World Socialist Web Site – January 20, 2024
Al Jazeera documents more mass summary executions by Israeli troops
By Andre Damon
With each passing day, there is growing evidence that Israeli troops are functioning as mobile mass execution parties in Gaza.
On Thursday, Al Jazeera published video interviews of residents of an apartment building in Gaza City, where residents said Israeli troops systematically tortured and executed 15 men.
Heba Selem, a witness, stated: “They stripped them of their clothes except for their boxers and forced them to lay on their stomachs on the floor. They started to execute the men on the floor. They didn’t leave anyone. I swear to God, they turned the entire place into a bloodbath.
“It’s a day you can’t forget, I can’t forget it.” Her husband was killed during the execution.
“After they tortured my husband in front of us and they broke his jaw, and beat up his face, they beat him until his arms were bleeding. They stripped all the men, tortured them, and humiliated them, then executed them. That all happened while we watched.”
Al Jazeera quoted William Schabas, professor of international law at Middlesex University, as saying the footage would constitute evidence of war crimes at the International Criminal Court. “I should add that it’s not really important to demonstrate that they’re civilians. Summary executions even of fighters, even of combatants is a war crime,” he told the news outlet.
In a subsequent interview, Muhammad Shehada, chief of programs and communications of the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, told Al Jazeera that there is a pattern of “systematic” killing in Gaza.
“In at least 13 of field executions, we corroborated that it was arbitrary on the part of the Israeli forces,” he said, adding: “We believe that the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] has dropped restraint in its conduct in Gaza, enabling soldiers to confidently conduct these atrocities, without fear of accountability, which is why we’re seeing them in multiple neighborhoods and parts of the Gaza Strip.”
On December 20, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) published a report alleging that Israeli forces carried out a mass execution of civilians in northern Gaza, separating 11 men from their families and summarily shooting them.
In its December 20 report, the OHCHR in the Occupied Palestinian Territories said it “has received disturbing information alleging that Israel Defense Forces (IDF) summarily killed at least 11 unarmed Palestinian men in front of their family members in Al Remal neighborhood, Gaza City, which raises alarm about the possible commission of a war crime.”
The UN agency wrote: “On 19 December 2023, between 2000 and 2300 hours, IDF reportedly surrounded and raided Al Awda building, also known as the ‘Annan building,’ in Al Remal neighborhood, Gaza City, where three related families were sheltering in addition to Annan family.”
Neither Al Jazeera’s latest revelations, nor the reports by the United Nations and Euro-Med, have been reported by the US and European media, which have largely dropped any systematic coverage of the genocide.
In a briefing, White House National Security spokesperson John Kirby denied that Israel was carrying out “deliberate” war crimes.
A journalist asked: “Yesterday, Mexico, and Chile requested the International Criminal Court to investigate potential crimes against civilians in Gaza. Any reaction?”
Kirby replied: “We don’t have any indications that there’s deliberate, deliberate efforts to commit war crimes by the Israeli Defense Forces.”
Kirby declared: “Currently, of course, we’re rightly focused on making sure Israel has what it—continues to has—have what it needs to defend itself.”
As Washington doubled down on its defense of Israel’s war crimes, the US further expanded its war in the Middle East.
On Friday, the US carried out yet another strike on Yemen, marking the sixth such strike in 10 days. Kirby claimed that the “pre-emptive” attacks were taken in “self-defense.”
Kirby threatened to launch more strikes, declaring: “They continue to have offensive capability, and they still continue to be willing to use it.” He added: “We also have plenty of defense capability available to us, and we continue to use it as well.”
These continuous, daily attacks on Yemen make clear that the United States has launched yet another endless war in the Middle East, centrally targeting Iran, as part of its global military offensive aimed at Russia and China.
According to the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, 32,246 people have been killed in Gaza since October 7, with 62,234 people injured. A staggering 1.95 million people are displaced.
The United Nations reported Friday: “Between the afternoons of 18 and 19 January, according to the Ministry of Health (MoH) in Gaza, 142 Palestinians were killed, and another 278 people were injured.”
Euro-Med said 72,440 homes in Gaza have been fully destroyed, and 190,250 homes have been partially destroyed.
According to the World Health Organization, most of Gaza’s hospitals have completely stopped functioning, while the 15 remaining hospitals are operating at up to three times their capacity.
Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Israel will continue its onslaught on Gaza in defiance of international law. “Nobody will stop us—not The Hague, not the [Iranian-led] axis of evil and not anybody else,” Netanyahu said.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/01/20/gppk-j20.html
Gaza Strip: Israel Killed 119 Journalists
Two weeks ago, the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate warned that 25 members of the Gaza syndicate are in need of urgent medical treatment abroad.
On Friday, authorities in the coastal enclave charged that the Israeli army has killed 119 journalists in the Gaza Strip since the start of the new cycle of violence on October 7.
The Government Information Office condemned in a brief statement the death of Wael Abu Fannouna, director general of the Al-Quds Al-Youm satellite channel.
Abu Fannouna was reportedly killed in an Israeli bombardment of Gaza City.
Two weeks ago, the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate warned that 25 members of the Gaza syndicate are in need of urgent medical treatment abroad.
In this regard, it called on the international community to put pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu's ultra-right-wing government to force it to facilitate the departure of these people.
In early November, the Syndicate called on the UN and international institutions to protect press workers in the Strip.
The head of the union, Nasser Abu Bakr, delivered a letter of protest to the UN offices in this city to denounce the crimes committed against journalists in this territory.
Since the beginning of the aggression, Israel has launched attacks against some fifty headquarters of institutions in this sector, including the offices of Al Jazeera, Palestine TV, Maan news agencies, as well as Al Quds and Al Ayyam newspapers.
Countercurrent – January 20, 2024
Despite The Bombs, Gazans Prepare For Weddings
by Dr Marwan Asmar
War, weddings and celebrations Palestinian style. This is Gaza, the land of the living. Here the Strip ekes of life despite the mass Israeli bombs.
Mostapha Shamlakh decided to wed his fiancé in a tent on the Egyptian border after a seven-month engagement and despite the fact that 22 members of his family were massacred.
He was also badly injured but decided to tie the knot just the same and look to the future despite the mass destructions.
It was a colorful happy wedding with much pictures and video clips on the social media that foretold a nation that will not die but will create joy despite the misery and death.
His beautiful bride Afnan Jibril looked radiant on the day of the wedding with a white and embroidered dress that looked magnificent and a flower tiara on top.
There was lots of ululations in Rafah. These are a strong part of the traditions and festive ceremonies of Palestinians, their identity and culture as was the case in this wedding.
Weddings in Gaza will never stop despite the Israeli gunfire. They are a sign of Palestinian tenacity.
However the first wedding in Gaza was held in late 2023 in a school of displaced people. Gazans got bored of waiting for the war on them to end.
They had great time as soon on the social media. It was a big party in which the thousands of people in the UNRWA school attended and enjoyed despite the bombs reigning on Gaza estimated at 100,000 tons since 7 October.
And the case was true for Mohammed and Yasmin who got married in school classroom with traditional songs and candle sticks. They registered their love for life.
You can be sure the Israelis won’t like this. Their aim is to make it so difficult for the Palestinians of Gaza that they would leave the Strip.
The marriages and the weddings mean the Palestinians have no intention of leaving despite the mass bombings of Gaza and are a strong signal that they are determined to stay where they are.
Dr Marwan Asmar is a journalist from Amman specializing on Middle East affairs.
https://countercurrents.org/2024/01/despite-the-bombs-gazans-prepare-for-weddings/
Countercurrent – January 20, 2024
“Not Wanting” A Wider Middle East War, the U.S. Has Started One
By Edward Curtin
You have to hand it to the U.S. and its henchmen for brazenness. In order to protect their client state Israel and its genocide in Gaza, the U.S., together with the UK, have in one week launched air and sea attacks on the Houthis in Yemen five times, referring to it as “self-defense” in their Orwellian lingo. The ostensible reason being Yemen’s refusal to allow ships bound for Israel, which is committing genocide in Gaza, to enter the Red Sea, while permitting other ships to pass freely.
To any impartial observer, the Houthis should be lauded. Yet, while the International Court of Justice considers the South African charge of genocide against Israel that is supported by overwhelming evidence, the U.S. and its allies have instigated a wider war throughout the Middle East while claiming they do not want such a war. These settler colonial states want genocide and a much wider war because they have been set back on their heels by those they have mocked, provoked, and attacked – notably the Palestinians, Syrians, and Russians, among others.
While the criminalization of international law does not bode well for the ICJ’s upcoming ruling or its ability to stop Israeli’s genocide in Gaza, Michel Chossudovsky, of Global Research, as is his wont, has offered a superb analysis and suggestion for those who oppose such crimes: that Principle IV of the Nuremberg Charter – “The fact that a person [e.g. Israeli, U.S. soldiers, pilots] acted pursuant to order of his [her] Government or of a superior does not relieve him [her] from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.” – should be used to supplement the South African charges and appeal directly to the moral consciences of those asked to carry out acts of genocide. He writes:
Let us call upon Israeli and American soldiers and pilots “to abandon the battlefield”, as an act of refusal to participate in a criminal undertaking against the People of Gaza.
South Africa’s legal procedure at the ICJ should be endorsed Worldwide. While it cannot be relied upon to put a rapid end to the genocide, it provides support and legitimacy to the “Disobey Unlawful Orders, Abandon the Battlefield” campaign under Nuremberg Charter Principle IV.
While such an approach will not stop the continuing slaughter, it would remind the world that each person who participates in and supports it bears a heavy burden of guilt for their actions; that they are morally and legally culpable. This appeal to the human heart and conscience, no matter what its practical effect, will at least add to the condemnation of a genocide happening in real time and full view of the world, even though no one will ever be prosecuted for such crimes since any real just use of international law has long disappeared. Yet there is a edifying history of such conscientious objection to immoral war making, and though each person makes the decision in solitary witness, individual choices can inspire others and the solitary become solidary, as Albert Camus reminded us at the end of his short story, “The Artist at Work.”
With each passing day, it becomes more and more evident that Israel/U.S.A. and their allies do want a wider war. Iran is their special focus, with Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen targets on the way. Anyone who supports the genocide in Gaza, explicitly or through silence, bears responsibility for the conflagration to come. There are no excuses.
And the facts show that it is axiomatic that waging war has been the modus operandi of the U.S./Israeli alliance for a long time. Just as in early 2003 when the Bush administration said they were looking for a peaceful solution to their fake charges against Sadam Hussein with his alleged “weapons of mass destruction,” the Biden administration is lying, as the Bush administration lied about September 11, 2001 to launch its ongoing war on terror, starting in Afghanistan. Without an expanded war, President Biden – aka the Democrats, since he will most probably not be the candidate – and his psychopathic partner Benjamin Netanyahu, will not survive. It is bi-partisan war-mongering, of course, internationally and intramurally, since both U.S. political parties are controlled by the Israel Lobby and billionaire class that owns Congress and the “defense” industry that thrives on never-ending war to such an extent that even the notable independent candidate for the presidency, Robert Kennedy, Jr., who is running as an anti-war candidate, fully supports Israel which is tantamount to supporting Biden’s expanding war policy.
Biden and Netanyahu, who are always claiming after the fact that they were surprised by events or were fed bad advice by their underlings, are dumb scorpions. They are stupid but deadly. And many people in the West, while perhaps decent people in their personal lives, are living in a fantasy world of “sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity,” in MLK, Jr.’s words, as the growing threat of a world war increases and insouciance reigns.
Neither the Israeli nor American government can allow themselves to be humiliated, U.S./NATO by the Russians in Ukraine and the Israelis by the Palestinians. Like cornered criminals with lethal weapons, they will kill as many as they can on their way down, taking their revenge on the weakest first.
Their “mistakes” are always well intentioned. They stumble into wars through faulty intelligence. They drop the ball because of bureaucratic mix-ups. They miscalculate the perfidy of the moneyed elites whom allegedly they oppose while pocketing their cash and ushering them into the national coffers out of necessity since they are too big to fail. They never see the storm coming, even as they create it. Their incompetence or the perfidy of their enemies is the retort to all those “nut cases” who conjure up conspiracy theories or plain facts to explain their actions or lack thereof. They are innocent. Always innocent. And they can’t understand why those they have long abused reach a point when they will no longer impetrate for mercy but will fight fiercely for their freedom.
All signs point to a major war on the horizon. Both the U.S.A. and Israel have been shown to be rogue states with no desire to negotiate a peaceful world. Believing in high-tech weapons and massive firepower, neither has learned the hard lesson that anti-colonial wars have historically been won by those with far less weapons but with a passionate desire to throw off the chains of their oppressors. Vietnam is the text-book case, and there are many others. Failure to learn is the name of their game.
The Zionist project for a Greater Israel is doomed to fail, but as it does, desperate men like Biden and Netanyahu are intent on launching desperate acts of war. Exactly when and how this expanded war will blaze across the headlines is the question. It has started, but I think it prudent to expect a black swan event sometime this year when all hell will break loose. The genocide in Gaza is the first step, and the U.S./Israel, “not wanting” a wider war, have already started one.
(For an excellent history lesson on the Zionist oppression of Palestinians and the current genocide, listen to Max Blumenthal’s and Miko Peled’s impassioned talk – “Where is the War in Gaza Going? – delivered from the heart of darkness, Washington D.C. Two Jewish men who know the difference between Zionism and Judaism and whose consciences are aflame with justice for the oppressed Palestinians.)
Edward Curtin is an independent writer whose work has appeared widely over many years. His website is edwardcurtin.com and his new book is Seeking Truth in a Country of Liesﾠ
https://countercurrents.org/2024/01/not-wanting-a-wider-middle-east-war-the-u-s-has-started-one/
World Socialist Web Site – January 20, 2024
NATO plots escalation of Ukraine war against Russia
into all-out war across Europe
Johannes Stern, Alex Lantier
As the NATO imperialist powers back Israel’s genocide in Gaza, they are setting into motion an explosion of world war across Europe. At a meeting of NATO army chiefs in Brussels on Thursday, NATO Commander-in-Chief Christopher Cavoli announced the exercise Steadfast Defender, which will begin next week and last until May. This NATO manoeuvre, the largest since the Cold War, is preparing a total NATO war mobilisation against Russia.
“Exercise Steadfast Defender 2024 will be the largest NATO exercise in decades, with participation from approximately 90,000 forces from all 31 Allies and our good partner Sweden,” Cavoli said. “The Alliance will demonstrate its ability to reinforce the Euro-Atlantic area via trans-Atlantic movement of forces from North America. This reinforcement will occur during a simulated emerging conflict scenario against a near-peer adversary.”
More than 50 warships, including aircraft carriers and destroyers, will take part. There will also be 80 fighters, helicopters and drones and over 1,000 armoured vehicles, including 133 tanks and 533 armoured personnel carriers. Geographically, the exercise extends across Scandinavia and the Baltic states to Poland, Romania and Germany. In addition to the US, individual European states are also sending over ten thousand soldiers. Britain will contribute 20,000 and Germany 12,500.
This is not simply an exercise, but a preparation to escalate NATO’s war with Russia in Ukraine into a world war waged across Europe. Top NATO officers do not mince words. In Brussels, Dutch Admiral Rob Bauer, the chairman of the NATO military committee, demanded “a war fighting transformation of NATO.”
“It’s not a given that we are in peace,” Bauer said. In case of war, he added, “it is the whole of society that will get involved, whether we like it or not.”
Bauer praised recent statements by Swedish Minister for Civil Defence Carl-Oskar Bohlin, who called on the Swedish people to prepare for war. “There could be war in Sweden”, Bohlin said. “Are you a private individual? Have you considered whether you have time to join a voluntary defence organisation? If not: get moving!”
Bauer commented: “The fact that people find [the possibility of war] a surprise and as a result buy radios and batteries, that is great … It starts [with] the realization that not everything is plannable, not everything is going to be hunky-dory in the next 20 years.”
These modern-day Dr. Strangeloves are planning total war, megalomaniacally pursuing the suicidal aim of militarily defeating Russia, a nuclear-armed power, as an immediate goal.
In a “Memo to the President” titled “A Bold Agenda for the Washington Summit” and published by the influential Atlantic Council think-tank, a collection of top retired US ambassadors and military commanders call for a colossal NATO escalation against Russia. “The goal should be unambiguous: Ukraine’s victory,” they write. They advocate the conquest of Russian-held Crimea giving Ukraine NATO membership—precisely what the Kremlin went to war in Ukraine to avoid.
After Ukraine’s “counter-offensive” failed last year, such a policy of conquest would require a massive, overt commitment of NATO troops against Russia. Significantly, the memo insists such an escalation should continue, even if it provokes nuclear war:
Russia may threaten to escalate the war in response to a NATO invitation to begin accession talks, including the possible use of nuclear weapons. … NATO should not be self-deterred by Russian nuclear rhetoric. NATO’s nuclear deterrent remains strong, and Ukraine has stated its willingness to fight through any Russian escalation.
Indeed, NATO is also accelerating training exercises to wage nuclear war. Last October, 60 NATO planes in Italy, Croatia and the Mediterranean joined an exercise titled “Steadfast Noon,” practicing bombing runs they would make to drop nuclear weapons on their targets.
As in the two world wars of the 20th century, the imperialist ruling elites feel that they have little time, and that only rapid escalation can counteract powerful political forces—in the military situation and the international class struggle—that are working against them.
European media that support war with Russia now admit that NATO faces disaster in Ukraine. Even with NATO weapons, Ukraine cannot realistically hope to defeat numerically superior Russian forces, but only to hold them off in a grinding war of attrition that Ukraine, with its far smaller population, would eventually lose. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians are dead, and, while Zelensky tells NATO his government is willing to fight in a nuclear war, he fears internal revolt. The Financial Times of London admits:
Ukrainian army chiefs have asked Volodymyr Zelenskyy to mobilise up to 500,000 people as the country gears up for a protracted war of attrition against Russia next year. … But until now, Zelensky has been reluctant to resort to more extensive conscription, fearing it could stoke social tensions.
This November’s US presidential elections, in which polls show Trump or Republican candidates leading Democratic incumbent Joe Biden, makes the situation even more explosive. Some sections of the Republican party have opposed funding Ukraine as a distraction from the US’s military buildup against China. Factions of the ruling class calling to escalate the war are seeking to create facts on the ground, so a potential incoming Trump administration could not back out of the NATO-Russia war.
Above all, the NATO planners are terrified by the rise of the class struggle. The cut-off of Russian energy exports to Europe led to a massive hike in energy prices, with prices in the euro zone alone rising 18 percent since the war began. Together with cuts to social spending as NATO governments transfer hundreds of billions of dollars or euros to military spending, this drove an international eruption of strikes and protests.
2023 saw historic strikes and struggles—by US autoworkers, film writers, and railworkers; by millions of workers in Germany, Britain, and across Europe, including by French workers against pension cuts; and global protests against Israeli genocide against Gaza. The first weeks of 2024 have seen not only escalating protests over Gaza, but a train drivers’ strike, farmers’ protests and mass demonstrations against the far-right in Germany.
Nonetheless, a substantial gap still exists between mass consciousness and the imminent dangers posed by the emerging Third World War. Workers cannot resolve the global crisis within the capitalist nation-state system, under the control of national labor bureaucracies and pseudo-left political parties that negotiate with capitalist governments and support the war effort.
The central task is the independent mobilization and unification of the working class in Ukraine, Russia, Europe, the Americas and internationally against imperialist war and to bring down their “own” capitalist governments.
Waging such a struggle requires building the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), the Trotskyist movement, as the revolutionary leadership of the working class. NATO’s inciting of war between two former Soviet republics, Ukraine and Russia, and its plans for nuclear war expose the bankruptcy of the social order that emerged from the Stalinist restoration of capitalism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. It poses the necessity of a renewed international struggle for workers power and socialism, in the traditions of the October revolution.
Aligning the historical consciousness and the struggles of the working class with a perspective of revolutionary, socialist opposition to a Third World War is the task of the Trotskyist vanguard. The ICFI will intervene in this year’s European elections, fighting to build sections of the ICFI across Europe and unify workers internationally in a struggle for world socialist revolution
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/01/20/ivep-j20.html?pk_campaign=newsletter&pk_kwd=wsws
|
Published since July 2008 |
Your donation
is tax deductable.
The Journal of America Team:
Editor in chief:
Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Senior Editor:
Prof. Arthur Scott
Special Correspondent
Maryam Turab
