World Socialist Web Site – February 8, 2024
Israel presses assault on Gaza as Netanyahu and Blinken reject ceasefire
Andre Damon
The Israeli military continued its bombardment Wednesday of Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza where 1 million displaced people are sheltering, as US and Israeli leaders publicly rejected any cessation of hostilities.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, during a visit to Israel, said a proposal by Hamas to release all Israeli hostages in exchange for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza was “full of non-starters,” once again giving Israel a green light for its ongoing genocide.
“We’ve made it clear that Israel is fully justified in confronting Hamas and other terrorist organizations,” Blinken said, adding that the US has “done more than any other country to support Israel’s right to ensure that October 7th never happens again.”
Blinken will stay in Israel on Thursday, continuing to hold meetings and coordinate US support for the ongoing genocide.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was even more explicit in rejecting a ceasefire, declaring, “there is no other solution but a complete and final victory.”
“By giving in to Hamas’ demands, we will only invite another massacre,” Netanyahu said. “Surrendering to the delusional demands of Hamas … will not only fail to bring about the release of the hostages, but it will also invite another massacre.”
Netanyahu told Israeli troops on Wednesday to “prepare to operate” in Rafah, declaring, “There will not be any sector in Gaza that will not be covered by the Israeli offensive.”
Last week, Miki Zohar, a minister from Netanyahu’s Likud party, explained that Israel would not accept any demand for a withdrawal from Gaza and would only accept a temporary cessation of “one month or 1½ months” because “we have no intention of stopping the fighting.”
In his remarks, Blinken effectively endorsed Israel’s stated goal of destroying Hamas and barring it from having any influence in Gaza. When asked if the US would accept a post-war Gaza in which Hamas played any role in the government, Blinken replied, “The short answer… is no.”
As US and Israeli officials condemned any cessation of hostilities, bombs continued to rain down in Rafah amid massive shortages of food, water and medical care. According to Gazan officials, two Israeli airstrikes destroyed houses in the city, killing seven people and injuring 11.
Between the afternoons of February 6 and 7, 123 Palestinians were killed, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health. It said that the official death toll since the start of the invasion reached 27,708. Adding the 7,000 people who have been missing for more than two weeks, the death toll stands near 35,000, in addition to 67,147 wounded since October 7.
In remarks Wednesday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that “Israeli military operations have resulted in destruction and death in Gaza at a scale and speed without parallel since I became secretary-general.”
He added, “I am especially alarmed by reports that the Israeli military intends to focus next on Rafah—where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been squeezed in a desperate search for safety. Such an action would exponentially increase what is already a humanitarian nightmare with untold regional consequences.”
Over 1 million people are sheltering in Rafah, which the Israeli military had previously designated a “safe zone” into which the displaced population of Gaza was told to move. On Tuesday, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs warned that the offensive against Rafah would lead to “large-scale loss of civilian lives” and could constitute a war crime.
The ongoing mass murder is accompanied by the systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure. Gaza’s government media office said on Wednesday that the Israeli military had burned over 3,000 housing units throughout Gaza as part of a systematic policy of making the area uninhabitable.
“The burning operations took place and are being carried out according to clear and direct instructions and orders from the commanders of the ‘Israeli’ occupation army,” the Government Media Office said in a statement. The losses from the burnings alone “exceed tens of millions of dollars.”
On Wednesday, the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency said that Israeli forces have carried out 290 attacks on its premises, and that 389 displaced people have been killed while taking shelter at its facilities.
The intensification of Israel’s genocide is accompanied by an expansion of the US’s regional war throughout the Middle East, targeting Iran. On Wednesday, US forces once again carried out an illegal airstrike in Iraq, killing three people.
In a menacing statement announcing the strike, US Central Command threatened, “The United States will continue to take necessary action to protect our people. We will not hesitate to hold responsible all those who threaten our forces’ safety.”
The Pentagon claimed that the target of the strike was the commander of the Iraqi militia group Kataib Hezbollah, and that US President Joe Biden approved the strike last week. Iraqi officials said that the strike had targeted a civilian car, killing everyone inside.
Iraqi officials were not informed ahead of time about the strike on Iraqi soil, and Maj. Gen. Tahseen Al Khafaji, an Iraqi military spokesman, called the strike “a clear aggression and violation of Iraqi sovereignty.” He added that Iraq would “hold the American side and the coalition forces responsible for the repercussions of these dangerous actions that threaten the security and safety of the country.”
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/02/08/nzvm-f08.html?pk_campaign=newsletter&pk_kwd=wsws
World Socialist Web Site – February 8, 2024
Palestinian-American man stabbed after attending anti-genocide protest in Austin, Texas
Eddie Haywood
On Sunday evening in the West Campus area of the University of Texas at Austin in Austin, Texas, Zachariah Doar, a 23-year-old Palestinian-American, was stabbed in the chest after attending a pro-Palestinian protest held at the Capitol.
Doar, his father Nizar, and Doar’s three friends had traveled from Dallas to attend the second statewide protest that was attended by an estimated 15,000 people in the Texas capital, organized by the Austin for Palestine Coalition.
After the protest, Nizar left Zachariah and his friends in Austin, to make the drive back home to Dallas.
Nizar told the Austin Chronicle, “I just left my son in good condition. I told him, ‘Let’s go to Dallas, I will pay for your dinner, you and your friends, I want you to come with us.’ They’re young, they decided to try the good food in Austin. They stayed. An hour and a half, hour and 45 minutes [into the drive] and I get a terrible call saying, ‘Uncle, you have to turn back.’”
At around 7 p.m., at an intersection near the campus, Doar and three friends got into an altercation with Bert James Baker, who began shouting racial slurs at the four friends and tore off a keffiyah, the traditional Palestinian scarf, emblazoned with the inscription “Free Palestine,” which was attached to their car. The four exited the car to fight Baker off after which Baker stabbed Doar in the chest, breaking one of his ribs.
Baker, 36, was arrested at the scene and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim civil rights advocacy group, called for hate-crime charges to be brought against Baker.
“He’s in pain, he’s in agony,” Nizar Doar stated before a press conference on Tuesday, accompanied by representatives of CAIR. “The first thing that came to mind is, ‘I’m going to lose my son,’” Doar said. He added that his son and his son’s wife just had a baby. “I was thinking, how am I going to tell them that I failed to protect my son?” He explained that after a successful surgery his son is expected to make a full recovery.
Doar continued, “The city of Austin failed to protect my son. Greg Abbott failed to protect his citizens. Joe Biden failed to protect this country. This has come to haunt us in our homeland, in Texas. I beg you to call an end for this madness, and stop the genocide in Gaza.”
The Austin Police Department in a statement Tuesday said that they believe the crime is a “bias-motivated incident,” and said the crime will be reviewed by the Hate Crimes Review Committee. “Once the committee reviews the details of this case, the information will be provided to the Travis County District Attorney’s Office and/or the County Attorney’s Office.”
CAIR-Dallas Director Mustafa Carroll told the media Tuesday, “No one should be targeted and attacked because they put Palestinian-themed items on their vehicle. Anti-Palestinian racism and anti-Muslim bigotry have no place in Texas or anywhere else in our nation.”
Fayyaz Shah, the chair of CAIR Austin’s board, said in a statement, “We encourage law enforcement to file hate crime charges against the suspect and we also encourage federal law enforcement to open a hate crime probe.”
The attack is the latest in a series of anti-Muslim violence against Palestinians since the US/Israel genocide in Gaza was launched in October.
On October 14, in a Chicago suburb, prosecutors charged Joseph Czuba with the stabbing death of six-year-old Palestinian-American Wadea Al-Fayoume, and the stabbing of the boy’s mother, Hanaan Shahin, who survived, but was badly wounded.
On November 25 in Burlington Vermont, three Palestinian-American students, Hisham Awartani, Kinnan Abdalhamid, and Tahseen Ahmed were shot while walking to Awartani’s grandmother’s house. Prosecutors have charged Jason J. Eaton, a self-described libertarian and a believer of far-right anti-vaccination conspiracy theories in the attack. The three students survived, with Awartani left paralyzed below the chest.
At Columbia University, pro-Palestinian student demonstrators were allegedly sprayed with a chemical weapon known to be used by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) against Palestinians in the occupied territories. It has been alleged that two students who previously served in the IDF are the perpetrators.
Illustrating the rise of anti-Muslim bigotry amid the Biden administration’s full backing for Israel’s devastating rampage in Gaza, CAIR reports receiving 2,171 complaints of anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian bias for the period from October 7 to December 8 across the United States, nearly double the amount reported in the same period the year before.
Zainab Haider, an organizer with the Austin for Palestine Coalition, stated, “Our city officials have created a climate of fear. Many of them have been silent on Palestine. And now the silence of the mayor [Democrat Kirk Watson] can only be seen as condoning this violence.”
The attack in Austin comes amid massive opposition to the US/Israel genocide as expressed in months of demonstrations attended by millions across the world, while the ruling class in the US and Europe seek to smear the protesters as antisemitic.
This filthy reactionary campaign against millions of youth and workers opposed to the genocide has led to outbursts of fascistic violence and anti-democratic attacks against any who stand in the way of American imperialism and its main ally in the Middle East.
The blame for the reactionary atmosphere feeding into the anti-Muslim violence can be laid at the doorstep of the White House. Speaking to this responsibility on Tuesday, Nizar Doar shared a message from his son Zachariah in Austin: “Mr. Joe Biden, I blame you for what happened to me. If you would have called for a ceasefire three months ago, this would have never happened.”
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/02/07/gwjk-f07.html?pk_campaign=newsletter&pk_kwd=wsws
The Intercept – February 7, 2024
NETANYAHU’S WAR ON TRUTH
Israel’s Ruthless Propaganda Campaign to Dehumanize Palestinians
Jeremy Scahill
TWO WEEKS BEFORE Hamas commandos led a series of raids into Israel on October 7, Benjamin Netanyahu stood before an empty chamber at the United Nations headquarters in New York City. The Israeli prime minister brandished a map of what he promised could be the “New Middle East.” It depicted a state of Israel that stretched continuously from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. On this map, Gaza and the West Bank were erased. Palestinians did not exist.
“What a historic change for my country! You see, the land of Israel is situated on the crossroads between Africa, Asia, and Europe,” Netanyahu bellowed a handful of spectators in the large hall, nearly all of whom were his loyalists or underlings. “For centuries, my country was repeatedly invaded by empires passing through it in their campaigns of plunder and conquest elsewhere. But today, as we tear down walls of enmity, Israel can become a bridge of peace and prosperity between these continents.”
During that speech, Netanyahu portrayed the full normalizing of relations with Saudi Arabia, an initiative spearheaded under the Trump administration and embraced by the Biden White House, as the linchpin of his vision for this “new” reality, one which would open the door to a “visionary corridor that will stretch across the Arabian Peninsula and Israel. It will connect India to Europe with maritime links, rail links, energy pipelines, fiber-optic cables.”
He was speaking on the grand stage of the U.N. General Assembly, but no world leaders bothered to attend. Outside, some 2,000 people, a mixture of American Jews and Israeli citizens, protested his attacks on the independence of the Israeli judiciary system. The scene served as a reminder of how deeply unpopular his far-right governing coalition, not to mention Netanyahu himself, had become in Israel. At that moment, it seemed that Netanyahu was pushed against the ropes, in a losing battle to continue his political reign.
Netanyahu is using the horrors of October 7 to wage the crusade he’s been preparing for his entire political career.
Just days later, as Hamas commandos penetrated the barriers encircling Gaza and embarked on their deadly raids targeting several military installations as well as kibbutzim, everything changed in an instant. Everything, that is, except the primary agenda that has been at the center of Netanyahu’s long political career: the absolute destruction of Palestine and its people.
Just as the Bush administration exploited the 9/11 attacks to justify a sweeping war in which it declared the world a battlefield, Netanyahu is using the horrors of October 7 to wage the crusade he’s been preparing for his entire political career. With his grip on power fading last fall, the October 7 attacks provided him with just the opportunity he needed, and he hitched his political survival to the war on Gaza and what could be his last chance to eliminate Israel’s Palestinian problem once and for all.Read More
Countercurrent – February 8, 2024
American Hindutva outfits on their radar?
by Pieter Friedrich
Introducing the Highlights Reel of Hindutva Interference
My first direct, personal experience being threatened for opposing India’s Hindu nationalist movement, as an American citizen on US soil, occurred in 2015 in my home state of California when I protested the visit of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
I was standing outside the venue, silently holding two signs, when an Indian man of perhaps 300 pounds — at least twice my size — approached me, began shoving me with his body, and whispered in my ear: “I will break you.” Soon after, Modi supporters ran up and grabbed both my signs. Police approached and quickly escorted me away to safety.
That incident was a major catalyst for me to begin a deep dive investigation into the nature of the Hindu nationalist movement in India, its connections to us here in the US, and, very specifically, ways in which American politicians have engaged with Hindutva elements.
I’m going to briefly detail the structure of the Hindutva family of organizations here in America and ways in which they maintain a two-way engagement with their parent organizations back in India. Then I’ll briefly give a highlights reel of ways in which the Hindutva movement is interfering with American politics, intimidating academics, and threatening Indian minority communities. But first, I will give a little more detail about how I’ve personally been repeatedly targeted, often in ways that may constitute transnational repression, for my journalistic work on Hindutva.
Focused attacks on me first began in about 2019 afterﾠI published a cover article in an Indian magazine about how then Congresswoman and presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard was tied to the Hindutva movement. Here’s a few of the major ways I’ve been attacked.
In 2019, after Congressman Ro Khannaﾠcommented approvingly on my article, a group allegedly from the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS) — the US wing of India’s RSS paramilitary —ﾠprotested outside one of Khanna’s town halls while holding posters denouncing me. Notably, my article had heavily emphasized the direct, intimate ties between America’s HSS and India’s RSS. Such ties include HSS leaders attending RSS training camps in India as well as bringing RSS leaders to America to inspect HSS units around the country.
In 2021, months after my reportage exposed the Hindutva ties of a US congressional candidate, the Indian government itself stepped in to target me.
On February 15, 2021, a shadowy group called “DisInfo Lab” published a nearly 100-page dossier on me on February 12, 2021. The report contained details about my parents, my in-laws, and even details about my past work history which have never been public record and could probably only be unearthed via an intelligence operation. In fact, in December 2023, The Washington Postﾠexposed how this “DisInfo Lab” outfit is almost certainly headed by an agent of Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), India’s equivalent of the CIA.
The same day (Valentine’s Day 2021 for me, in the US time zone), theﾠDelhi Police hosted a press conference accusing me of connections to “terrorists” and implying that I was the “mastermind” behind a PDF social media “toolkit” which taught people how to talk about the then ongoing Farmers Protest. They stated that I have been “on the radar” of Indian intelligence agencies since 2006.
This double whammy attack on me, an American citizen, by the Indian government subsequently disturbed and even upended my life in a wide variety of deeply personal ways and continues to stress me, particularly after reports that the Modi regime may have been responsible for the assassination of a Canadian citizen and the attempted assassination of an American citizen in 2023.
Most of my recent work focuses on exposing the major “name brand” Hindutva outfits in America. These are three of them:
- The HSS, a direct corollary of India’s RSS.
- The VHPA, a direct corollary of India’s VHP, which is the cultural wing of India’s RSS.
- The Overseas Friends of the BJP (OFBJP), the US corollary of India’s BJP, which is the political wing of India’s RSS and has been registered as a “foreign agent” in America since 2020.
- Please note three things. First, all three of these groups generally share cross-pollinated leadership and membership. They appear to all work in sync. Second, all three groups maintain extensive two-way links — from America to India and from India to America — with their parent organizations in India. Third, these groups behave almost as a US-based extension of the Indian state even while they are insidiously infiltrating and influencing every level of American government.
So let’s examine some major ways in which elements linked to these Hindutva outfits and/or the Modi regime have worked to impede, interfere, and intimidate at both the street and also the state level throughout the US. I will run through these swiftly to give an idea of how extensive this is.
Hindutva in America’s Street-Level Interference
First, starting at the street level.
Last month, in January 2024, when Modi inaugurated a controversial temple on the site of a mosque destroyed by Hindutva groups, sympathizers gathered in Times Square in New York andﾠchanted that this was only the prelude to destruction of other mosques throughout India.
In 2023, the Indian government apparentlyﾠplotted the assassination of Sikh-American activist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun. The US government’s investigation exposed how he was likely only one of “many” intended targets.
Also in 2023, a BJP cabinet minister from India held a press conferenceﾠattacking US-based Hindus for Human Rights and accusing them of conspiring to “destroy” India.
Also in 2023,ﾠreports emerged that critics of Maryland Lt Governor Aruna Miller’s ties to Hindutva groups, including the OFBJP, have faced intimidation, bullying, stalking, and more from Miller’s camp.
In 2022, within two weeks of each other, digital billboard vans carrying hate messages against Sikhs and Muslims were spotted driving aroundﾠConnecticut andﾠNew Jersey, respectively. Displays on both vans were clearly linked to Indian issues. In New Jersey, the anti-Muslim van circled at least two mosques.
Also in 2022, intimidation and even violence occurred at two different India Day celebrations.
In California, peaceful protesters wereﾠphysically assaulted for holding signs opposing Hindutva atrocities in India. In New Jersey, a bulldozer — which has become a symbol of violence against Indian Muslims — was deployed in a parade. Notably, the OFBJP wasﾠmarching in front of the bulldozer and the HSS was marching behind. A BJP spokesperson from India was theparadeﾒs marshal.
Also in 2022, the HSS and VHPAﾠorganized a US tour for a prominent VHP leader from India who has previously incited violence against mosques and Muslims. She was subsequentlyﾠdenied a visa to the UK due to her rabidly xenophobic and Islamophobic character. In 2021, the VHPA alsoﾠattempted to host another Hindutva leader who has openly called for “eliminating” Muslims.
Also in 2021, a US-based online conference about Hindutva faced aﾠtsunami of attacks, including waves of death and rape threats against academics involved. Groups like the VHPA openly claimed responsibility for getting over one million emails sent to universities to oppose the conference. The US-based Hindu American Foundation (HAF) even apparently launched a campaign to have India’s Foreign Ministry pressure universities to drop out as conference sponsors.
Also in 2021, HAFﾠfiled a defamation lawsuit against top anti-Hindutva activists and academics in America in response to a report exposing how VHPA and other American Hindutva groups — including HAF, which refuses to describe itself as a ﾓHindutva groupﾔ and yet not only routinely defends Hindutva as an ideology but also appears to defend primary Indian Hindutva groups like the RSS even as many of HAF’s leaders have a long track-record of links to American Hindutva groups — which got nearly a million dollars in COVID relief funding. The lawsuit was tossed out.
Also in 2021, the elderly parents of an Indian-American academic in California were theﾠtargets of a ﾓswattingﾔ incident, apparently due to their son’s anti-Hindutva scholarship.
At the January 6, 2021 insurrection, a manﾠapparently linked to VHPA was in the mob waving an Indian flag.
In 2019, an Indian-American professor receivedﾠthreatening calls from an India-based source right before she testified to Congress.
As recently as 2018, the VHPA, HSS, and othersﾠhosted top Indian Hindutva leaders at a major conference in Chicago, including the RSS’s Supreme Leader. Student protestors at the event were physically attacked.
Hindutva in America’s State-Level Interference
Shifting to Hindutva interference at the state level, there is much to discuss, but I will only swiftly highlight some of the major incidents.
In 2023, California’s governor vetoed a bill banning caste discrimination afterﾠseveral people with direct links to Hindutva — including to the OFBJP and the VHPA — pressured him to do so. The Muslim CA State Senator who introduced the bill is now facing aﾠrecall petition launched by a congressional candidate who hasﾠmaintained close ties, during his campaigns, to not only the OFBJP and VHPA but also to India’s BJP.
Also in 2023, in Illinois, American Hindutva groups wereﾠsuspected to be responsible forﾠIslamophobic language inserted into the description of an Indian-American Advisory Council to the governor. The bill creating the council defined an “Indian” as anyone originating from a South Asian country which is “not primarily Muslim in character,” effectively barring Indian Muslims from representation on the council. The language was reversed after protest.
In 2022, a local Democratic Party chapter in New Jerseyﾠpassed a resolution calling on federal law enforcement to increase “research on foreign hate groups that have domestic branches,” naming outfits like VHPA and HSS. In response, those very same American Hindutva groups launched an all-outﾠmedia war on the Democratic chapter, evenﾠcalling for it to be disbanded.
In 2020, an “unethical alliance” between the VHPA and the Indian consulate generated massive pressure on the Chicago City Council to crush a resolution which denounced India’s “discriminatory” Citizenship Amendment Act. Key people involved included Dr. Bharat Barai, a US-based champion of Modi, who has openly boasted about how he worked to defeat the resolution. Similar resolutions in other US cities were also (unsuccessfully) opposed not onlyﾠby American Hindutva groups butﾠalso by Indian consulates.
Touching on electoral interference. During the 2020 US Presidential Election, a BJP spokesperson in Indiaﾠopenly threatened to ﾓinterfereﾔ — his words — in the election in response to Senator Bernie Sanders critical comments about human rights in India. In 2019, as then President Trump campaigned for reelection, he joined Modi on stage in Houston, Texas. At the event, Modi praised “candidate Trump” before stating, “Ab ki Baar, Trump Sarkar,” a phrase meaning, “Once more, the Trump regime.” This was widely interpreted by Indian media as anﾠovert endorsement by Modi of Trumpﾒs campaign for reelection.
There is much more I could mention.
How, for instance, the Indian governmentﾠpressured a library in Connecticut in 2019 to remove a memorial display donated by local Sikhs. Or how the Indian consulateﾠworked to block a 2016 resolution by the Fresno, CA City Council recognizing the 1984 Sikh Genocide. Or how HAF so extensively lobbied against a congressional resolution criticizing Modi and Hindu nationalist violence that one congressional staffer said, “They are definitely trying to undermine anyonein Washington who is critical of Modi.” Almost as though they have foreign interests at heart.
Conclusion: Should American Hindutva Be On US Intelligence’s Radar?
There is so much more to discuss, but for now I will conclude with is this question: If an American citizen like myself is “on the radar” of Indian intelligence simply because I use my First Amendment rights, as a journalist, to investigate the Hindutva movement, then isn’t it reasonable to request that American Hindutva organizations — who apparently maintain intimate ties with both Modi regime in India as well as with militant Hindu nationalist groups like the VHP and the RSS — be put on the radar of US intelligence services?
In other words, is there any reason why US intelligence agencies should not at least be keeping an eye on the activities of American Hindutva groups?
Pieter Friedrich is a freelance journalist specializing in analysis of South Asian affairs. He is the author of Sikh Caucus: Siege in Delhi, Surrender in Washington and Saffron Fascists: Indiaﾒs Hindu Nationalist Rulers as well as co-author of Captivating the Simple-Hearted: A Struggle for Human Dignity in the Indian Subcontinent. Discover more by him at PieterFriedrich.net.
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