Tuesday, April 30, 2024

“Have You No Sense of Decency?”

 McCarthyism Returns to Campus



 
 APRIL 30, 2024
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Photograph Source: Irisoptical – CC BY-SA 4.0

The recent Congressional hearings leading to a bloodbath of university presidents brings back memories from my teen-age years in the 1950s when everyone’s eyes were glued to the TV broadcast of the McCarthy hearings. And the student revolts incited by vicious college presidents trying to stifle academic freedom when it opposes foreign unjust wars awakens memories of the 1960s protests against the Vietnam War and the campus clampdowns confronting police violence. I was the junior member of the “Columbia three” alongside Seymour Melman and my mentor Terence McCarthy (both of whom taught at Columbia’s Seeley Mudd School of Industrial Engineering; my job was mainly to handle publicity and publication). At the end of that decade, students occupied my office and all others at the New School’s graduate faculty in New York City – very peacefully, without disturbing any of my books and papers.

Only the epithets have changed. The invective “Communist” has been replaced by “anti-Semite,” and the renewal of police violence on campus has not yet led to a Kent State-style rifle barrage against protesters. But the common denominators are all here once again. A concerted effort has been organized to condemn and even to punish today’s nationwide student uprisings against the genocide occurring in Gaza and the West Bank. Just as the House Unamerican Activities Committee (HUAC) aimed to end the careers of progressive actors, directors, professors and State Department officials unsympathetic to Chiang Kai-Shek or sympathetic to the Soviet Union from 1947 to 1975, today’s version aims at ending what remains of academic freedom in the United States.

The epithet of “communism” from 75 years ago has been updated to “anti-Semitism.” Senator Joe McCarthy of Wisconsin has been replaced by Elise Stefanik, House Republican from upstate New York, and Senator “Scoop” Jackson upgraded to President Joe Biden. Harvard University President Claudine Gay (now forced to resign), former University of Pennsylvania President Elizabeth Magill (also given the boot), and Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth were called upon to abase themselves by promising to accuse peace advocates critical of U.S. foreign policy of anti-Semitism.

The most recent victim was Columbia’s president Nemat “Minouche” Shafik, a cosmopolitan opportunist with trilateral citizenship who enforced neoliberal economic policy as a high-ranking official at the IMF (where she was no stranger to the violence of “IMF riots) and the World Bank, and who brought her lawyers along to help her acquiesce in the Congressional Committee’s demands. She did that and more, all on her own. Despite being told not to by the faculty and student affairs committees, she called in the police to arrest peaceful demonstrators. This radical trespass of police violence against peaceful demonstrators (the police themselves attested to their peacefulness) triggered sympathetic revolts throughout the United States, met with even more violent police responses at Emory College in Atlanta and California State Polytechnic, where cell phone videos were quickly posted on various media platforms.

Just as intellectual freedom and free speech were attacked by HUAC 75 years ago, academic freedom is now under attack at these universities. The police have trespassed onto school grounds to accuse students themselves of trespassing, with violence reminiscent of the demonstrations that peaked in May 1970 when the Ohio National Guard shot Kent State students singing and speaking out against America’s war in Vietnam.

Today’s demonstrations are in opposition to the Biden-Netanyahu genocide in Gaza and the West Bank. The more underlying crisis can be boiled down to the insistence by Benjamin Netanyahu that to criticize Israel is anti-Semitic. That is the “enabling slur” of today’s assault on academic freedom.

By “Israel,” Biden and Netanyahu mean specifically the right-wing Likud Party and its theocratic supporters aiming to create “a land without a [non-Jewish] people.” They assert that Jews owe their loyalty not to their current nationality (or humanity) but to Israel and its policy of driving the Gaza Strip’s millions of Palestinians into the sea by bombing them out of their homes, hospitals and refugee camps.

The implication is that to support the International Court of Justice’s accusations that Israel is plausibly committing genocide is an anti-Semitic act. Supporting the UN resolutions vetoed by the United States is anti-Semitic.

The claim is that Israel is defending itself and that protesting the genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank frightens Jewish students. But research by students at Columbia’s School of Journalism found that the complaints cited by the New York Times and other pro-Israeli media were made by non-students trying to spread the story that Israel’s violence was in self-defense.

The student violence has been by Israeli nationals. Columbia has a student-exchange program with Israel for students who finish their compulsory training with the Israeli Defense Forces. It was some of these exchange students who attacked pro-Gaza demonstrators, spraying them with Skunk, a foul-smelling indelible Israeli army chemical weapon that marks demonstrators for subsequent arrest, torture or assassination. The only students endangered were the victims of this attack. Columbia under Shafik did nothing to protect or help the victims.

The hearings to which she submitted speak for themselves. Columbia’s president Shafik was able to avoid the first attack on universities not sufficiently pro-Likud by having meetings outside of the country. Yet she showed herself willing to submit to the same brow-beating that had led her two fellow presidents to be fired, hoping that her lawyers had prompted her to submit in a way that would be acceptable to the committee.

I found the most demagogic attack to be that of Republican Congressman Rick Allen from Georgia, asking Dr. Shafik whether she was familiar with the passage in Genesis 12.3. As he explained” “It was a covenant that God made with Abraham. And that covenant was real clear. … ‘If you bless Israel, I will bless you. If you curse Israel, I will curse you.’ … Do you consider that to be a serious issue? I mean, do you want Columbia University to be cursed by God of the Bible?”[1]

Shafik smiled and was friendly all the way through this bible-thumping, and replied meekly, “Definitely not.”

She might have warded off this browbeating question by saying, “Your question is bizarre. This is 2024, and America is not a theocracy. And the Israel of the early 1st century BC was not Netanyahu’s Israel of today.” She accepted all the accusations that Allen and his fellow Congressional inquisitors threw at her.

Her main nemesis was Elise Stefanik, Chair of the House Republican Conference, who is on the House Armed Services Committee, and the Committee on Education and the Workforce.

Congresswoman Stefanik:  You were asked were there any anti-Jewish protests and you said ‘No’.

President Shafik: So the protest was not labeled as an anti-Jewish protest. It was labeled as an anti-Israeli government. But antisemitic incidents happened or antisemitic things were said. So I just wanted to finish.

Congresswoman Stefanik: And you are aware that in that bill, that got 377 Members out of 435 Members of Congress, condemns ‘from the river to the sea’ as antisemitic?

Dr. Shafik: Yes, I am aware of that.

Congresswoman Stefanik: But you don’t believe ‘from the river to the sea’ is antisemitic?

Dr. Shafik: We have already issued a statement to our community saying that language is hurtful and we would prefer not to hear it on our campus.[2]

What an appropriate response to Stefanik’s browbeating might have been?

Shafik could have said, “The reason why students are protesting is against the Israeli genocide against the Palestinians, as the International Court of Justice has ruled, and most of the United Nations agree. I’m proud of them for taking a moral stand that most of the world supports but is under attack here in this room.”

Instead, Shafik seemed more willing than the leaders of Harvard or Penn to condemn and potentially discipline students and faculty for using the term “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” She could have said that it is absurd to say that this is a call to eliminate Israel’s Jewish population, but is a call to give Palestinians freedom instead of being treated as Untermenschen.

Asked explicitly whether calls for genocide violate Columbia’s code of conduct, Dr. Shafik answered in the affirmative — “Yes, it does.” So did the other Columbia leaders who accompanied her at the hearing. They did not say that this is not at all what the protests are about. Neither Shafik nor any other of the university officials say, “Our university is proud of our students taking an active political and social role in protesting the idea of ethnic cleansing and outright murder of families simply to grab the land that they live on. Standing up for that moral principle is what education is all about, and what civilization’s all about.”

The one highlight that I remember from the McCarthy hearings was the reply by Joseph Welch, the U.S. Army’s Special Council, on June 9, 1954 to Republican Senator Joe McCarthy’s charge that one of Welch’s attorneys had ties to a Communist front organization. “Until this moment, senator,” Welsh replied, “I think I never gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. … Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”

The audience broke into wild applause. Welch’s put-down has echoed for the past 70 years in the minds of those who were watching television then (as I was, at age 15). A similar answer by any of the three other college presidents would have shown Stefanik to be the vulgarian that she is. But none ventured to stand up against the abasement.

The Congressional attack accusing opponents of genocide in Gaza as anti-Semites supporting genocide against the Jews is bipartisan. Already in December, Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.) helped cause Harvard and Penn’s presidents to be fired for their stumbling over her red-baiting. She repeated her question to Shafik on April 17: “Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Columbia’s code of conduct?” Bonamici asked the four new Columbia witnesses. All responded: “Yes.”

That was the moment when they should have said that the students were not calling for genocide of the Jews, but seeking to mobilize opposition to genocide being committed by the Likud government against the Palestinians with President Biden’s full support.

During a break in the proceedings Rep. Stefanik told the press that “the witnesses were overheard discussing how well they thought their testimony was going for Columbia.” This arrogance is eerily reminiscent to the previous three university presidents who believed when walking out of the hearing that their testimony was acceptable. “Columbia is in for a reckoning of accountability. If it takes a member of Congress to force a university president to fire a pro-terrorist, antisemitic faculty chair, then Columbia University leadership is failing Jewish students and its academic mission,” added Stefanik. “No amount of overlawyered, overprepped, and over-consulted testimony is going to cover up for failure to act.”[3]

Shafik could have pointedly corrected the implications by the House inquisitors that it was Jewish students who needed protection. The reality was just the opposite: The danger was from the Israeli IDF students who attacked the demonstrators with military Skunk, with no punishment by Columbia.

Despite being told not to by the faculty and student groups (which Shafik was officially bound to consult), she called in the police, who arrested 107 students, tied their hands behind their backs and kept them that way for many hours as punishment while charging them for trespassing on Columbia’s property. Shafik then suspended them from classes.

The clash between two kinds of Judaism: Zionist vs. assimilationist

A good number of these protestors being criticized were Jewish. Netanyahu and AIPAC have claimed – correctly, it seems – that the greatest danger to their current genocidal policies comes from the traditionally liberal Jewish middle-class population. Progressive Jewish groups have joined the uprisings at Columbia and other universities.

Early Zionism arose in late 19th-century Europe as a response to the violent pogroms killing Jews in Ukrainian cities such as Odessa and other Central European cities that were the center of anti-Semitism. Zionism promised to create a safe refuge. It made sense at a time when Jews were fleeing their countries to save their lives in countries that accepted them. They were the “Gazans” of their day.

After World War II and the horrors of the Holocaust anti-Semitism became passé. Most Jews in the United States and other countries were being assimilated and becoming prosperous, most successfully in the United States. The past century has seen this success enable them to assimilate, while retaining the moral standard that ethnic and religious discrimination such as that which their forbears had suffered is wrong in principle. Jewish activists were in the forefront of fighting for civil liberties, most visibly against anti-Black prejudice and violence in the 1960s and ‘70s, and against the Vietnam War. Many of my Jewish school friends in the 1950s bought Israel bonds, but thought of Israel as a socialist country and thought of volunteering to work on a kibbutz in the summer. There was no thought of antagonism, and I heard no mention of the Palestinian population when the phrase “a people without a land in a land without a people” was spoken.

But Zionism’s leaders have remained obsessed with the old antagonisms in the wake of Nazism’s murders of so many Jews. In many ways they have turned Nazism inside out, fearing a renewed attack from non-Jews. Driving the Arabs out of Israel and making it an apartheid state was just the opposite of what assimilationist Jews aimed at.

The moral stance of progressive Jews, and the ideal that Jews, blacks and members of all other religions and races should be treated equally, is the opposite of Israeli Zionism. In the hands of Netanyahu’s Likud Party and the influx of right-wing supporters, Zionism asserts a claim to set Jewish people apart from the rest of their national population, and even from the rest of the world, as we are seeing today.

Claiming to speak for all Jews, living and dead, Netanyahu asserts that to criticize his genocide and the Palestinian holocaust, the nakba, is anti-Semitic. This is the position of Stefanik and her fellow committee members. It is an assertion that Jews owe their first allegiance to Israel, and hence to its ethnic cleansing and mass murder since last October. President Biden also has labeled the student demonstrations “antisemitic protests.”

This claim in the circumstances of Israel’s ongoing genocide is causing more anti-Semitism than anyone since Hitler. If people throughout the world come to adopt Netanyahu’s and his cabinet’s definition of anti-Semitism, how many, being repulsed by Israel’s actions, will say, “If that is the case, then indeed I guess I’m anti-Semitic.”

Netanyahu’s slander against Judaism and what civilization should stand for

Netanyahu characterized the U.S. protests in an extremist speech on April 24 attacking American academic freedom.

What’s happening in America’s college campuses is horrific. Antisemitic mobs have taken over leading universities. They call for the annihilation of Israel, they attack Jewish students, they attack Jewish faculty. This is reminiscent of what happened in German universities in the 1930s. We see this exponential rise of antisemitism throughout America and throughout Western societies as Israel tries to defend itself against genocidal terrorists, genocidal terrorists who hide behind civilians.

It’s unconscionable, it has to be stopped, it has to be condemned and condemned unequivocally. But that’s not what happened. The response of several university presidents was shameful. Now, fortunately, state, local, federal officials, many of them have responded differently but there has to be more. More has to be done.[4]

This is a call to make American universities into arms of a police state, imposing policies dictated by Israel’s settler state. That call is being funded by a circular flow: Congress gives enormous subsidies to Israel, which recycles some of this money back into the election campaigns of politicians willing to serve their donors. It is the same policy that Ukraine uses when it employs U.S. “aid” by setting up well-funded lobbying organizations to back client politicians.

What kind of student and academic protest expressions could oppose the Gaza and West Bank genocide without explicitly threatening Jewish students? How about “Palestinians are human being too!” That is not aggressive. To make it more ecumenical, one could add “And so are the Russians, despite what Ukrainian neo-Nazis say.”

I can understand why Israelis feel threatened by Palestinians. They know how many they have killed and brutalized to grab their land, killing just to “free” the land for themselves. They must think “If the Palestinians are like us, they must want to kill us, because of what we have done to them and there can never be a two-state solution and we can never live together, because this land was given to us by God.”

Netanyahu fanned the flames after his April 24 speech by raising today’s conflict to the level of a fight for civilization: “What is important now is for all of us, all of us who are interested and cherish our values and our civilization, to stand up together and to say enough is enough.”

Is what Israel is doing, and what the United Nations, the International Court of Justice and most of the Global Majority oppose, really “our civilization”? Ethnic cleansing, genocide and treating the Palestinian population as conquered and to be expelled as subhumans is an assault on the most basic principles of civilization.

Peaceful students defending that universal concept of civilization are called terrorists and anti-Semites – by the terrorist Israeli Prime Minister. He is following the tactics of Joseph Goebbels: The way to mobilize a population to fight the enemy is to depict yourself as under attack. That was the Nazi public relations strategy, and it is the PR strategy of Israel today – and of many in the American Congress, in AIPAC and many related institutions that proclaim a morally offensive idea of civilization as the ethnic supremacy of a group sanctioned by God.

The real focus of the protests is the U.S. policy that is backing Israel’s ethnic cleansing and genocide supported by last week’s foreign “aid.” It is also a protest against the corruption of Congressional politicians raising money from lobbyists representing foreign interests over those of the United States. Last week’s “aid” bill also backed Ukraine, that other country presently engaged in ethnic cleansing, with House members waved Ukrainian flags, not those of the United States. Shortly before that, one Congressman wore his Israeli army uniform into Congress to advertise his priorities.

Zionism has gone far beyond Judaism. I’ve read that there are nine Christian Zionists for every Jewish Zionists. It is as if both groups are calling for the End Time to arrive, while insisting that support for the United Nations and the International Court of Justice condemning Israel for genocide is anti-Semitic.

What CAN the students at Columbia ask for:

Students at Columbia and other universities have called for universities to disinvest in Israeli stocks, and also those of U.S. arms makers exporting to Israel. Given the fact that universities have become business organizations, I don’t think that this is the most practical demand at present. Most important, it doesn’t go to the heart of the principles at work.

What really is the big public relations issue is the unconditional U.S. backing for Israel come what may, with “anti-Semitism” the current propaganda epithet to characterize those who oppose genocide and brutal land grabbing.

They should insist on a public announcement by Columbia (and also Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania, who were equally obsequious to Rep. Stefanik) that they recognize that it is not anti-Semitic to condemn genocide, support the United Nations and denounce the U.S. veto.

They should insist that Columbia and the other universities making a sacrosanct promise not to call police onto academic grounds over issues of free speech.

They should insist that the president be fired for her one-sided support of Israeli violence against her students. In that demand they are in agreement with Rep. Stefanik’s principle of protecting students, and that Dr. Shafik must go.

But there is one class of major offenders that should be held up for contempt: the donors who try to attack academic freedom by using their money to influence university policy and turn universities away from the role in supporting academic freedom and free speech. The students should insist that university administrators – the unpleasant opportunists standing above the faculty and students – must not only refuse such pressure but should join in publicly expressing shock over such covert political influence.

The problem is that American universities have become like Congress in basing their policy on attracting contributions from their donors. That is the academic equivalent of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling. Numerous Zionist funders have threatened to withdraw their contributions to Harvard, Columbia and other schools not following Netanyahu’s demands to clamp down on opponents of genocide and defenders of the United Nations. These funders are the enemies of the students at such universities, and both students and faculty should insist on their removal. Just as Dr. Shafik’s International Monetary Fund fell subject to its economists’ protest that there must be “No more Argentinas,” perhaps the Columbia students could chant “No More Shafiks.”

Notes.

[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=syPELLKpABI

[2] https://stefanik.house.gov/2024/4/icymi-stefanik-secures-columbia-university-president-s-commitment-to-remove-antisemitic-professor-from-leadership-role

[3] Nicholas FandosStephanie Saul and Sharon Otterman, “Columbia’s President Tells Congress That Action Is Needed Against Antisemitism,” The New York Times, April 17, 2024., and “Columbia President Grilled During Congressional Hearing on Campus Antisemitism,” Jewish Journal, April 18, 2024. https://jewishjournal.com/news/united-states/370521/columbia-president-grilled-during-congressional-hearing-on-campus-antisemitism/#:~:text=Columbia%20President%20Grilled%20During%20Congressional%20Hearing%20on%20Campus%20Antisemitism

[4] Miranda Nazzaro. “Netanyahu condemns ‘antisemitic mobs’ on US college campuses,” The Hill, April 24, 2024.

Michael Hudson’s new book, The Destiny of Civilization, will be published by CounterPunch Books next month.


Palestine, War Profiteers and the Youth

 

APRIL 30, 2024
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Image by Ahmed Abu Hameeda.

Israel exists. Whether the reader likes this or not, it is a verifiable fact. That it has chosen to exist as a semi-fascist apartheid state that occupies land illegally while militarily supporting so-called settlers in the ongoing theft of more land is also a fact. So is the ongoing genocidal slaughter of Palestinians living in the area known as Gaza. All of these facts are subject to change, despite Israel’s arrogant proclamations to the contrary—the slaughter will end and Israel as we know it might, too. This is true despite its support from the world’s most successful colonial-settler state, the United States.

Here’s another fact. Palestine exists. It exists in the hearts and minds of the Palestinian people—in the Occupied Territories, in Gaza, in exile around the world and in Israel’s prisons. It also exists in the hearts and minds of millions of other humans on the planet and in the proclamations by 142 governments that recognize Palestinian statehood. This existence goes far beyond the groups that make up the current resistance and their supporters. It is also much more than the dashed hopes represented by the Palestinian Authority. Like other national liberation movements before it in Vietnam and Algeria (among others), and the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, the Palestinian struggle is a struggle that goes beyond borders and reaches across the human population.

Washington is a decrepit regime, crippled by its economic addiction to war and the preparation for war. Billions of dollars are handed over to its clients foreign and domestic, who seem all too willing to hitch their wagons to the death train pulled by the men and women in the White House, Congress and the Pentagon. It is a train fueled by the profits of death merchants and cheered by the sycophant media; a media that pretends diversity of opinion but never stops promoting the lies and programs of the rulers and their agenda. In other words, any diversity of opinion ends when it approaches a genuine challenge to the permanent war economy.

Israel seems determined to follow Washington’s path. Its regime has gone further than ever before, stripping away most pretenses of equal treatment for non-Zionists inside its borders. While Israel’s slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza and its ongoing incursion into the West Bank continues, its leaders defy the world’s common humanity and understandings, challenging virtually every rule in what Washington’s current White House calls the rules-based order. Israel suffers no punishment for its crimes. Instead, its defense minister challenges the hand of the nation holding its leash—the United States—telling it that “nobody will teach the Israeli military morality” after Washington suggested it might sanction a particularly brutal unit of the Israeli Offensive Forces. Washington backed off.

Israel and the United States are committing war crime after war crime. Indeed, the entire Israeli military, the Israeli government and the governments that fund them should be sanctioned. There is no moral claim left for Israel to make. Its crusade is nothing but homicidal madness. The fact that Washington and a few other morally bankrupt regimes continue to fund that crusade places them in the war crimes docket, as well. US imperialism has no clothes. Its bloodlust is once again revealed. The Israeli government is Washington’s mad dog in the region. Washington feeds the dog and lets it off its chain when it serves the US empire’s agenda. Of course, like any poorly trained dog, Israel doesn’t always return when its master calls.

If one seeks a sense of morality in the US, it seems it can best be found among those college and university students demanding an end to the slaughter in Gaza and divestment from the war machine that these institutions support. Liberals and conservatives call these protesters antisemitic. The media amplifies the nonsense. At this point, it could be argued that antisemitism is defined as any statement that does not indicate anything but total support for Israel’s occupation, land theft and the slaughter of Gazans. When it comes to Congress, the White House, the Pentagon and the institutions running interference for US foreign policy regarding Israel and Palestine (and the rest of the world), the statements regarding antisemitism ring exceedingly hollow upon further investigation. For example, congressman Mike Johnson’s religious beliefs demand his rabid support for Zionism. He is a Christian Zionist. Now, the only reason this branch of Christianity supports the state of Israel in its endeavor is because these believers understand the Bible’s Book of Revelations to read that certain things must happen for Christ’s second coming to occur. One of those things is the rebuilding of a certain temple in Jerusalem where the Al-Aqsa mosque currently exists. That rebuilding would likely only occur when Israel’s rebuilding of what is called Greater Israel is completed. This requires the complete and total defeat of the Palestinian struggle. Only then will these Christians’ savior come back and lead them to heaven. As far as Jewish people are concerned, if this time comes they will be slaughtered en masse unless they quickly convert to Christianity. In other words, Johnson’s version of Christianity doesn’t care about Jewish people, except as a means to hasten the ascent into heaven he and his fellow believers are convinced they are due.

Anyhow, thinking about morality. Not to preach, but certain realities need to be acknowledged. To set the stage, I grew up as the oldest son of twelve children. I raised two children of my own. I worked with young people in public libraries for years and still volunteer. I coached and refereed youth sports and I worked in undergraduate libraries on college campuses for decades. In other words, I’ve been around young folks my entire life. However, even people who have not been around children since they were children themselves must be asking themselves this question: how can anyone justify on any grounds the slaughter of over 15,000 children in Gaza since October 7, 2023? If you were appalled at the murder of children and young people during the attack by Hamas on that date, how can you be not at least equally appalled at Israel’s ongoing massacre?

That is a moral question, not a political one.

Ron Jacobs is the author of Daydream Sunset: Sixties Counterculture in the Seventies published by CounterPunch Books. He has a new book, titled Nowhere Land: Journeys Through a Broken Nation coming out in Spring 2024.   He lives in Vermont. He can be reached at: ronj1955@gmail.com

ICJ set to rule in case accusing Germany of facilitating Gaza genocide

Nicaragua has hauled Germany before the International Court of Justice to stop Berlin from providing Israel with weapons and other assistance.



AA

The ICJ in The Hague is scheduled to issue an order at 1300 GMT./ Photo: AA


The United Nations' top court will rule today on charges by Nicaragua that Germany is breaching the 1948 Genocide Convention by supplying arms to Israel for the Gaza war.

Nicaragua has hauled Germany before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to demand that judges impose emergency measures to stop Berlin from providing Israel with weapons and other assistance.

More than 34,000 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory since Israel's war on Gaza broke out in October.

The ICJ in The Hague is scheduled to issue an order at 1300 GMT.

Nicaragua targeted Germany rather than Israel's main ally, the United States because Washington did not recognise the ICJ's jurisdiction in the case, Managua's lawyers have said.

They say Israel is in breach of the 1948 Genocide Convention.




'Arms to Israel'

Top lawyers from the two countries clashed earlier this month at the court, with Nicaragua saying Germany was "pathetic" to be both providing weapons to Israel and aid to Gazans.

Berlin retorted that Israel's security was at the "core" of its foreign policy and argued that Nicaragua had "grossly distorted" Germany's supply of military aid to Israel.

"Germany only supplies arms based on a meticulous scrutiny that far exceeds the demands of international law," said Tania von Uslar-Gleichen, a German representative to the ICJ.

Those supplies are "subject to a continuous evaluation of the situation on the ground", she added.

"The moment we look closely, Nicaragua's accusations fall apart," Christian Tams, another representative for Germany, told the court.

Nicaragua requested five emergency measures, including that Germany "immediately suspend its aid to Israel, in particular its military assistance including military equipment".

Even though ICJ decisions are binding, the court has no mechanism to enforce them.


Gaza hospital staff questioned by ICC war crimes prosecutors, sources say


Rescuers and medics search for dead bodies inside the damaged Al Shifa Hospital after Israeli forces withdrew from the hospital and the area around it following a two-week operation, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City April 8, 2024.


PUBLISHED APRIL 29, 2024

THE HAGUE — Prosecutors from the International Criminal Court have interviewed staff from Gaza's two biggest hospitals, two sources told Reuters, the first confirmation that ICC investigators were speaking to medics about possible crimes in the Gaza Strip.

The sources, who asked not to be identified due to the sensitivity of the subject, told Reuters ICC investigators had taken testimony from staff who had worked in the main hospital in Gaza City in the north of the enclave, Al Shifa, and the main hospital in Khan Younis in the south, Nasser.

The sources declined to provide more details, citing concerns about the safety of potential witnesses.


One of the sources said that events surrounding the hospitals could become part of the investigation by the ICC, which hears criminal cases against individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and aggression.

The ICC's office of the prosecutor refused to comment on operational matters in ongoing investigations citing the need to ensure the safety of victims and witnesses.

The ICC has said it is investigating both sides in the conflict, including both the Oct 7 attack by Hamas fighters on Israel and the subsequent Israeli offencive in Gaza.


During the conflict, the two main Gaza hospitals have both been high profile Israeli targets — surrounded, besieged and stormed by Israeli forces who accused Hamas militants of using them for military purposes, which Hamas and medical staff deny.

In recent days, Palestinian officials have also demanded investigations after hundreds of bodies were exhumed in mass graves at Nasser. The two sources were not able to say whether such graves formed part of any questioning.

Israel denies carrying out war crimes, including in or around Gaza hospitals, where it says all its military activities have been justified by the presence of Hamas fighters.

Hospitals are protected during wartime by international treaties, which can make attacks on them war crimes under the ICC, although they can lose this protection under some circumstances if they are used by combatants in a way that is harmful to the enemy.

A Palestinian woman reacts next to a wounded man at Nasser hospital following Israeli strikes, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, Dec 9, 2023.
PHOTO: Reuters file

Israel is not a member of the ICC, while the Palestinian territories were admitted as a member state in 2015. The ICC says this gives it jurisdiction over actions by anyone including Israeli soldiers in the Palestinian territories, and by Palestinians anywhere, including on Israeli territory. Israel does not recognise any ICC jurisdiction over its citizens.

Any ICC criminal case would be separate from a case in the International Court of Justice, or World Court, which was brought by South Africa and accuses Israel of genocide in Gaza, which Israel denies. The ICJ, also based in the Hague, hears lawsuits between states, while the ICC hears criminal cases against individuals.
'Dangerous precedent'

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday any ICC move would not affect Israel's actions but would "set a dangerous precedent that threatens soldiers and public figures".

"Under my leadership, Israel will never accept any attempt by the International Criminal Court in the Hague to undermine its basic right to defend itself," he wrote on Telegram.

Hamas fighters attacked Israel on Oct 7, killing 1,200 people and capturing 253 hostages, by Israeli tallies. Israel responded with an assault that Palestinian health authorities say has killed at least 34,000 people, with thousands more bodies believed lost under the rubble.

In a sign the ICC's investigation into the Oct 7 attacks has been moving forward, Yael Vias Gvirsman, a lawyer representing some Israeli victims, said in February a handful of her clients had given testimony directly to ICC investigators.

Thousands amass in Pakistan's capital to show solidarity with Palestinians

Women, children, lawmakers, and visiting foreign businessmen also attend rally



0/04/2024 Tuesday
AA

File photo

Thousands gathered near Pakistan's capital Islamabad on Monday to express solidarity with Palestinians, in a latest show of support to the people of Gaza.

Aside from women and children, a number of lawmakers and visiting businessmen from Lebanon, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Russia converged in Blue World City, a high-end neighborhood on the outskirts of Islamabad.

The event included a symbolic laying of the foundation stone for a replica of Al-Aqsa Mosque and Al-Aqsa Museum, serving as a poignant reminder of the ongoing struggle in Palestine.

"Palestine cannot be forgotten. It's settled in our DNA," said Chaudhry Naeem Ejaz, a member of the lower house or the National Assembly.

"Pakistanis will continue to support the people of Gaza come what may," he said as participants waved the tri-color Palestinian flags.

Israel has waged a brutal offensive on the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7 last year which killed some 1,200 people.

Nearly 34,500 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children, and over 77,600 others injured amid mass destruction and severe shortages of necessities.

More than six months into the Israeli war, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins, pushing 85% of the enclave's population into internal displacement amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water, and medicine, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.
French university to be defunded over pro-Palestine demonstrations

Head of Regional Council of Ile-de-France accuses pro-Palestine students of being 'radicalized,' labeling their protests 'anti-Semitic hatred'

Burak Bir |30.04.2024 - 

Sciences Po students stage pro-Palestinian demonstration in Paris

LONDON

The Regional Council of Ile-de-France said Monday that it will suspend funding for Sciences Po University in Paris over demonstrations by its students in solidarity with Palestinians amid Israel’s war on Gaza.

The council’s president, Valerie Pecresse, said she has decided to suspend the funding "until tranquility and security are restored at the university."

Accusing pro-Palestinian students of being "radicalized" and labeling their protests "anti-Semitic hatred," Pecresse wrote on X that the La France Insoumise (LFI) party and its "Islamo-leftist allies" cannot dictate their laws to the entire educational community.

She said that Ile-de-France defends the right to free, informed and respectful debates within the French university.

Sciences Po has become yet another prestigious Paris university where pro-Palestinian demonstrations are taking place to call for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza.

Israel has waged a brutal offensive on the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7 last year which killed some 1,200 people.

Nearly 34,500 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children, and over 77,600 others injured amid mass destruction and severe shortages of necessities.

More than six months into the Israeli war, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins, pushing 85% of the enclave’s population into internal displacement amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

Outrage as video shows Arizona police removing woman's hijab at ASU


Officers seen in viral footage draw severe criticism while a Muslim advocacy group CAIR calls for full investigation into what's being called an Islamophobic incident amid Student Spring protests engulfing US universities.


The sources originally blurred the woman's face in the video to protect her privacy. / Photo:X@DaveBiscobing15


Footage going viral on social media has shown police forcibly removing a Muslim woman's hijab while being detained at Arizona State University [ASU], amid almost two weeks of protests against Israel's war on Gaza that have swept through higher education institutions from coast to coast.

At least four women have gone through the same harassment, sources told ABC on Monday that The sources originally blurred the woman's face in the video to protect her privacy.

The Arizona chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations [CAIR-AZ] condemned the actions of the police, calling for an investigation into the incident.

"The First Amendment guarantees the free practice of religion. Police cannot suspend this right. We condemn the reported actions of ASU police and call for a full investigation into this incident," CAIR-AZ Executive Director Azza Abuseif said in a statement.

The footage has gone viral on X, formerly known as Twitter, and has drawn severe backlash against the officers, with accusations of Islamophobia.




Arrests across campuses

This was not the first time police responded with aggression against protesters and students.

The number of arrests nationwide has approached 1,000 since New York police arrested demonstrators at Columbia University on April 18.

The arrests have prompted students across many universities in the US to join pro-Palestine protests and set up encampments in support of besieged Gaza as Israel's carnage in the blockaded enclave continues.

The students are demanding a ceasefire in the blockaded enclave and their respective universities to cut ties with companies that support Israel.

US President Joe Biden, along with other governors and officials, have been quick to call out alleged anti-Semitism as pro-Palestine protests keep rapidly spreading across US campuses.

Islamophobic incidents, which have been on the rise since the start of Israel's ongoing onslaught in Gaza, have not been taken as seriously.

Protest organisers deny accusations of anti-Semitism, arguing their actions are aimed at Israel's government and its prosecution of the conflict in Gaza.

They also insist some incidents have been engineered by non-student agitators.




Footage of police in riot gear summoned at various colleges to break up rallies have been viewed around the world, recalling the protest movement that erupted during the Vietnam War.

SOURCE: TRT WORLD




Indonesia's Mount Ruang erupts again, closes international airport

AFP
 2024-04-30

AFP


An eruption from Mount Ruang volcano is seen from Tagulandang island in Sitaro, North Sulawesi, Indonesia, on April 30, 2024.

Indonesia's remote Mount Ruang volcano erupted several times again on Tuesday, the country's volcanology agency said, forcing evacuations, the closure of a nearby international airport and the raising of the alert level to its highest.

Authorities had warned the threat from the volcano was not over after it erupted more than half a dozen times this month, sparking the evacuation of more than 6,000 people.

Ruang, located in Indonesia's outermost region of North Sulawesi province, erupted at around 1:15am local time (5:15pm GMT Monday) and twice more Tuesday morning, the volcanology agency said in a statement.

The volcano sent a tower of ash more than 5 kilometers into the sky, it said.

The agency also re-instated a 6-kilometer exclusion zone and said locals should be aware of "the potential for ejections of incandescent rocks, hot clouds and tsunamis due to eruption material entering the sea."

Images released by the agency showed a molten red column bursting into the sky, a large ash cloud spilling from the crater and burning embers near local houses.

More than 800 people live on Ruang, all of whom were evacuated this month.

Some had returned to their homes after the emergency response status ended on Monday, an AFP journalist said.

It was unclear how many residents had gone back and how many were forced to evacuate one more.
Source: AFP Editor: Wang Qingchu

 

Indonesia revokes licence of world’s largest forestry offsets project

The government cited the licence holder, Rimba Raya Conservation, for three offences. PHOTO: RIMBA RAYA

JAKARTA – The future of one of the world’s largest carbon offsets projects is in doubt after the Indonesian government revoked its licence for violating local regulations.

The Ministry of Environment and Forestry’s action covers more than 36,000 ha in Central Kalimantan, on the island of Borneo. The area is part of a project that has issued more than 30 million credits since 2013, according to data from non-profit CarbonPlan.

The government cited the licence holder, Rimba Raya Conservation, for three offences: The company transferred its licence to a third party without ministry approval, operated beyond its sanctioned area, and failed to make required payments to the state, according to a statement from the ministry in March.

Given the project’s scale, the government’s action creates potential consequences for carbon exchanges, traders, and companies that have bought Rimba Raya credits to offset emissions. It also highlights the risks that can be obscured by multiple participants, and the threat of emerging and rapidly changing government regulations.

Carbon offsets are a key component of tackling climate change, allowing polluters to counter their emissions by buying credits from projects like forest reserves in Indonesia. Prices for the credits are expected to soar over the next few decades, creating a market that could be worth as much as US$1 trillion (S$1.36 trillion) by 2050, according to research provider BloombergNEF.

In recent years, the voluntary carbon market has come under scrutiny for overblown green claims. In 2023, the world’s top seller of carbon credits parted ways with its chief executive officer, following months of allegations that the company overstated the climate impact of the products it sold.

The developments could also affect Rimba Raya’s business partners. Hong Kong-based InfiniteEarth has an agreement with Rimba Raya to sell the carbon credits and markets the project as its own. The company said in an email that it had registered and validated the Rimba Raya project under Indonesia’s new carbon registry and standard.

Toronto-based Carbon Streaming agreed in 2021 to buy more than 50 million Rimba Raya credits from InfiniteEarth over the next 20 years. In a statement on April 26, it said it is waiting for more clarity from InfiniteEarth and the Indonesian government. 

The Indonesian government and Mr Djonni Andhella, chief executive of Rimba Raya Conservation according to his LinkedIn profile, did not respond to requests for comment. 

BLOOMBERG

Philippines Aims To Double Solar, Quadruple Share Of Wind In Power Output By 2030

The Philippines plans to boost the share of solar in power output to 5.6% in 2030 from 2.4% in 2024, and wind to 11.7% from 3.1%, according to a government presentation, potentially making the archipelago’s grid among the cleanest in the region.

The southeast Asian nation expects higher share of solar and wind to offset a decline in the share of other clean sources such as hydropower and geothermal energy, helping non-fossil sources account for 35% of power generation by 2030.

Hydroelectricity’s share is set to fall from 10% to 9.1%, while geothermal energy is expected to account for 7.7% of overall output by 2030, compared with 8.9% in 2024, Mylene Capongcol, assistant secretary at the Philippines Department of Energy, said in the presentation, at the Renewable Energy Markets Asia conference.

Philippines plans to achieve the targets by doubling solar capacity and tripling wind capacity over six years, Capongcol added in the presentation, which was shared with Reuters.

The country is betting on a rapid build out of offshore wind farms, which have high upfront costs. Spiralling costs amid high inflation have resulted in some saw developers cancel or pause projects in the U.S. and Britain last year.

The archipelago also expects to add 1,200 megawatts of Nuclear capacity by 2032, Capongcol said in the presentation, adding that the country plans to upgrade its transmission infrastructure to help manage the addition of renewables.

The energy department will also create a long-term program to facilitate the voluntary early decommissioning or repurposing of over 3.8 GW of coal-fired power plants which are more than 20 years old, Capongcol said.

Philippines is targeting reducing the share of coal in power generation to 47.6% by 2030, from about 60% currently.

(Reuters)