse it all by claiming Israel didn’t warn the US before it acted.

Either the Pentagon is lying to avoid outrage at its role, or it is telling the truth. The latter would indicate that the US is providing its most lethal munitions without any control or restraints.

This violates US law which calls for using exported weapons under international law. The Leahy Law requires the government to end weapons shipments to regimes found to have violated human rights.

The State Department, tasked with such oversight, has deliberately ignored the findings of multiple agencies that Israel was violating both standards, issuing its statement that Israel is not in violation.

Imagine during WWII, if instead of sending thousands of ships filled with food and weapons to Britain to resist the Nazis, the US decided it was in its interest to send an armada to support Hitler’s invasion of the island and the Holocaust. This is akin to what Biden has done, sending a carrier battle group to the region along with 50,000 troops.

Israel's mad march to war

Biden seems to think this threat will cow Iran from attacking Israel. Apparently, it hasn’t worked. After Israel sent its troops into Lebanon, Iran launched 200 missiles targeting Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Though Iron Dome intercepted most of them, there are not yet reports concerning any that struck their targets.

Israel has vowed retaliation. We are now in a state of calibrated escalation. Iran could have fired salvos of thousands of missiles. Then Israel would have been justified in a massive response, provoking all-out war. Instead, it fired a smaller number knowing Israel would retaliate in kind.

Though neither side wants to be blamed for starting such a war, Netanyahu has numerous reasons to want one. He is doing everything in his power — from the assassinations of Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Mohammed Deif to the assassination of Nasrallah — to incite such a catastrophic conflict.

He needs these wars to distract from his unpopularity at home and to delay his corruption trial. He also seeks the distinction of being the only prime minister to launch direct attacks on Israel’s foremost regional enemy, Iran and its nuclear program. Netanyahu’s march toward mayhem continues unobstructed.

How can President Biden believe the US can play any role in such a process? We have no relations with Iran. We have refused to engage in talks with even Iran’s moderate leaders. We have proven instrumental in murdering the leader of its primary regional ally.
Related

Losing its leverage, Jordan has become Israel's insurance policy
Perspectives
Benjamin Ashraf

The Biden administration seems either oblivious or uncaring regarding the impact this will have on the country’s status in the Arab and Muslim world.

It is implicated in the genocide in Gaza, which some public health experts estimate to be over 300,000 dead from combat and related causes.

It is an accessory to the assassination of one of the most admired leaders in the Muslim world. There is nothing we would not do for Israel. Why would the Arab world not hate America? Even more than it hated this country before these events.

Returning to Israeli cyberwarfare, regulation of these weapons lags far behind their development and use on the battlefield. Neither the UN nor any country regulates their use, permitting Israel to wreak havoc without any restraint from global regulatory authorities. It can develop and manufacture ever more lethal weapons with neither ethical nor legal limits.

Further, international bodies established to prosecute war crimes such as the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice seem powerless to hold Israel accountable for the use of these weapons of mass mayhem. In the former case, its judges failed to issue arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister and Defense Minister. Despite findings by the ICJ that Israel was committing genocide, it has no enforcement mechanism and Israel has ignored the findings.

The story of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley mirrors the medieval Jewish golem myth. The latter recounted a pogrom in Prague in which the Jews were attacked by their Christian neighbours. The city’s rabbi created a huge creature out of clay to protect the Jews. He succeeded and the violence stopped. But in doing so the rabbi lost control of the protector of the Jews. He ran amok causing even more danger for them.

To end it, the rabbi destroyed him by turning him back into clay. Israel is a golem wreaking havoc in the Middle East and beyond. Unfortunately, there seems to be no one who can control it or turn it back into clay.

Richard Silverstein writes the Tikun Olam blog and is a freelance journalist specialising in exposing secrets of the Israeli national security state. He campaigns against opacity and the negative impact of Israeli military censorship.
Follow him on Twitter: @richards1052

Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.

Syria Insight: Assad keeps his head down amid Gaza, Lebanon wars

Syria's Bashar Al-Assad faces a difficult tightrope walk as allies in the region, such as Hassan Nasrallah, are taken out by Israel in quick succession.

17 October, 2024

If silence is as telling as words then the responses from Arab leaders to Hassan Nasrallah’s death reveal much about the multipolarity of the MENA region and the late Hezbollah leader's place within it.

Three camps became apparent in the days following his demise. First 'the mourners' - including Hezbollah's ideological brethren in Iraq and Yemen - who eulogised Nasrallah's enigmatic life and martyrdom.

Then 'the mute' - resolutely anti-Hezbollah states such as the UAE and Bahrain - who avoided publicly condemning this figurehead of the so-called Axis of Resistance but refused to commemorate a staunch opponent of perceived Sunni Gulf hegemony.

Finally, there were 'the pragmatists' - notably Jordan, Egypt, and surprisingly Saudi Arabia - where there was no love lost for Nasrallah but who still recognised the dangerous new path Lebanon had been thrust down, likely to have grave reverberations for the future.

Such fissures were perhaps most pronounced in divided Syria, with opposition Idlib erupting into a festival of nocturnal joy - due to Hezbollah’s role in expelling many of the province's inhabitants from homes elsewhere in Syria - while in Damascus the atmosphere was more sombre with flags lowered to half-mast, music muffled, and three days of mourning shrouding the city.


Whether this was out of genuine respect for a formidable adversary of Israel or fears of the regime's ever-present intelligence services is impossible to discern, but equally perplexing was the absence of words from Bashar Al-Assad himself, who more than anyone owed a debt of gratitude to the fallen Lebanese commander.

From Friday evening until Sunday Assad remained silent.

Behind closed doors across Syria, tongues likely wagged about this unexplainable delay in condolences, after all, Hezbollah blood fell thick on this land to keep the president in his palace, which could have been perceived either as a petulant snub by Assad of his war-time allies or that he was stupefied into silence, fearing who might be next on Israel’s hit list.

This reflects a broader paradoxical assumption: Assad’s illusion of power hinges on both the Iranian militias that surround him and being a meek and compliant neighbour to Israel.

What will Israel's war on Gaza mean for Syria?

Analysis

Samuel Ramani

What happens if one component in this equation is removed? In this case, the former, as some analysts predict the demise of the Axis of Resistance as Israel reaps the lives of their seemingly imperishable leadership, including Hamas's Ismail Haniyeh, Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah (and his successor), and Iranian Quds Force deputy Abbas Nilforoushan.

Bente Scheller, author of 'The Wisdom of Syria’s Waiting Game' and head of the Middle East Division at the Heinrich Boell Foundation, believes possible long-standing tensions within the Axis of Resistance, dating back to the Syria war, are probably not helped by Assad's reticence during this crisis moment for the Iran-led alliance.

"Hezbollah was, absolutely, essential for Assad’s political survival, they were the best-organised militia that came in to help him with the ground offensive against the rebels during the Syria war," Scheller told The New Arab.

"From their side, I think Hezbollah were a little annoyed by the Syrian army because their fighters would go into battle and capture rebel towns, then Syrian soldiers would enter, loot and misbehave. For Assad, he would never have made it with his own troops - without Hezbollah he could not have achieved what he did."

This appears apparent in the country’s southwestern Quneitra province, where Israeli forces have reportedly encroached deeper into Syrian territory over the past week under the guise of the Sufa 53 road project.

The Assad regime has neither confronted the invasion party nor acknowledged any losses to Israel, instead diverting Syrian troops to the frontlines in Idlib province around 400km to the north, ready for a new offensive against the rebels.


Assad’s current opportunism and past reluctance to take back Syrian refugees from Lebanon, a key domestic issue for Hezbollah, will be a difficult pill for the party's supporters to swallow, as its fighters stand alone against an Israeli invasion force in southern Lebanon without a single shot being fired by the Syrian army in support.

"Hezbollah has done their duty for Assad and now he is safe enough to say 'they were useful then but we don’t need to reward them now'," Scheller added.

"In the past two weeks, Assad has clearly not raised his voice for Hezbollah or done anything to protect them, so I think they will be reconsidering what they did for him and why there has been absolutely no response whatsoever from Damascus."

Hezbollah's role in Syria's war was essential to the Assad regime's survival. [Getty/File]

Israel has used the window of opportunity to remind Assad of its omnipotence and his impotence, with a sharp rise in airstrikes on Iran-linked entities across Syria, the Syrian Network for Human Rights monitor has confirmed, increasingly in urban areas with mounting civilian casualties.

This ultimately underlines the regime’s inability to protect its own citizens from external attack, despite the vast sums spent on the military over the decade.

The decision of the regime to prioritise the military during the 'guns or butter' considerations of 2011 onwards likely contributed heavily to Syria's continued economic malaise, yet Syrian air defences appear unable or under orders not to engage Israeli aircraft entering Syria, while the army is in no position to challenge the Israeli invasion force in the occupied Golan Heights.

One unprecedented Israeli airstrike in Mezzeh, Damascus, on 8 October, happened just a short distance from the presidential palace, killing seven civilians including four children. As if to add insult to injury it appears the rockets were fired from Israeli-occupied Syrian land in the Golan.

Is a regional war between Israel and Iran inevitable?

Analysis

Giorgio Cafiero

This massacre and Israel’s assaults on Gaza and Lebanon triggered a small pro-regime rally in Damascus in solidarity with Hezbollah with calls for strikes on Tel Aviv. This is a request that Assad, of course, is unlikely to oblige - after all, unlike the rebels, Israel has an air force, GPS coordinates, and laser-guided missiles.

Despite enduring repeated Israeli blows in recent weeks, Hezbollah remains a somewhat effective fighting force, as Sunday’s drone strike on an Israeli military base demonstrated.

The Syrian regime, on the other hand, appears as vulnerable as ever, with Assad likely aware that any open defiance to Israeli belligerence will result in his own demise, said Karam Shaar, director of Karam Shaar Advisory Limited and a Syria researcher.

"He has to tow a very difficult line, balancing his relationship with the Iranians - which means giving them access to Syrian land and facilitating weapon shipments to Hezbollah - and knowing full well that an attack by Israel could come at any moment, if he helps the Iranians in any major way," Shaar told The New Arab.

"I genuinely think Bashar Al-Assad wakes up every morning touching his neck to check it's still attached to his shoulder, he is fully aware that these are incredibly difficult times for his regime."

While Assad has managed to successfully triangulate between Russia, Iran, and regional powers over the past decade, a failure to live up to promises to Arab states - such as ending the captagon trade or creating the conditions for the safe return of refugees - and strict US sanctions leave him untrusted and isolated.

Assad's illusion of power hinges on both the Iranian militias that surround him and being a meek and compliant neighbour to Israel. [Getty/File]

Yet despite the huge sacrifices and assistance Iran has made to keep Assad in power, he has worked hard to ensure the Syrian regime is not a pawn of Tehran, and as recent events have shown, he will likely maintain this distance from his allies.

"The Iranians have strong leverage over Assad, but it is not a master-slave relationship, he does have some wiggle room," said Shaar.

What could have more profound implications for Assad’s future is the US election, said Shaar. A Harris administration will likely be a continuation of Washington’s current Syria policy, based on the effectively defunct UN Resolution 2254, while the return of Donald Trump to the White House in January could see him join Benjamin Netanyahu in attempting to strangle Iran into submission.

"A Trump administration would be much more forceful than Biden's, however, I think it also means much more uncertainty due to his erratic behaviour," said Shaar.

"So if you ask me, under which administration things would get completely out of control and spill out into a regional conflict, I would have to say Trump’s."

This grim irony will not be lost on Syrians - after enduring 13 years of unhinged violence by the Assad regime and its allies with complete impunity, 'Syria' has become a textbook for how regional parties can deal with their opponents.

Starvation sieges, double tap strikes, the targeting of hospitals, and the mass torture of civilians were widespread across Syria from 2011 to today, and now appear to be an essential part of Israeli tactics in Gaza and Lebanon, too.


Israel faces little impulsion from the world to limit its actions and when it does, uses the same pretences as Assad - it's the ‘terrorists’ embedded within the civilian population who are to blame, so everywhere in Gaza is fair game.

Paul McLoughlin is a senior news editor at The New Arab.

How Harris and Trump are fighting for Michigan to the bitter end

Analysis: Michigan, which has in recent years been the most Democratic-leaning swing state, is now too close to call in the 2024 US presidential election.

Brooke Anderson
Washington, DC
17 October, 2024

Washington, DC - Last month, Donald Trump won the endorsement of Amer Ghalib, the Yemeni-born mayor of Hamtramck, the only US city with a Muslim-majority city council.

It was an unusual boost for the US Republican presidential candidate, who imposed a Muslim ban upon assuming office eight years ago and who continues to rail against immigrants in his campaign speeches.

Trump and Ghalib appeared to have engaged in an alliance of convenience. Though not ideologically aligned on the surface, the two men have shown support for book bans on LGBTQ+ content and other socially conservative issues.

Likely far more important for the Arab and Muslim communities in southeastern Michigan was, as Trump later stated, that “there were no wars" when he was president.
A sprint to the end in Michigan

Shortly after the endorsement, Trump appeared to ramp up his efforts in Michigan, opening a campaign office in Hamtramck and scheduling rallies in areas that have largely voted Democrat in the last couple of decades.

"It's both deceitful and really smart. They get the endorsements of some Muslim leaders because of their opposition to LGBTQ+ books in schools saying they're on the same page, and then they have their allied super PACs with almost daily mailings in Dearborn," James Zogby, a veteran pollster and president of the Arab American Institute tells The New Arab. "They're doing it to Muslims. It's a form of voter suppression."

Republican-backed PACs have been pouring millions of dollars into Michigan with ads targeting Arabs and Muslims, highlighting Harris's support for Israel, with the same PACs saying that Harris is hostile to Israel in targeted ads to Jews. Some of the ads that point to Harris's Jewish husband in a negative light have faced criticism for using antisemitic tropes.
Related

Will Kamala Harris win back Arab and Muslim voters in Michigan?
In-depth
Brooke Anderson

The Republicans' ramped-up campaigning in Michigan appears to be working. This month, multiple polls have shown that Trump has pulled ahead of Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in Michigan, one of the largest of the swing states that will be critical for a presidential win.

Of all the swing states, Michigan is considered the most Democratic-leaning, with Joe Biden having won the state by more than 150,000 votes in 2020. However, with continued US military support for Israel's more than year-long war in Gaza, and with southeastern Michigan home to the largest community of Arabs and Muslims in the US, many voters in the state are turning away from Harris due to her role as vice president in the Biden administration.
Dearborn: A deeply wounded constituency

Alaa Ali, an urgent care physician in the Dearborn area, has lost more than a hundred family members to Israeli airstrikes in his native Gaza. Once an enthusiastic Biden supporter due to his promise to reverse Trump's Muslim ban, he has become a vocal opponent of the current administration, including Harris.

"To be honest, the community is fed up with the Harris campaign, and we feel like they're not doing anything to help," Ali tells TNA.

"Basically, they're hurting themselves by standing with the genocide. We feel that with Harris things could get worse because anytime the community tries to get reassurance, the campaign doesn't do anything. When we ask if there will be a change of policy, we don't get any answers."

On the other hand, when he has met with the Trump campaign, he says things are different.

There is vocal opposition to Harris from Arab and Muslim communities in Michigan over the Biden administration's military and political support for Israel's devastating war on Gaza, and now Lebanon. [Getty]

"Trump has said from day one that he's going to stop the war. How is he going to do it? Is it going to be through policy? I honestly don't know," Ali says. "I see the guy doesn't like war. He doesn't like conflict. I feel like there's a lot of potential. The community at large is against Harris."

So far, the various community groups where he holds leadership positions representing Arabs, Muslims, and Palestinians, have not endorsed anyone, though he is adamant that if they do it would not be Harris.


"There has to be a lesson taught to the Democratic Party," he says. "They're committing genocide. This is something that can't be tolerated."

When asked what he thought of Trump's support for Israel's far-right government, with some of its leaders calling for the annexation of the West Bank and the re-occupation of Gaza, he responded that Gaza is already occupied.

Moreover, he says that when he talks to his family in Gaza and asks them what they think of the US presidential election, they blame the Biden administration for the prolonged war, which has killed 42,000 Palestinians.

"They think that if it weren't for them, the war would not have extended for this long," he says.

"They said if Trump comes in, either he'll nuke us and that's better than living this life, or he'll stop the war."
Reluctant support from a demoralised community

Amid vocal opposition to Biden and Harris from Arabs and Muslims in Michigan, there are also examples of groups that have voiced support for the Harris campaign.

In response to their mayor's endorsement of Trump, a member of the Hamtramck city council showed support for the Democratic candidate by holding an event, which was attended by other local elected officials.

A group called Muslim Women for Harris, which disbanded during the Democratic convention in August, later regrouped. They shared their decision to support Harris again with a carefully worded social media post noting their condemnation of US support for Israel's war in Gaza while also having serious concerns about a second Trump presidency.
Related

Biden's legacy of failure in the Middle East
Analysis
Dario Sabaghi

Another group called Arab Americans for Harris-Walz, some of whom were previously with the uncommitted movement, made their launch statement on social media noting that they understand many people's reluctance to support the Democratic ticket. They warned that a Trump presidency could be much worse. Their post drew many angry responses from fellow Arabs.

When the Muslim voting advocacy group Emgage announced their endorsement of Harris, they also did so with a carefully worded statement acknowledging their community's pain without the typical enthusiasm for an endorsement.

Michigan race too close to predict

With an uptick in Republican campaigning in Michigan combined with a demoralised Democratic base, it is difficult to predict who the state will pick in the presidential election.

"Of all the swing states, Michigan has been the most Democratic-leaning. We've been trying to choose a side for the toss-ups. We've been wanting to move Michigan to Harris, but the evidence isn't there yet," J. Miles Coleman, associate editor of Sabato's Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, tells TNA.

"In some polls, she's leading, in others Trump is leading. I'm a little surprised at this point as a forecaster that we haven't been able to designate Harris as a favourite. You could almost see starting October last year with Israel and Palestine that it would be a complicated state for the Democrats," he says.

"When it comes to Arab areas like Dearborn, I think the Harris campaign has made peace with the fact that they won't be able to carry them," he added.

Dearborn hasn't chosen a Republican since 2000, when they went for George W. Bush, possibly in part affected by the high turn-out among Arabs for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader, the son of Lebanese immigrants.

With an uptick in Republican campaigning in Michigan combined with a demoralised Democratic base, it is difficult to predict who the state will pick in the presidential election. [Getty]

Some polls show Green Party candidate Jill Stein leading among Muslim voters, though it's unclear if she could be considered a "spoiler" for Harris given that many of her supporters would likely not have chosen one of the major party candidates.

Many Arabs and Muslims have said they will skip the top of the ballot and only vote in state and local elections on 5 November.

Richard Groper, a lecturer in political science at California State University in Los Angeles, told The New Arab that he is sceptical of recent polls showing Trump has taken the lead in Michigan and other swing states.

He wonders if there's an overreach in counting Trump voters, given the embarrassment many pollsters faced following Trump's 2016 win and the 2022 "red wave" that didn't materialise.

"I'm very sceptical of the polls right now. I cannot imagine they'd allow a third time with their reputations on the line with another undercount of the Trump voters. There's a lot at stake," he tells TNA. "That said, it's still close."

At this point, Zogby says it could be too late for Harris to sway Arab and Muslim voters. Instead, he suggests she make a public pitch, saying she'll meet with them and listen once she's in office.

Brooke Anderson is The New Arab's correspondent in Washington DC, covering US and international politics, business, and culture.
Follow her on Twitter: @Brookethenews

US groups urge Biden to halt arms to Israel immediately following letter to Netanyahu

The executive director for DAWN said that the Biden Administration needed to enforce US law and prohibit aid to Israel.

The New Arab Staff
17 October, 2024

Protests have been ongoing in the US to pressure the US government to cease military aid to Israel [Getty]

A letter to from the Biden administration to Israel calling on the country to boost aid to Gaza within 30 days or risk having humanitarian aid cut off has been criticised by some organisations, who've said that north Gaza needs aid now.

Sarah Leah Whitson, the executive director for Democracy in the Arab World Now (DAWN) said that the letter was "an important and unprecedented signal that Israel has crossed even the Biden administration's permissive red lines."

"We now need the Biden administration to show action, not just words, in enforcing US laws, which prohibit aid to Israel given not only its relentless obstruction of humanitarian relief but deliberate starvation and incessant bombardment of Gaza's civilians," she added.

Raed Jarrar, DAWN's advocacy director, added that the US should begin enforcing these demands rather than "issuing vague deadlines".

The letter, which was leaked by Axios on Tuesday, is addressed to both Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and calls for Israel to scale up aid to Gaza following a plummet of aid entry due to Israel's renewed offensive in the north.

The letter gives Israel 30 days to surge humanitarian assistance throughout Gaza, including allowing at least 350 trucks to enter daily through all border crossings.

It also adds that Israel must allow commercial and Jordanian corridors to function at full capacity and end the isolation of northern Gaza.

Signed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, the letter also calls on the Israeli government to stop the Israeli Knesset's attempts to ostracise UNRWA over fears it could collapse aid distribution in Gaza.

"Failure to demonstrate a sustained commitment to implementing and maintaining these measures may have implications for US policy under NSM-20 and relevant US Law" the letter reads.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations national executive director Nihad Awad said that while the letter was welcome it was "unacceptable" to wait 30 days while US law was already being violated.

"The Palestinian people cannot wait another month for the Biden administration to uphold the law and end its complicity in the Israeli government's campaign of slaughter and starvation."

The Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project also called on the US immediately halt arming Israel rather than waiting 30 days, saying that multiple US agencies had made the recommendations months ago.

Israel's war on Gaza has killed 42,409 people and injured a further 99,153 other. It's relentless bombardment has destroyed much of Gaza's infrastructure, including medical infrastructure, with limitations on aid entry causing a what many aid agencies have described as a humanitarian catastrophe.

NAKBA 2.0

Israel leaders take steps toward return of Jewish settlements to Gaza

Israeli Likud leaders are holding a controversial conference next week to promote the re-establishment of settlements in Gaza, backed by right-wing ministers.

The New Arab Staff & Agencies
17 October, 2024

Despite Netanyahu's previous denials of returning to Gaza settlements, key ministers and lawmakers from the right-wing party are backing the initiative [Getty]

Leaders of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's governing Likud Party are set to hold a controversial conference next week aimed at promoting the re-establishment of Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip.

Despite Netanyahu's previous denials of returning to Gaza settlements, key ministers and lawmakers from the right-wing party are backing the initiative.

The event, scheduled for next Monday near the Gaza border, carries the Likud Party's slogan along with the 'Gaza is Ours, Forever' message and is centered on preparing for settlement efforts in the territory under the title 'Preparing to Resettle Gaza', which Israel evacuated in 2005.

Among the key organisers is Social Equality Minister May Golan as well as the Nachala movement, known for establishing illegal outposts in the occupied Wes Bank.

The Nachala extremist group stated that "the event is not just a theoretical conference, but a practical exercise and preparation for renewed settlement in Gaza."

The group added that "the return to settlement in Gaza is no longer just an idea but a process that is already in advanced stages, with government and public support."

According to the movement's announcement, far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich, Amichai Eliyahu, and Yitzhak Wasserlauf are also expected to attend.

MKs Tally Gotliv, Osher Shkalim, and Hanoch Milwidsky confirmed to Haaretz they will attend the event, while six other Likud MKs are expected to take part.

In January, hundreds of Israeli settlers convened in Jerusalem calling for the building of settlements in Gaza and the northern part of the occupied West Bank.

The conference at the time, titled 'Settlement Brings Security' was also organised by the Nachala group and backed by Israel's hard-right ministers.

Videos from the conference showed a huge crowd erupting in provocative chants calling for the building of Jewish settlements in Gaza, a move deemed illegal under international law.

Israel withdrew its military and settlers from Gaza in 2005 after a 38-year occupation that was followed by a siege on the heavily populated strip in 2007.

Since October last year, Israel's war on the enclave has killed over 42,000 people - most of whom were civilians - and destroyed much of the enclave.

What is the ‘Generals’ Plan’? Israel’s ongoing ethnic cleansing of northern Gaza, explained

The ethnic cleansing of northern Gaza as part of the so-called "Generals' Plan" isn't new, but the only thing standing in its way is the will of 200,000 Palestinians to stay in the north and refuse displacement.

By Qassam Muaddi

October 15, 2024 

MONDOWEISS

Displaced Palestinians in Gaza City struggle with power outages due to Israeli attacks that destroyed the infrastructure in the City, October 13, 2024.

 (Photo: Omar Ashtawy/APA Images)

It has been 11 days since Israel started its latest offensive against the northern part of the Gaza Strip, which includes a complete siege of the towns of Jabalia, Beit Lahia, and Beit Hanoun just north of Gaza City. These were the first areas that the Israeli forces first entered at the beginning of the ground invasion almost a year ago, and they are also the first areas where the Israeli army declared “full operational control” after it had claimed to have destroyed all the fighting units of the Palestinian resistance factions.

The ongoing Israeli assault includes a ground invasion of the town of Jabalia and its refugee camp for the third time in a year. For 11 days, Israeli forces have imposed a siege on Jabalia and pounded it with intensive artillery shelling and airstrikes, destroying its remaining standing residential blocks and cutting the population off from Gaza City directly to the south. Israeli forces have also clashed with Palestinian fighters from different resistance factions. Last week, the armed wing of Hamas, the al-Qassam Brigades, released video footage showing an ambush in which its fighters targeted a group of Israeli jeeps and armored vehicles with IEDs and anti-armor projectiles, showcasing their organization, planning, and fighting capacities a year after Israel declared that it has destroyed all resistance in the city.

According to the Palestinian Civil Defense, at least 350 Palestinians have been killed in northern Gaza since the beginning of the ongoing offensive. But beyond the direct victims of bombings and shelling, the Israeli offensive on the north is strangling an estimated 200,000 Palestinians who remain in their homes in the area. Testimonies from survivors in Jabalia told Mondoweiss that they are surviving on canned food and whatever remains of vegetables or meat that entered through humanitarian aid before the start of the siege. What little food remains, locals say, is now being sold for ten times its normal price.

Israel’s current offensive on northern Gaza is being reported in the media as the apparent implementation of what has come to be known as “the Generals’ Plan.” The plan is based on a vision laid out in two separate articles by retired Israeli general Giora Eiland in the early months of the war. Eiland’s vision is that Israel should impose unlivable conditions on the inhabitants of northern Gaza by starving them out and forcing them to leave the south. Whoever remains, Eiland said, would be considered a Hamas member or sympathizer, and thus a legitimate target. The idea is to drain northern Gaza of its population and thus isolate Hamas from its social base, forcing it to capitulate or die.

While Israel has not saved a single inch of the Gaza Strip from attack over the past year, its focus on the north of Gaza, and Jabalia in particular, is twofold. Northern Gaza, particularly Gaza City, is the most populous area of the Gaza Strip, containing more than 50% of the Strip’s population. Jabalia has traditionally been a stronghold of support for Hamas, and has proven to be a place where the resistance has been able to recoup despite massive hits since last October. By tightening the noose around northern Gaza and squeezing out what little life is left, Israel will be able to further its goal of ethnic cleansing and annexation.

Last September, several Israeli generals endorsed Eiland’s vision and proposed it to the government. Netanyahu then told Israeli lawmakers that he was considering the “Generals’ Plan,” which was recently reported on by AP. Two weeks later, the siege on the north and the ground invasion of Jabalia began.

Despite the media attention that the plan has received as an Israeli strategic innovation in the war, there is nothing new about it. In essence, it is an enhanced version of the same Israeli anti-insurgency strategy that it has practiced since it first started fighting guerilla resistance groups shortly after its founding. This strategy was formalized in the 2006 Second Lebanon War under the “Dahiya Doctrine,” named after the mass destruction Israel caused in Beirut’s southern suburb and formulated by the Israeli army’s former Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkott. The Dahiya Doctrine is essentially a strategy of mass collective punishment, designed to cause “disproportionate” damage to civilian infrastructure under the assumption that either the population will turn on the resistance or the resistance will give up.

The hidden agenda: resettlement

However, Giora Eiland’s vision has another component not encompassed in the Dahiya Doctrine: the forcible transfer of the population through constant bombardment and starvation, forcing them to leave or die.

This isn’t the first time Israel has tried to carry out this vision throughout the Gaza genocide. Since October of last year, Israel forced around a million Gazans to leave northern Gaza and Gaza City to flee south of Wadi Gaza, the river that separates Gaza City from central and southern Gaza. Israel also created a military zone around Wadi Gaza called the Netzarim corridor, making it impossible for Palestinians to return to their homes in the north. Israel has insisted on preventing their return and has been one of the main sticking points in ceasefire talks. Israel maintains this position, ironically as it wages a second war on Lebanon with the stated objective of returning Israelis to the north, which has largely been evacuated since the start of the war due to the “support front” launched by Hezbollah on October 8, 2023.

The unspoken component of the Generals’ Plan in northern Gaza, however, relates to Israel’s desire to resettle Gaza — in other words, to replace the Palestinian population with an Israeli settler population, which would mean the eventual annexation of northern Gaza to Israel proper.

In January, a group of Israeli settler organizations celebrated a conference in Jerusalem attended by thousands of settlers to voice their demands to be allowed to move to Gaza. In the conference, Daniela Weiss, a leading figure of the hardline settler movement, said in a speech that “neither Hamas nor the PLO nor the UN nor UNRWA, but only Jews can rule Gaza.” In an interview with Israeli media, Weiss called for erasing Gaza and letting Israelis move there “so that they can see the sea.” The conference was attended by Israel’s National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, one of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s key allies, who endorsed Weiss and the demands of the settlers.
The essence of the Israeli experiment

Even this implicit aspect of the Generals’ plan is not particularly novel. The depopulation of Palestinian land with the object of replacing the native population with settlers has been the essence of the Zionist project since its inception. What Israeli is trying to do in Jabalia and northern Gaza is a continuation of what the Zionist movement did in 1948 and has continued to do more gradually ever since.

The Generals’ Plan is a condensation of century-long colonial policy. Haifa, Yafa, Askalan, Tyberias, and West Jerusalem all used to be northern Gaza. Today, the southern Hebron hills and the Jordan Valley, where Palestinians are not allowed to build or graze and are attacked by Israeli settlers, are a less intense version of northern Gaza. The Bedouin villages in the Naqab, which are unrecognized by the state of Israel and live under the constant threat of demolition, are yet another version of northern Gaza.

The inaction of world governments, especially the U.S., to stop the realization of the Generals’ Plan in Jabalia, Beit Hanoun, and Beit Lahia suggests that these governments endorse the plan and its larger strategy of genocidal ethnic cleansing.

The only thing standing in the way of the Generals’ Plan is the decision of more than 200,000 Palestinians to stay in the north and refuse displacement, despite the bombs, drone attacks, hunger, and brutal siege. The clash of these two wills is the essence of the war for Palestine since 1948.

Opinion

From Appalachia to Palestine, our future is connected

The devastation from Hurricane Helene and Israel’s escalation in the Middle East may not seem connected but they are linked through the United States’s commitment to mass militarization and refusal to work toward a just global future.

By Robert Clines 

 October 16, 2024 
MONDOWEISS

US-70 in Burke County, North Carolina following Hurricane Helene, on September 27, 2024. (Photo: North Carolina Department of Transportation/Flickr)

On Thursday, September 26, Hurricane Helene made landfall along the Florida Gulf Coast. Before making landfall, rain had already begun in Southern Appalachia, a tortuous and mountainous region full of streams, rivers, and dammed reservoirs. Flooding began that evening. By late Friday, over a foot of rain fell across the Blue Ridge Mountains. Rivers overflowed, inundating low-lying areas. The Swannanoa River, which flows past my home in Asheville, NC, crested at 26.10 feet, 6 feet above the all-time record and 16 feet above flood stage. The town of Chimney Rock, NC, was almost completely wiped out. Electricity, cell phone service, and access to clean drinking water and food are only now returning to pre-storm levels. Interstates 26 and 40 were damaged and stretches of them still remain closed. While the flood waters have receded, cleanup has begun, and aid is arriving, it will take months to pick up the pieces.

There was no way to predict this level of devastation in Southern Appalachia. Helene has been called a 1-in-1000-year event. At over 2,100 feet above sea level and nearly 300 miles inland, Asheville, NC, is not exactly what one would call hurricane country. While the region is used to remnants of storms and the rain and flooding that come with them, this is abnormal. Asheville has even been called a climate change haven. But that is becoming increasingly less true.

While residents in Appalachia are suffering the worst aspects of our climate future, on the other side of the world, the United States continues to provide military and financial aid to Israel as it wages bombing campaigns on Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen. The devastation from Hurricane Helene and Israel’s escalation in the Middle East may not seem connected. But they are linked through the United States’s commitment to mass militarization, imperial arrogance, exacerbation of climate change, and refusal to work toward a just global future.

In August, the United States agreed to send Israel $3.5 billion to spend on weapons; in September, this aid package was upped to $8.7 billion. This is on top of the billions of dollars in aid Israel receives annually from the United States, to say nothing of the intelligence and military aid it receives from other allies. There are tens of thousands of Palestinians dead, and now thousands of Lebanese killed. Nearly 2 million Gazans and over 1 million Lebanese citizens, nearly 1/5 of the country’s population, have been displaced. While Israel and the United States submit that their targets are Hamas and Hezbollah and they are carrying out strategic strikes, such claims given the civilian causality toll and physical destruction of whole city blocks are an insult to basic human intelligence.

Likewise, ghastly for a country that claims to stand up for the rights of its own citizens, the United States has remained silent as Israel targets Americans. In addition to Palestinian-Americans killed or stranded in Palestine, such as Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, the American Embassy in Beirut announced on September 27 that it was not evacuating U.S. Nationals and that they should seek their own way out. U.S. citizens are stranded in Beirut amid airstrikes unless they can afford inflated ticket prices.

The United States putting its imperial interests and those of Israel above the welfare of its own citizens is nothing new. In 2022, an IDF sniper killed Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American Al-Jazeera Reporter in Jenin, in the West Bank; and in 2003, Rachel Corrie, an American peace activist, was crushed by an Israeli bulldozer as she protested the demolition of Palestinian homes in Gaza. In both cases, no one was held liable. We can go back as far as 1967, when, during the Six-Day War, Israel shelled the USS Liberty, killing 34 U.S. service members; in the aftermath, the event was covered up by Israel and the United States.

The United States’s commitment to Israel’s wars is likewise a climate disaster that facilitates intensified storms like Hurricane Helene. Israel’s bombing campaign will be one of the largest emitters of carbon dioxide in 2024. Nearly half of its emissions come from arms supply flights from the United States. Similarly, the U.S. military emits more carbon than many industrialized nations. Beyond the catastrophic damage to civilian infrastructure and farmland in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and elsewhere victim to America’s “War on Terror,” U.S. militarism and Israel’s wars will have severe impacts on the planet’s climate, especially as it appears that they show no signs of slowing; if anything, they will only intensify.

Also at issue is the United States’s commitment to war over the welfare of its residents. Beyond the lack of universal healthcare, education, paid parental leave, and the like, the country’s infrastructure has been in a dire state for decades, which only exacerbates how climate change rocks communities in Southern Appalachia and beyond. According to the 2017 Infrastructure Report Card, the country’s infrastructure was rated as a D+. The same agency estimated, seven years ago, that we must increase annual infrastructure investment by 2.5% to 3.5% of U.S. GDP by 2025. While the estimated $1.2 trillion tied to the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is a step in the right direction, it falls far short and is rather unimpressive when we consider that the Pentagon’s budget is $849.8 billion for the 2025 fiscal year alone. Such exorbitant spending on the military, which hasn’t passed an audit in six years, compared to what we invest in the country’s physical plant is as breathtaking as it is reckless.

We are also seeing militarization and the U.S.’s relationship with Israel turn inward. Since the late 1970s, police budgets in the U.S. have increased by a staggering 189%. Relatedly, the IDF trains U.S. police officers; and the Israeli defense firm Elbit Systems has plans to use Artificial Intelligence along the U.S.-Mexican border. The rollout of Cop Cities across the United States also speaks to a commitment to increased domestic policing. And these Cop Cities are also ecological disasters; the Cop City near Atlanta requires the destruction of 171 acres of forestland in Georgia, trees that pump oxygen into the air and absorb rainwater. Like in Appalachia, Atlanta saw widespread flooding from Helene. Deforestation will only make matters worse.

As the climate warms, human populations will continue to see their environments deteriorate, which fuels migration and will drive further crackdowns from armed forces and militarized police agencies at home and along borders. Climate change likewise exacerbates income and wealth inequality. Beyond migration, the border crisis, and the militarization of police, the U.S. military is one of the single largest beneficiaries of inequality. Because there is no draft, the United States relies on voluntary enlistment. While military recruitment is currently at all-time lows due to minimal confidence in the military’s aims and objectives, nearly half of all servicemembers come from poor areas of the rural South. And rural schools partner with the military to recruit poor students. One truly wonders what voluntary enlistment means in such a context. As an educator in Western North Carolina, I teach a lot of veterans, who are often some of the hardest working and most dedicated students; but the refrain is often the same: the military was an escape from poverty or how to pay for college. Sadly, this does not always work out, as veterans experience lower college graduation rates, and higher homelessness and suicide rates than the general population. As the U.S. feels compelled to send more troops to the Middle East, this cycle will only continue.

The United States is committed to policing the world and supporting Israel while those who live within its borders grapple with rampant inequality. This speaks to an imperial arrogance that lives on futurity. It promises us democracy, prosperity, and security for all in a distant golden age that will come one day. Eventually, America will save the world, one one-ton bomb at a time.

But such an empire has no future. With the planet warming at record rates, Israel’s U.S.-backed bellicosity destabilizing the Middle East, and the lack of a collective will to fix the problems that we face, the dream of American empire is at a dead end. For the moment, we are running toward catastrophe and those with the ability to stop it seem hellbent on accelerating it. Our only hope is that we realize soon that our only future is the one we build together.

Robert Clines (he/him) is Associate Professor of History and Affiliate Faculty in Global Black Studies and International Studies at Western Carolina University, in Cullowhee, NC. He has published widely on antisemitism, anti-Blackness, and Islamophobia in the premodern Mediterranean.

‘No one else is going to deliver the truth from Gaza’: An interview with the Palestinian Journalist Syndicate

Israel’s slaughter of media workers in Gaza has been the most systemic attack on the press in world history. Shuruq As’ad of the Palestinian Journalist Syndicate shares the conditions Palestinian reporters are facing while reporting on the genocide.

By New York War Crimes 

 October 17, 2024 
MODNDOWEISS

Mourners and colleagues surround the bodies of Al-Jazeera Arabic journalist Ismail al-Ghoul and cameraman Rami al-Refee, killed in an Israeli strike during their coverage of Gaza’s Al-Shati refugee camp, on July 31, 2024. (Photo: Hadi Daoud/APA Images)

LONG READ

Editor’s Note: This interview was originally published in The New York War Crimes’ anniversary edition “One Year Since Al-Aqsa Flood: Revolution Until Victory.”

Since the publication of this interview in the October 7th edition of The New York War Crimes, the Israeli Occupation Forces killed Omar Al-Balaawi and Mohammed Al-Tanani, two journalists who were reporting from northern Gaza. Occupation forces also critically injured Al-Jazeera cameramen Ali Al-Attar and Fadi Al-Wahidi. Shrapnel from an Israeli bomb hit Al-Attar in the head, causing severe brain damage; a sniper shot Al-Wahidi in the neck. Fadi is now a paraplegic. His colleagues Anas Al-Sharif and Hossam Shabat are calling for his evacuation from Gaza to receive emergency medical care.

On October 2, the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate (PJS) published a report titled Silencing Voices: The Plight of Palestinian Journalists Detained by Israeli Occupation During Ongoing Israeli Aggression. The document’s 26 pages include testimonies from more than a dozen Palestinian journalists from Gaza, the occupied West Bank, and East Jerusalem who were kidnapped by the Israeli occupation and held without due process after October 7, 2023 while on the job.

“They speak of beatings with sharp objects, prolonged hanging, forced stripping, attempted rape of both male and female prisoners, and death threats,” said PJS President Nasser Abu Bakr of the testimonies. “It is slow torture, carried out over hours, days, and sometimes months…We ask the conscience of humanity—where are you in all of this?”

Israel’s mass slaughter of media workers constitutes the largest and most systemic attack on the press in world history. Authors of the PJS report counted over 165 Palestinian journalist martyrs in Gaza since the start of the genocide and 107 media worker detentions throughout Gaza, the occupied West Bank, and East Jerusalem. Some remain behind bars; others are unaccounted for.

We sat down with Shuruq As’ad of the PJS to discuss the findings of the report and conditions that Palestinian reporters continue to face while reporting on the Israeli occupation.

NEW YORK WAR CRIMES: What was the impetus behind the report and why did the PJS decide to release it now?

Shuruq As’ad: I want to start by saying that this is nothing new. It’s not like the occupation was very nice to journalists and then after October 7 they started being violent. What we are experiencing is a systematic attack that has been escalating year after year.

We decided to launch this particular report because for a long time, we were focused on documenting the journalists being killed. Then we started to notice an escalation in home invasions, in journalists being violently taken from their families and held in prisons without any rights, without any international condemnation, without any due process. We couldn’t even visit them. We didn’t know where they were.

We knocked on the doors of international human rights organizations, but they didn’t have any answers. So our colleagues were left alone to face this military rule, this administrative detention, which is illegal under international law. We felt that we had to shed light on what was happening, not just so people understand what’s going on but so we can stop this. We want journalists in Palestine to have the same protections as journalists anywhere else.

NYWC: The report emphasizes the occupation’s use of administrative detention to intimidate and silence the Palestinian press. Can you talk about what this tactic constitutes and why the PJS is focusing on it?

SA: Administrative detention is an emergency military law that was used by the British during the mandate period. When the Israeli occupation took root in Palestine, they inherited this law, which gives them the right to come into your home at any time, to drag you to prison without saying why, without taking you to court, and without telling you when this arrest will end. They can renew your detention every three or six months simply because there’s supposedly a secret security file on you.

Israel uses this law when it has no legal case against people it wants to arrest. If they don’t like what you write, if they feel you may be going to demonstrations, if they sense that you are educating your students about Palestine, they can put you behind bars. So many people in Palestinian society — parents, teachers, doctors, activists, journalists — are in prison. Of the more than 10,700 Palestinians arrested since October 7, about 8,800 of them are administrative detainees. It’s not a small number.

NYWC: Let’s discuss the main findings of the report. What did you learn over the course of your interviews and research?

SA: The main finding is that Israel is waging a campaign of terror against Palestinian journalists. There is a sense that if a journalist simply does their job, they could pay a high price for it; they could be arrested, tortured. Everyone getting out of Israeli prison is 20 pounds lighter, even after only a month behind bars. They get out and they say, “I survived.” All of them appear traumatized, full of fear.

The stories are terrifying. They hang you until you are suspended only a few inches from the floor. Or they put your head in a bag that smells like human feces for hours. They beat you continuously. We heard of women who got their periods and were denied pads. They were shut in cells and not allowed to shower for days, and if they did shower, it was only a few seconds under the water. We heard of women who weren’t allowed to change their clothes for six months. Then there’s the humiliations, situations where they would, for example, order people to get down on their knees and howl, or lick food off the floor and say they love Israel. Some people contracted illnesses, skin conditions that they can’t name. Of course, they’re not given medication or allowed visitation. There’s also rape in the prisons. It didn’t happen to any of our colleagues, but it happened to many people from Gaza, according to people we spoke with who spent time inside.

NYWC: How did you collect testimonies of the journalists who were imprisoned after October 7?

SA: Our members in Gaza collected testimonies from their colleagues who were released, and we heard from a lot of families — mothers and sisters and such — many of whom gave us testimonies of what they heard from their relatives who were released. And in the West Bank, we met up with the journalists who were released and collected their testimonies in person. We also collected data and information from the official prisoner agencies and organizations like the Palestinian Ministry of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Club. We also met up with lawyers. Some of them were afraid to talk as well because they could be prevented from visiting their clients. And the ones who were visiting were only doing so once a month, imagine that.

NYWC: What kind of response and support have you gotten from international organizations?

SA: Organizations like the CPJ [Committee to Protect Journalists], all they do is publish reports saying the Israelis arrested this many journalists and broke this many cameras. They publish report after report after report after report — and then? They want more documentation, ok, and then? How are we going to get journalists to work safely, to film safely?

We went to the Red Cross’s office in Ramallah after one of our colleagues, Ibrahim Muhareb, was hit by Israeli shrapnel in Khan Younis and bled out for an entire day. The journalists he was with at the time called the Red Cross and asked them to come rescue him, but no one came and he died. When we asked the organization why they did not send anyone to save Ibrahim, or why they didn’t even issue a statement calling for his rescue or condemning his killing, they told us this is not their strategy, that they prefer to work through diplomacy. And I thought, ah, OK, if it was the war between Russia and Ukraine, then would it be your strategy? We didn’t even get a press release from the Red Cross.

NYWC: Whatever their strategy is, it does not appear to be doing anything.

SA: There needs to be a call from the UN and from all international humanitarian organizations to protect journalistic freedom in Palestine. We need to work together to apply real pressure on Israel, not just to put out press releases and documentation. Diplomats and foreign aid workers and NGOs need to take this documentation back to their governments and do lobbying, do something. They have a role to play. In the end, we are just a local syndicate working under occupation. We do what we can, but we don’t have any kind of authority.

NYWC: We’ve heard about the conditions of journalists in Gaza reporting while displaced, while deprived of food and water, and in the aftermath of their loved ones’ martyrdoms. We know less about the conditions of reporters in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Can you give us a sense of their experience on the job?

SA: My colleagues recently sent me a video, a snippet from Al Jazeera International. They were in Qabatiya, in a location far away from the action, far from the tanks and the military. The moment they came out of their cars — all of which were television production vans with TV stickers — and started putting on their vests, they immediately got showered with tear gas for absolutely no reason. Every time journalists have gone out to cover the Israeli raids on Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nablus, they have been chased by the occupation forces and, in some cases, injured.

Jerusalem is, of course, completely isolated. None of the reporters in the West Bank can get there. For us reporters from Jerusalem, when we go out, we’re faced with about 550 army checkpoints in addition to the wall. It should take half an hour for me to get from Ramallah to Jerusalem, but instead it takes three. And the moment you get to the front of the line and tell them you’re a journalist, they become aggressive. When they see you carrying a camera, showing your press cards, doing an interview, you’re opening yourself up to being attacked, not just by the army, but also by settlers.

So it’s really scary to go from place to place, and that is intentional. They want you to remain stuck in a small place, unable to leave and report elsewhere. They don’t want any narrative other than their own getting out.

NYWC: Despite all these risks, Palestinian journalists keep reporting. Can you explain the choice to carry on in spite of all the odds?

SA: I think about this question a lot. I can try to answer it from my own perspective. I covered invasions, I covered the [2006] war on the Lebanese border, and I kept functioning, even when we were besieged and scared, because in that situation you’re not just covering a story, you’re covering yourself. You’re covering your life, your country, your children, your friends, your hospitals, your schools, your streets, your future. It’s not just a story for you. And journalists in Gaza really feel like this is their role, like they have a responsibility to their people, especially because no one else is going to deliver the truth from Gaza. Some become frustrated because no matter how much they deliver, nothing changes, but they keep going because it gives them a little hope that they can contribute something.

For them, I think, it’s not just a job. They are witnesses more than they are reporters. They are witnesses to genocide, to massacres, to displacement. And they witness all this while they themselves are displaced. Some days, I think that if they stop reporting, they will be too devastated. It keeps them going. Yesterday I was telling a journalist I am working with, “Sorry, I know that you were just displaced from your tent, so if you don’t have time to do this today, don’t worry about it.” And she told me no, it’s the opposite. When I work, I feel like I’m getting out of the catastrophic conditions that I’m in. Instead of feeling like there’s no meaning, I have a purpose. When I do nothing, I just sit around and think about death and loss. I feel devastated.

I believe that they have taught a lot, the journalists of Gaza. We learned from them how to be really dedicated to what you do, how to work in the midst of a crisis, a crisis that you are a part of, a crisis in which you are an even bigger target than the people around you. They go through so much to capture a photo; They work so hard to find a little food, and then they give it to their families. Imagine, without these local journalists, we would have never known what happened in Gaza. Their patience is unbelievable. Each one of them is a story. Each one of them is a story.

Uyghur Rights Leader Urges Labour Government To "Honour Their Promises" To Condemn China

Rahima Mahmut has gathered evidence of human rights abuses from Uyghur camp survivors (Alamy)

Zoe Crowther
@zoenora6

A leading Uyghur human rights campaigner has called on the Government to fulfil its promises to condemn and take action against China's persecution of Uyghur Muslims, as reports emerge that ministers have softened their stance.

Earlier this year before the UK General Election, Rahima Mahmut told PoliticsHome she was calling on all the major UK political parties to recognise the persecution of Uyghur Muslims by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as 'genocide' and include legislation to ban the import of goods connected with forced Uyghur labour in their party manifestos.

Only the Liberal Democrats did include the recognition of Uyghur 'genocide' in their manifesto, but Labour’s then-Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy used the term himself and said he would push to find legal routes to recognise the treatment of Uyghurs as genocide.

Labour, with Lammy as Foreign Secretary, has now backtracked on these plans, according to The Guardian. Lammy is expected to travel to Beijing and Shanghai this weekend for high-level talks, hoping to build closer economic ties with China. As part of this shift, the Government has reportedly dropped its tough stance towards China over its treatment of the Uyghur community.

Mahmut, the UK director of World Uyghur Congress and executive director of the charity Stop Uyghur Genocide, told PoliticsHome that the first 100 days of the Labour government had created a "very mixed feeling" among human rights activists.

“When we spoke last time, I was really hopeful that if Labour came to power, that might be different, because the Conservative government stance on the Uyghur situation was very loud in condemning, but very little action," Mahmut said.

"After two, three months, you will have some kind of idea whether the government will really take tangible action or not. At the moment, it's a very mixed feeling and that worries me a lot. We really need to work hard to make sure that those promises are delivered, especially on forced labour goods and the human rights abusing tech that the US government already blacklisted.

"We have tons of evidence against these technologies that played very important role enabling the high tech surveillance and the high tech genocide of the Uyghurs, enabling [the CCP] to intern millions of people."Foreign Secretary David Lammy (Alamy)

She said that while Labour was in opposition, her organisations had the "full support from Labour MPs from top to bottom" – but felt the Government has now gone quiet on the issue now it has the power to make a difference.

“Generally, we really need the government to act and really honour the words, the statements, the promises from when they were in a shadow position," she added.

"Those ministers who criticised the Conservative government, now they have the power, and they have the opportunity to really act.”

While Mahmut said she understood that domestic issues and other conflicts had dominated the new administration's priorities, she was "disappointed" to not hear more from the Government on condemning China.

"For the last two years because of Ukraine and especially since October 7 last year, the Uyghur issues have been completely sidelined," she said.

“It's been an extremely difficult battle for people like myself, who's been cut off from my own family, my sisters and brothers and my friends for more than seven years now, and the Chinese government has been really investing so much more money and power on this information campaign, covering up and making the region [Xinjiang] a tourist attraction, beautifying the surface where there are these dark secrets – millions, suffering families like mine, they cannot call me and speak to me, and we know the evidence of the slave labour is so overwhelming.”

Blair McDougall, the new Labour MP for East Renfrewshire, ​​is hoping to chair the Uyghur All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) of crossbench MPs. He told PoliticsHome that while the economic power of China was a "fact of life", it also gave an opportunity to find "new levers" to condemn the Chinese state's actions.

"They're deeply integrated into the world economy, and that gives us opportunities to find new levers, like for example, saying that we don't think it's right that goods come from Xinjiang into the UK economy while there's such widespread evidence of slave labour and other kind of egregious human rights issues in that part of the world," he said.

“It's too early to judge the new government on that, but that's certainly something that I'm going to be sort of exploring, because I think it would be right for the UK to follow the United States lead on that.”

The Foreign Office (FCDO) is taking the position that any judgment as to whether crimes against humanity or genocide have occurred is a matter for a national or international court, and is carrying out a review on how to tackle forced labour in private and public supply chains.

Mahmut said she welcomed the fact that a review was taking place, but questioned what it would involve: "What kind of process will they take and what evidence will they rely on, and whether they will really include people like me and many other experts and survivors?" she said.

"We know that it is impossible for [the UK government] to go to the region to investigate, but we have scholars, experts, leaked documents and the report by the UN, Amnesty, International Human Rights Watch…"

An FCDO spokesperson told PoliticsHome: “This Government stands firm on human rights, including in Xinjiang, where China continues to persecute and arbitrarily detain Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim minorities.

“This includes raising our concerns at the highest levels of the Chinese government and coordinating efforts with our international partners to hold China to account for human rights violations."

PoliticsHome

GUESS THJS MEANS 'NO'

UK foreign minister to visit China to rebuild damaged ties

October 17, 2024
By Reuters

Britain's Foreign Secretary David Lammy walks on Downing Street in London, Sept. 17, 2024.

London/Beijing —

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy will visit China on a two-day visit starting on Friday in a bid to improve relations between the two countries after years of tensions over security concerns and alleged human rights abuses.

Lammy will hold talks with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Beijing before visiting Shanghai to meet British businesses operating in China, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Thursday.

"It's all about bringing a consistent, long-term and strategic approach to managing the U.K.'s position on China," the spokesperson told reporters, adding that Britain was prepared to challenge China where needed but also identify areas for co-operation.

Mao Ning, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, said the talks would focus on improving cooperation in various fields.

It will be only the second visit by a British foreign minister in six years after Lammy's Conservative predecessor James Cleverly’s trip last year. Before that, there had been a five-year gap in a visit to China by a British foreign minister.

Labour, who won a landslide election victory in July, is seeking to stabilize relations with Beijing after clashes over human rights, Hong Kong, and allegations of Chinese espionage.

Starmer told President Xi Jinping in the first conversation between the two in August that he wanted Britain and China to pursue closer economic ties while being free to talk frankly about their disagreements.

China's Vice Premier He Lifeng and British finance minister Rachel Reeves last month discussed how they can work together to boost economic growth.

Following the exchange, Beijing said it was willing to resume the UK-China Economic and Financial Dialogue - an annual forum for talks on trade, investment and other economic issues, which had not taken place since 2019.

Under the previous Conservative government, Britain expressed concern about China’s curbing of civil freedoms in Hong Kong, which was under British control until 1997, and its treatment of people in its western Xinjiang region.

Britain and China also traded accusations over perceived spying.

China is Britain's sixth-largest trading partner, accounting for 5% of total trade, British government figures show.