Wednesday, May 01, 2024
'All Because Columbia Refuses to Divest': Police Storm Campus, Violently Arrest Dozens
"The U.S. government and institutions like Columbia are showing that they would rather brutalize students than divest from apartheid and genocide."
Jake Johnson, Common Dreams, May 1, 2024
Hundreds of New York City police officers descended on Columbia University Tuesday night to arrest dozens of pro-Palestinian student protesters and dismantle a Gaza solidarity encampment that inspired campus protests across the United States, with demonstrators calling on their schools to divest from companies profiting off Israel's devastating war.
Police, some wearing riot gear, entered Columbia's campus at the request of the university's president, Minouche Shafik, who authorized the NYPD to "clear all individuals from Hamilton Hall and all campus encampments."
Video footage shows officers entering a campus building that students occupied hours earlier, renaming it "Hind's Hall" after a 6-year-old girl who was killed by Israeli forces earlier this year. The Columbia Daily Spectator, the university's student newspaper, reported that "as they entered the building, officers threw down the metal and wooden tables barricading the doors and shattered the glass on the leftmost doors of Hamilton to enter with shields in hand."
"Several officers drew their guns, according to footage posted by NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz Daughtry," the newspaper added. "At around 9:37 pm, officers led dozens of protesters out the entrance of Hamilton. The protesters' hands were zip-tied behind their backs. The arrested individuals chanted, 'Free, free Palestine' as they were led away from the building."
Other footage shows NYPD officers forcing their way through students who locked arms in front of the occupied campus building. One cop is seen kneeing a student on the ground.
Students reported that police used tear gas, which is banned in war, on demonstrators.
"Tonight, my university called in a militarized police force—armed in riot gear, with guns drawn, deploying weapons banned under international law—to attack teenagers," Lea Salim, a student member of Jewish Voice for Peace-Columbia/Barnard, said in a statement. "All because Columbia refuses to divest from the Israeli military and its genocidal campaign on the people of Gaza."
As police set up barricades around the perimeter of the campus, onlookers gathered and chanted, "Let the students go!" in solidarity with the arrested demonstrators.
Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) said he was "outraged" by the police presence at both Columbia and the City College of New York, writing on social media that the "militarization of college campuses, extensive police presence, and arrest of hundreds of students are in direct opposition to the role of education as a cornerstone of our democracy."
"I call upon the Columbia administration to stop this dangerous escalation before it leads to further harm," Bowman added, "and allow the faculty back onto campus so that all parties can collectively come to a solution that centers humanity over hate."
In a letter to the New York City Police Department on Tuesday, Shafik—who is facing mounting calls to resign—requested that officers maintain a presence on Columbia's campus "through at least May 17, 2024 to maintain order and ensure encampments are not reestablished."
The police crackdown on Columbia students is part of a broader wave of repression against campus protests that have emerged across the country in recent weeks as Israel's assault on and forced starvation of Gaza civilians continues with no end in sight.
Police actions, approved by the leaders of some universities and cheered on by right-wing government officials, have drawn international rebukes. In a statement Tuesday, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said he is "concerned that some of law enforcement actions across a series of universities appear disproportionate in their impacts."
"U.S. universities have a strong, historic tradition of student activism, strident debate and freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, "Türk said. "It must be clear that legitimate exercises of the freedom of expression cannot be conflated with incitement to violence and hatred."
Observers were quick to note the parallels between the police crackdown on civil rights and anti-war protests at Columbia in 1968 and Tuesday's raid.
Stefanie Fox, executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace, said in response to the police invasion of Columbia Tuesday that "the U.S. has funded and supported the Israeli government's oppression of Palestinians for decades, with private institutions across the country profiting from the same."
Organizers have specifically demanded that Columbia divest its nearly $14 billion endowment from Caterpillar, Hyundai Heavy Industries, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Elbit Systems, Mekorot, Hapoalim, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin.
"These students are saying: enough," said Fox. "As Prime Minister Netanyahu prepares to launch a ground invasion on Rafah—now home to one million displaced Palestinians—the U.S. government and institutions like Columbia are showing that they would rather brutalize students than divest from apartheid and genocide."
Monday, April 29, 2024
US Working To Prevent ICC Arrest Warrant for Netanyahu
The US backed the ICC issuing an arrest warrant for Putin
by Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com, April 28, 2024
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The US and Israel are working together to prevent the International Criminal Court from issuing an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other high-level Israeli officials, Israeli media has reported.
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Haaretz reported that the Israeli government is working under the assumption that arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and IDF Chief-of-Staff Herzi Halevi could be issued as soon as this week. The report said that the US is already engaged in an effort to block the warrants.
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Walla reported that Netanyahu is “under unusual stress” over the potential warrants and is leading a “nonstop push over the telephone” to prevent them with a focus on contact with the Biden administration.
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In a statement on Friday, Netanyahu said an arrest warrant wouldn’t stop Israel’s mass slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza. “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 said. “While decisions made by the court in the Hague will not affect Israel’s actions, they will set a dangerous precedent that threatens soldiers and public figures.”
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Neither the US nor Israel are parties to the ICC, and the US has a contentious history with the court. In 2002, then-President George W. Bush signed a bill into law that would authorize the use of force to free any US service members or government officials brought to the ICC, which is based in the Hauge.
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The controversial law, known as the American Service-Members’ Protection Act, authorizes the US to use “all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any US or allied personnel being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the” ICC, and is nicknamed the Hague Invasion Act.
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The Trump administration sanctioned ICC officials for their investigation into alleged US war crimes in Afghanistan. The Biden administration reversed the sanctions but continued to put pressure on the court, which worked since the ICC announced it would “deprioritize” its investigation of US forces in Afghanistan.
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After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the Biden administration changed its attitude toward the court and backed its arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin, which was issued in 2023. But now that Israel is being targeted, the US will likely resort back to its pressure tactics. Any criminal investigation against Netanyahu also implicates President Biden since he has provided so much support for the Israeli campaign in Gaza.
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Israel is also facing pressure from the International Court of Justice (ICJ), another Hague-based court that rules it’s “plausible” Israel is carrying out genocide in Gaza, a ruling the US has rejected. The main difference between the two courts is that the ICC prosecutes individuals, while the ICJ deals with disputes between countries.
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Wednesday, April 24, 2024
Mass graves in Gaza show victims’ hands were tied, says UN rights office
People gather outside the remains of Al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza's largest health facility. (file)
Peace and Security
Disturbing reports continue to emerge about mass graves in Gaza in which Palestinian victims were reportedly found stripped naked with their hands tied, prompting renewed concerns about possible war crimes amid ongoing Israeli airstrikes, the UN human rights office, OHCHR, said on Tuesday.
The development follows the recovery of hundreds of bodies “buried deep in the ground and covered with waste” over the weekend at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, central Gaza, and at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City in the north. A total of 283 bodies were recovered at Nasser Hospital, of which 42 were identified.
“Among the deceased were allegedly older people, women and wounded, while others were found tied with their hands…tied and stripped of their clothes,” said Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Al-Shifa discovery
Citing the local health authorities in Gaza, Ms. Shamdasani added that more bodies had been found at Al-Shifa Hospital.
The large health complex was the enclave’s main tertiary facility before war erupted on 7 October. It was the focus of an Israeli military incursion to root out Hamas militants allegedly operating inside which ended at the beginning of this month. After two weeks of intense clashes, UN humanitarians assessed the site and confirmed on 5 April that Al-Shifa was “an empty shell”, with most equipment reduced to ashes.
“Reports suggest that there were 30 Palestinian bodies buried in two graves in the courtyard of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City; one in front of the emergency building and the others in front of the dialysis building,” Ms. Shamdasani told journalists in Geneva.
The bodies of 12 Palestinians have now been identified from these locations at Al-Shifa, the OHCHR spokesperson continued, but identification has not yet been possible for the remaining individuals.
“There are reports that the hands of some of these bodies were also tied,” Ms. Shamdasani said, adding that there could be “many more” victims, “despite the claim by the Israeli Defense Forces to have killed 200 Palestinians during the Al-Shifa medical complex operation”.
200 days of horror
Some 200 days since intense Israeli bombardment began in response to Hamas-led terror attacks in southern Israel, UN human rights chief Volker Türk expressed his horror at the destruction of Nasser and Al-Shifa hospitals and the reported discovery of mass graves.
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“The intentional killing of civilians, detainees and others who are hors de combat is a war crime,” Mr. Türk said in a call for independent investigations into the deaths.
Mounting toll
As of 22 April, more than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, including 14,685 children and 9,670 women, the High Commissioner’s office said, citing the enclave’s health authorities. Another 77,084 have been injured, and over 7,000 others are assumed to be under the rubble.
“Every 10 minutes a child is killed or wounded. They are protected under the laws of war, and yet they are ones who are disproportionately paying the ultimate price in this war,” said the High Commissioner.
Türk warning
The UN rights chief also reiterated his warning against a full-scale Israeli incursion of Rafah, where an estimated 1.2 million Gazans “have been forcibly cornered”.
“The world’s leaders stand united on the imperative of protecting the civilian population trapped in Rafah,” the High Commissioner said in a statement, which also condemned Israeli strikes against Rafah in recent days that mainly killed women and children.
This included an attack on an apartment building in the Tal Al Sultan area on 19 April which killed nine Palestinians “including six children and two women”, along with a strike on As Shabora Camp in Rafah a day later that reportedly left four dead, including a girl and a pregnant woman.
“The latest images of a premature child taken from the womb of her dying mother, of the adjacent two houses where 15 children and five women were killed, this is beyond warfare,” said Mr. Türk.
The High Commissioner decried the “unspeakable suffering” caused by months of warfare and appealed once again for “the resulting misery and destruction, starvation and disease and the risk of wider conflict” to end.
Mr. Türk also reiterated his call for an immediate ceasefire, the release of all remaining hostages taken from Israel and those held in arbitrary detention and the unfettered flow of humanitarian aid.
A
young girl is transferred from the Kamal Adwan hospital, in the far
north of Gaza to a hospital in the south of the enclave. (file)
Massive settler attacks in West Bank
Turning to the West Bank, the UN rights chief said that grave human rights violations had continued there “unabated”.
This was despite international condemnation of “massive settler attacks” between 12 and 14 April “that had been facilitated by the Israeli Security Forces (ISF)”.
Settler violence has been organized “with the support, protection, and participation of the ISF”, Mr. Türk insisted, before describing a 50-hour long operation into Nur Shams refugee camp and Tulkarem city starting on 18 April.
“The ISF deployed ground troops, bulldozers and drones and sealed the camp. Fourteen Palestinians were killed, three of them children,” the UN rights chief said, noting that 10 ISF members had been injured.
In a statement, Mr. Türk also highlighted reports that several Palestinians had been unlawfully killed in the Nur Shams operation “and that the ISF used unarmed Palestinians to shield their forces from attack and killed others in apparent extrajudicial executions”.
Dozens were reportedly detained and ill-treated while the ISF “inflicted unprecedented and apparently wanton destruction on the camp and its infrastructure”, the High Commissioner said.
In Service of Western Supremacy – Why Germany Provides Unwavering Support to Israel
By Robert Inlakesh, Information Clearing House
Germany’s strong support for Israel, despite historical guilt for the Holocaust, may not be solely motivated by remorse. The country’s backing of Israel’s actions in Gaza appears driven by military-industrial interests and alignment with US foreign policy. This suggests a double standard in Germany’s moral arguments and raises questions about its true motives.
If it was true that Germany’s commitment to shielding Israel, at all costs, was down to its historical guilt, then why would it risk association with another act of Genocide?
Despite its historic persecution of European Jewry, Germany today stands as one of the strongest allies of the self-proclaimed ‘Jewish State’ of Israel, providing it with 30 percent of its weapons supplies and unrelenting diplomatic cover.
While some argue that Berlin’s unwavering support, for its Israeli ally, is born of guilt from the Germany’s genocide during the Second World War, the record suggests there is another explanation for their actions.
Nicaragua Case
Following the success of South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), winning a unanimous decision from the court’s judges that there is a plausible genocide being carried out in Gaza, the State of Nicaragua decided to take the natural next step and pursue one of the collaborators in carrying out violations of the Genocide Convention.
Managua has accused Germany of complicity in yet another genocide, at the ICJ, a crime for which Berlin is particularly infamous for.
Not only was the German State responsible for the Holocaust under Nazi rule, but also carried out a Genocide in Namibia prior to the First World War too.
In the case of the Nazi regime’s extermination of the Jewish people, it is fair to say that modern Germany has expressed its regret, paid reparations and attempted to disassociate itself from the crime.
However, its refusal to pay its dues for the crimes it committed during the colonial era in Africa, more specifically the Genocide of the Nama and Herero people, reflects an inability to acknowledge its wrong doings against all peoples.
As the second largest weapons supplier, behind the United States, to the Israeli military, Germany is faced with a tremendous legal commitment to attempt in preventing Tel Aviv from carrying out actions that violate international law with those arms.
In this case, the Israelis have plausibly been accused at the highest judicial body on the planet of committing the crime of all crimes, for which Berlin has alleged its iron clad support for Israel has been premised.
If Nicaragua’s case is successful, it could trigger the ICJ to order provisional measures that will force Germany to halt arms sales to Israel, which would be a major development.
Freedom of Speech
However, instead of shying away from being tied to yet another genocide, the German State has doubled down in its support for the Israelis in their assault on the Gaza Strip.
On top of consistently utilising its police and security forces to violently crack down on Germany’s pro-Palestinian peaceful demonstrators, it has also taken unprecedented action to prevent their citizens having the right to freedom of speech on the issue too.
On April 12, the German authorities were reported to have mounted thousands of police officers to participate in shutting down a Palestine Conference organized in Berlin.
Shortly before the conference, Palestinian-British doctor Ghassan Abu Sitta, who was supposed be a keynote speaker, was denied entry into German territory and deported.
The electricity was shut off to the conference and even a prominent Jewish pro-Palestine activist was arrested, a police officers prevented journalists from filming, justifying their actions later by stating that one of the speakers who was attending through an online call, Salman Abu Sitta, was banned from political activity inside of Germany.
While the German authorities have made clear that their unconditional support for Israeli actions in Gaza will not be swayed by calls from their own public, even going so far as to prevent democratic means of the German population voicing its disapproval of their governments policy.
This begs the question as to why the German government, which so openly proclaims its disgust and regret for the actions of the Nazis during the Second World War, truly prioritizes ridding itself of the genocide association label.
Historical Guilt?
If it was true that Germany’s commitment to shielding Israel, at all costs, was down to its historical guilt, then why would it risk association with another act of Genocide?
Instead, the true underlying causes of Germany’s support for Israel, in its war against Gaza, are more likely the need to continue the flow of weapons to the benefit of its own military industrial complex, in addition to its commitment to aiding the United States in maintaining Western supremacy throughout West Asia.
Germany has strongly condemned Russia for its military action’s in Ukraine and attempted to build, what it calls, a moral argument against Moscow’s offensive actions.
Yet, comparatively, while the Russian armed forces have killed hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers, only 550 children are said to have been killed during some two years of war.
When it comes to the actions of the Israelis, inflicting over 40,000 deaths in Gaza – when including the some 13,000 missing and presumed dead – nearly 70% are said to be women and children.
What we see here, in the case of the German government, is not only a clear double-standard, but also an attempt to build moral arguments to justify their positions, when it comes to foreign policy, that are inherently contradictory.
If we are to take Berlin at face value, about its alleged Genocide guilt and concern over civilian deaths, there are only two viable explanations for their double-standards: Either Germany believes that European lives are worth more than non-Europeans, or they are lying to deceive the public into believing they are committed to certain foreign policy positions for ethical reason for propagandistic purposes alone.
As is the case for the United States and the other governments of the collective West, it may be that a mixture of the two explanations are true.
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Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.
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Tuesday, April 23, 2024
President Biden Smears Pro-Palestinian Protesters as ‘Antisemitic’!
On Monday, President Biden smeared protesters at college campuses around the country opposed to the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza as “antisemitic.”
“I condemn the antisemitic protests. That’s why I’ve set up a program to deal with that,” Biden told reporters. “I also condemn those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians.”
Biden’s comments came as the media is focused on Columbia University in New York City, where students have set up a camp named the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment.” Some of the students involved in the protest were arrested last week and suspended by the university, prompting a walkout by faculty members to show support for the students.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams has also smeared protesters as “antisemitic,” saying, “I am horrified and disgusted with the antisemitism being spewed at and around the Columbia University campus.”
The demand of the protesters is for Columbia University to divest from companies profiting from the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians and the occupation of the West Bank. Al Jazeera reported that the protest is being organized by the student-led coalition Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), Students for Justice in Palestine, and Jewish Voice for Peace. According to the CUAD’s website, the coalition includes 116 organizations.
The situation at Columbia has led some members of Congress to call for the National Guard to break up the protests, including Senators Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Josh Hawley (R-MO).
Critics of the protests have accused the demonstrators of harassing Jewish students, which has been a common claim about recent college protests in general. Peter Beinart, editor-at-large of Jewish Currents, made the point on X that Jews are usually “overrepresented” among pro-Palestinian protesters at colleges. “Sometimes they’re the largest identity group. Maybe folks calling for cracking down on protesters in the name of Jewish safety should consider their safety too,” he said.
Thursday, April 18, 2024
Germany’s suppression of the Palestine Congress and the fight against genocide and dictatorship
Johannes Stern, WSWS, 18 April 2024
@JSternWSWS
Eighty years after the end of the Nazi dictatorship, the ruling class in Germany is shedding its democratic mask. The suppression of the Palestine Congress in Berlin is reminiscent of the darkest times in German history.
Last Friday, 900 police stormed the peaceful gathering and arrested numerous participants, including Jewish opponents of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Approximately 2,500 police officers were mobilized in total, and they have since been brutalizing protesters demonstrating against the dispersal of the Congress.
The World Socialist Web Site and the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (Socialist Equality Party, SGP) condemn the German state’s crackdown—which is redolent of outright dictatorships and fascist regimes—on the Palestine Congress in the strongest terms. It is not only directed against the congress and its supporters, but aims to suppress all social and political opposition. Under conditions in which the ruling class is again relying on militarism and war and is planning massive attacks on the working class, protests are not allowed.
The organizers of the Palestine Congress and their lawyers were willing to abide by all police restrictions. A statement from the lawyers’ collective, which worked closely with the organizers of the congress, showed that there were already several rounds of “safety talks” between organizers and the police in advance, which further restricted the congress. Nevertheless, it was brutally dissolved in the end. Even its most prominent participants were treated like criminals.
For example, the Federal Ministry of the Interior imposed a ban on the former Greek Minister of Finance and chairman of the pan-European party DiEM25, Yanis Varoufakis. The ban also includes an entry and online access ban. In other words, although a few years ago Berlin was still working closely with Varoufakis to impose the European Union’s austerity dictates on the Greek working class, he is now no longer allowed to express himself politically in Germany, because he criticises the mass murder of Palestinians.
Another well-known person blacklisted by the federal government at short notice is the physician and rector of the University of Glasgow, Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah. After the Federal Police also issued him with an entry ban, he was detained upon arrival at Berlin Airport, subjected to an hours-long interrogation and then sent back to London by plane.
Abu Sittah worked in the Gaza Strip during the first six weeks of the war in the Shifa and Ahli hospitals, which were repeatedly attacked by the Israeli army. He testified about his terrible experiences at the International Court of Justice, where Germany has been charged with complicity in genocide, and also gave a harrowing interview to German news magazine Der Spiegel. Now, as an eyewitness to the mass murder, he was forbidden from reporting on the events in Gaza at the congress.
The crackdown against the Palestine Congress is the culmination of a veritable police terror campaign carried out against all opposition since the beginning of Israel’s genocide. In Berlin and other major German cities, entire districts with large Palestinian and Arab populations are under siege. Anyone who wears a Palestinian scarf or in any way expresses their opposition to the government and the genocide it supports must expect to be stopped and arrested by the police.
Applying the same arbitrariness and brutality, the cultural and educational sector is being scoured and whipped into line. Exhibitions by Palestinian artists and opponents of the genocide have been cancelled, cultural institutions such as the Oyoun in Berlin have lost their funding, and teaching appointments, prizes and awards have been withdrawn. Anyone who expresses criticism as an artist, scientist or journalist first loses their job, then is branded an antisemite in a public smear campaign and destroyed by the media.
No one should be intimidated by this filthy campaign. It is the height of provocation when the German ruling class, of all people, invokes the Holocaust to justify another genocide and to criminalize any opposition to it. This also applies to Jewish opponents of genocide. Already in the run-up to the congress, the bank account of the Jewish Voice for a Just Peace, where donations for the event were collected, was frozen. When the police stormed the congress, a leading member of the organisation, Udi Raz, was arrested.
The crackdown was supported by all parties in the Bundestag (federal parliament). Social Democratic Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser praised the brutal actions of the police. It was “right and necessary” that the Berlin police crack down on the so-called Palestine Congress, she wrote on the social media platform X.
A cross-party “Alliance against Anti-Semitic Terrorism,” which includes leading representatives of the governing Social Democrats, Green and Free Democrats, and the opposition Christian Democrats and Left Party in Berlin, like a large part of the media, waged a vicious smear campaign even before the congress began and called for its banning. The participants were concerned with “spreading anti-Semitic hatred” and Berlin should not become “the centre of terrorist glorification,” they wrote in a statement.
The established politicians and the propagandists in the media can shout until they are blue in the face, this will not change reality. The filthy narrative of the fight against “antisemitism” and “terrorism” is increasingly being exposed. It is nothing more than a cover under which the ruling class returns to its roots: fascism and war.
It is not the oppressed Palestinians and the millions of people around the world who stand in solidarity with them and protest against the genocide that promote antisemitism, but the imperialist powers and, above all, the ruling class of Germany. The very narrative that collectively associates Jewish people with the genocidal policies of the far-right Netanyahu regime is thoroughly antisemitic.
In addition, the same parties, politicians and journalists who are now shouting “antisemitism” have no problem courting the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and openly glorifying fascist forces in Ukraine in the NATO war against Russia. They also defended the right-wing extremist Humboldt University Professor Jörg Baberowski after he declared that Hitler was “not vicious” and did not want to know about the extermination of the Jews.
The ruling class is not concerned with the fate of the Jews. As in Ukraine and Russia, German imperialism is also pursuing geostrategic and economic interests in the Middle East, relying on genocide and war. The government is currently working feverishly to, in the words of Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, make Germany “fit for war” again. Domestically, as in the past, this requires the militarisation of society as a whole and the establishment of a dictatorship.
As early as 2017, Germany’s secret service, the Verfassungsschutz (Office for the Protection of the Constitution), under the leadership of right-wing extremist President Hans-Georg Maassen, placed the SGP under intelligence surveillance. And this on the exclusive grounds that the SGP advocates a socialist programme, criticises capitalism, militarism and nationalism, and opposes the established parties and the trade unions. The SGP filed a lawsuit against this and warned even then:
The secret service’s attack on the SGP is a fundamental assault on democratic rights. It is a component of government policy that is increasingly based on authoritarian forms of rule and the reliance on right-wing extremist forces so as to enforce militarist policies, the strengthening of the repressive state apparatus and attacks on social spending, and to suppress all opposition that emerges. It recalls the Weimar Republic, when the intelligence agencies, judiciary, and police ruthlessly persecuted socialists and pacifists while strengthening the Nazis.”
This is the reality. And the suppression of the Palestine Congress is another serious warning. It underlines how aggressive the ruling class is and that, as in the Third Reich, it will stop at nothing to enforce its policy of war and dictatorship. At the same time, their Gestapo-like methods will only act to further fuel popular opposition. According to a recent survey, just 18 percent consider Israel’s actions in Gaza to be justified, while 69 percent oppose them.
The SGP bases itself on this opposition, which is part of a much broader radicalisation of the working class and the development of the international class struggle. It will use the European election campaign, together with its sister parties in the International Committee of the Fourth International, to promote the building of an independent mass movement against genocide, war and dictatorship–and their root cause, capitalism. Our election statement declares:
Millions of people around the world have demonstrated against the genocide in Gaza in recent weeks, despite the propaganda from the politicians and the media, and have indicated how strong and globally networked the working class is today. This movement must be expanded and armed with a socialist perspective.
We demand:
• An immediate end to the siege of Gaza and the complete demobilization of the Israeli army!
• The holding of Netanyahu, Biden, Scholz and all other war criminals accountable for their war crimes!
• The fight to unite Palestinian and Israeli workers in the struggle for a common secular and socialist state!
Tuesday, April 16, 2024
Israeli Massacres Continue in Gaza, as Returnees to North are Targeted and Refugee Camp is Bombed
T
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The brief interlude of the Iranian rocket attack on Israel, in which almost all the projectiles were shot down or intercepted, did nothing to slow the Israeli assault on Gaza. Unfortunately for the Palestinians, no helpful foreign power is intercepting Israeli rockets fired at dense urban neighborhoods with deadly effect. The Israelis murdered another 43 people on Sunday, many of them from the sky.
Reporters for CNN, some of them stringers on the ground in Gaza, reported Sunday that thousands of civilians attempted to return from their 191-day exile in Rafah to their homes in the north. They appear just to have grabbed up their children and a few things, and hit the road, as rumors circulated that people were being let through the checkpoints by the Israelis. The rumors were untrue.
Al-Sharq reports that according to eyewitnesses, early on Sunday “dozens of displaced women and children were able to return from the south of the Gaza Strip to the north, without the Israeli army attacking them at the checkpoiint at Al-Shuhada Junction on the coastal road, Al-Rashid Street.”
Videos shared by women and children in this brave and successful exodus north appear to have started the rumor that it was safe to go home, which then created the rush of thousands of hopeful returnees.
Eyewitnesses told al-Sharq: “But fire was opened on another group of citizens hundreds of yards from the checkpoint.”
Mohammad Al-Sawalhi, Abeer Salman, Kareem Khadder and Zeena Saifi report in more detail for CNN that the group used donkey carts, bicycles, even some pick-up trucks to head north. They quote one Majd al-Aqqad as saying “I’m going to Gaza City. It’s enough. We need to go back to our homes and lands. We are tired of displacement… we heard people saying we can go back, but no one official told us. We’ll leave it to God.”
Another interviewee who went north, Um Mohammed, told them, “I don’t know anything about my house. It’s our home and our land. The Israelis displaced us and humiliated us,”
But then the Israeli troops began shooting, apparently an entire arsenal, including from helicopter gunships, when they saw some men with the refugees. A woman who appears to have declined to be identified told CNN, “We reached all the way to the checkpoint until we saw Israeli tanks. We headed back because they fired towards us. We didn’t see anyone make it to the other side. We risked our children’s lives to cross, but apparently it was all a lie,”
One little girl was shot in her mother’s arms and is now being treated in what is left of a hospital back south.
MEMO video: Gaza’s displaced retreat to the south after Israeli military blocks them
Meanwhile, Israel’s artificial intelligence programs went on mindlessly identifying supposed militants and directed air force pilots and drone operators to hit them at home with their families and neighbors.
According to Sharq the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza alleged, “the Israeli occupation committed 4 massacres against families in the Gaza Strip, as a result of which 43 dead [“martyrs”] and 62 wounded arrived at hospitals during the past 24 hours.” As a result of these bombings, “a number of victims are still under the rubble and on the roads, and ambulance and civil defense crews cannot reach them.”
These 43 newly dead Palestinians brought the total since last October to 33,739, the Ministry said, with 76,371 injured. Some 70% of the casualties are women and children, and many of the others are noncombatant men. Since the Israelis are using an indiscriminate artificial intelligence program, we cannot know whether any of the men they are killing were in any way connected to the October 7 attack, which involved perhaps a couple thousand cadres. The operation was kept secret from all but a few persons in Gaza, and it appears that even the expatriate civilian leadership may not have known about it.
On Monday morning, Sharq writes, “the Palestinian Wafa News Agency reported that an Israeli airstrike killed 5 Palestinians in an area northwest of the Nuseirat refugee camp, in the central Gaza Strip.”
It continues, “Wafa reported, citing local sources, that Israeli fighters bombed a house northwest of the Nuseirat camp, and also a mosque inside the camp, while it indicated that Israeli army artillery bombed the [residential] Asar Tower [apartment complex] in Nuseirat.”
Unless Israeli troops were taking fire from the mosque, which seems unlikely, bombing it is a war crime. Bombing a residential apartment building, unless you know that no innocent civilians are in it, is also a war crime.
In fact, it is by now all a war crime. This is not “self-defense” or “defeating Hamas.” It is just bombing people you think may have served in the Hamas paramilitary at some point, and everyone around them. Some 10 percent of the AI identifications are admitted to be faulty. And the rationale for killing every single paramilitary member is weak, especially if it is done from the air, leaving them no opportunity to surrender, and especially if you are trying to kill their children and wives along with them.
As for Nuseirat Camp, according to UNRWA, just a few years ago it had about 85,000 Palestinian refugees, whose families had been ethnically cleansed by Zionist gangs and chased out of their homes in what is now southern Israel in 1948. It was about as populous as Santa Fe, New Mexico.
H/t UNRWA .
Poverty-stricken, their orchards and farms now in the hands of Israelis, they were crowded into makeshift structures and dense apartment buildings. They suffered from lack of potable water, inability to fish off the coast, and malnutrition and unemployment, all exacerbated by the Israeli blockade imposed in 2007 to punish them collectively for the fact that Hamas ruled them. Most have now been doubly made refugees, having been expelled to Rafah by the Israeli military, with no consideration for their welfare or well-being. Imagine almost everyone in Santa Fe being frog-marched south to huddle on the Mexican border with inadequate shelter, food and water.
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