Mondoweiss – July 29, 2024
‘Operation al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 297:
Israel and Lebanon brace for new escalation after 12 Syrian residents of the Golan Heights were killed by a strike
Israeli officials say that Netanyahu is behind Israel’s hardened position preventing a ceasefire deal as a new round of talks in Rome concludes without a breakthrough.
By Qassam Muaddi
Casualties
39,363 + killed* and at least 90,923 wounded in the Gaza Strip. 28,903 Palestinians have been fully identified, and around 10,000 more are estimated to be under the rubble.*
592+ Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank including eastern Jerusalem. These include 138 children.**
Israel revised its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,140.
690 Israeli soldiers have been recognized as killed, and 4096 as wounded by the Israeli army since October 7.***
* Gaza’s branch of the Palestinian Ministry of Health confirmed this figure in its daily report, published through its WhatsApp channel on July 29, 2024. Some rights groups estimate the death toll to be much higher when accounting for those presumed dead.
** The death toll in the West Bank and Jerusalem is not updated regularly. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health on July 27, this is the latest figure.
*** These figures are released by the Israeli military, showing the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.” The head of the Israeli army’s wounded association told Israel’s Channel 12 the number of wounded Israeli soldiers exceeds 20,000 including at least 8,000 permanently handicapped as of June 1. Israel’s Channel 7 reported that according to the Israeli war ministry’s rehabilitation service numbers, 8,663 new wounded joined the army’s handicap rehabilitation system since October 7, as of June 18.
Key Developments
Israel killed 218 Palestinians and wounded 666 across Gaza since Monday, July 25, raising the death toll since October 7 to 39,363 and the number of wounded to 90,923, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Israel kills 30 Palestinians, wounds at least 100, including women and children in bombing of school sheltering civilians in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza.
Israel detonates more residential blocks in eastern Khan Younis as it continues offensive for eighth day in a row.
Naser hospital in Khan Younis warns of spread of skin disease among children in Gaza.
UNRWA says 200 of its staff in Gaza have been killed, majority with their families, while two thirds of UNRWA premises have been hit by Israeli strikes, some twice.
UNRWA says eight of its schools were targeted by Israeli strikes while sheltering civilians in the past two weeks alone.
UNRWA says over 560 displaced Palestinians, including women and children, have been killed while sheltering under the UN flag.
Israel accuses Hezbollah of killing 12 people after a projectile falls and explodes in a playground in the Syrian town of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Hezbollah denies responsibility for the incident, claims projectile was malfunctioning Israeli anti-missile round.
Israel threatens Hezbollah and Lebanon with harsh response, Israeli army announces new drills.
Reports of U.S. pressure on Israel to avoid a regional war.
Israel and Lebanon close to war after projectile in Golan Heights kills 12
Tensions between Israel and Lebanon reached a breaking point once again on Sunday, after 12 people were killed by the explosion of a projectile that fell on a playground in the town of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights. Israel accused Hezbollah of having launched the projectile, which it claimed to be an Iranian-made “heavy” rocket. Hezbollah denied responsibility and said that the explosion was the result of a malfunction of an Israeli anti-missile round.
Late on Sunday, the Israeli cabinet concluded an emergency meeting in which, according to Israeli reports, ministers voted to delegate Netanyahu and his war minister Yoav Gallant to decide on retaliatory action against Hezbollah. Israel’s Channel 12 reported that the government was seeking harsh action that did not lead to all-out war with the Lebanese group. The Israeli army radio described Israel’s goal as “a more determined action but not a war.”
According to the Israeli daily Israel Hayom, the Israeli army began new combat drills in preparation for a potential operation, which included practices of withdrawing wounded soldiers from the Lebanese battlefield.
Israel’s war minister, Yoav Gallant, said that Hezbollah “will pay the price,” while Israeli opposition leader Benny Gantz said that Israel “needs a big response.” Meanwhile, the UN warned that a regional war in the Middle East would lead to “a catastrophe,” calling on all actors to show self-restraint.
On Sunday, the Iranian foreign ministry said in a statement that “any adventure by the Zionist regime” would lead to “an expansion of the war to the region.”
For his part, the deputy speaker of the Lebanese parliament, Elias Abu Saab, called for an independent investigation into the Majdal Shams incident on Sunday, saying that international mediators are in constant communication with Lebanon and working to avoid a wider escalation. Abu Saab remarked that Israel is threatening Lebanon in order to distract from what is happening in Lebanon.
Abu Saab added that Lebanon is united and will be more united in the event of a wider Israeli attack and that if Israel targets Beirut or kills Lebanese civilians, then Lebanon would not consider the Israeli attack “limited.”
On Monday, Axios reported that a senior advisor to Biden warned Gallant that the U.S. would support Israel in a limited response, but that it should not risk an all-out war.
Axios also reported that U.S. and Israeli officials fear that a major escalation between Israel and Lebanon might lead to a freeze in Israel-Hamas ceasefire talks.
Netanyahu putting new conditions to talks, say officials
A new round of talks over a Gaza ceasefire concluded in Rome on Sunday, where an Israeli delegation headed by the head of the Mossad, David Barnea, met with Egyptian and Qatari mediators, with no breakthrough reported.
Israeli media reported that talks centered around the possible Israeli withdrawal from the Philadelphi corridor, the strip of land bordering Gaza and Egypt. The Israeli negotiators reportedly held that Israel could withdraw from the Philadelphi corridor if surveillance equipment and underground obstacles were installed in order to prevent the smuggling of weapons to Gaza.
On Sunday, The New York Times, quoting from officials close to the talks, reported that in the last meeting in Rome, Israel rejected the return of Palestinians to northern Gaza. Israel had already accepted the return of displaced Palestinians in previous rounds of talks.
According to the unnamed officials, Netanyahu is the main reason behind Israel’s hardened position at the Rome talks, and Israeli security officials are pressuring him to show more flexibility to conclude a deal.
Countercurrent – July 30, 2024
The Global Balance of Power is Fast Changing as the Global Majority Rises
by Feroze Mithiborwala
We are clearly witnessing history in the making, as the Western Zionist dominated post-WWII order is in a state of inexorable decline, with new nations and powers fast emerging.
Thus let’s consider the following chain of events.
1. Venezuela: President Nicolas Maduro wins the elections, whilst defeating Edmundo Gonzales, the US-CIA backed candidate. Major victory for the Bolivarian Socialist legacy of Hugo Chavez and the People’s Revolution.
As expected, US Secretary of State, Blinken has targeted this election, but nobody trusts or takes the US seriously. All US-CIA attempts to foment colour revolutions in Venezuela have miserably failed and the current one underway will meet a similar fate. The US sanctions regime on Venezuela has harmed the economy, but yet the Maduro government has implemented various policies to nationalise Venezuela’s abundant Oil Resources, and undertake the redistribution of wealth to the most marginalised and poor. It is they, the Chavismos, who constutue the real support base of the revolution. The legacy of Hugo Chavez lives on in Maduro!
Thus the Anti-Imperialist Revolutionary shift across Latin America continues to grow stronger.
2. Beijing: Recently, the Chinese government invited 14 Palestinian factions. The agenda was to unite the Palestinian freedom movement under the banner of the PLO, as the sole representative of the Palestinian people. Both Hamas & Fatah, the 2 largest parties agreed to a negotiated settlement. This Chinese initiative will strengthen the Palestinian cause and make it far more difficult for Israel & the US, to manipulate and divide the Palestinian leadership.
More important, China has also emphasised the urgent need to stop the genocide, to bring an end to the Holocaust of the Palestinian people, as well as for the International community to resolve the long pending issue with the establishment of a Palestinian state as per UN resolutions and international law. The politico-strategic footprint of China in the Middle-East is increasing.
3. China had earlier brought Iran & Saudi Arabia together, which has only further strengthened West Asian unity, whilst reducing the space for the US, Israel and the other Euro Vassal states to meddle in the region and play their age old “Divide & Rule Card”.
4. Russia works out a solution between Syria & Turkey. Both President Bashar al Assad & Erdogan are scheduled to meet in Moscow, to sign on a negotiated settlement. This constitutes a major breakthrough and both Russia & Iran have used their diplomatic skills to bring an end to the 12-year old Syria-Turkish conflict.
This is a major victory for Syria, which has now faced the combined might of the US (Obama, Trump, Biden), Israel, UK, France, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Jordan, but has withstood and yet stands steadfast and strong. Syria has been integrated back into the Arab League, and will soon be joining BRICS Plus. Certain European nations have begun to reach out as well.
5. Italy has restored full diplomatic ties with Syria. This will further undermine the US-Israel-Nato war on Syria.
6. The Italian PM Giorgia Meloni visits China & signs a 3-year agreement. The agenda is to attract Chinese investment and cooperate in the Chinese-led BRI & OBOR, thus laying the foundations for greater trade and economic cooperation along the ancient Silk Road trade routes linking China, and the Central Asian countries to Europe.
7. BRICS: During the recent visit of the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavorv, to Malaysia, PM Anwar Ibrahim applied for membership to the BRICS Plus. Malaysia is an ASEAN powerhouse and thus the presence of BRICS Plus will expand in South-East Asia.
In the BRICS Plus conference scheduled to be held in Kazan, Russia, in October 2024, many more nations will be joining BRICS Plus, which will emerge far stronger in GDP terms than the G7, which increasingly looks passe’. A comprehensive economic plan will be unveiled wherein the disastrous impact of the weaponisation of US sanctions, too will be neutralised. An alternate to the SWIFT Banking system, as well as trade in national currencies, thus bypassing the US Dollar is very much on the cards.
8. On the Russia vs Ukraine-US-NATO War: Increasingly voices are emerging in the West, especially within Europe, as well as the US, that the war against Russia is unsustainable, that they have failed in their plan in using Ukraine as a Trojan Horse to surround, lay siege, destroy and balkanise Russia. The Eastern European Slavic countries, namely Belarus, Hungary, Slovakia, Serbia & Georgia are increasingly vocal, as they can see the embers of the war reaching their nations & thus want a negotiated settlement. In fact, there is great unrest across all of Europe. There are increasingly voices within the US & other Western capitals as well.
Russia has stopped the forces of US-NATO expansionist hegemonic plan in its tracks. This also constitutes a major defeat for the Neocon Judeo-Zionist genocidal warmongers who control various Western capitals, namely Washington DC, London, Paris & Berlin, amongst others.
9. Russia has also signed a major Gas Pipeline deal with Iran, which will be routed across the Caspian Sea. This will transform Iran into an even greater Energy Power. India stands to benefit from this pipeline, which can be easily accessed via the Chabhar Port, where again, India is a stakeholder.
10. Palestine: The world stands witness as Israel, backed by the US and its Euro-NATO vassal states are busy fomenting wars, and committing a Holocaust in Gaza. The world will never forget the fact that Netanyahu, the War Criminal, was applauded multiple times by a servile US House. According to a research paper published in the Lancet, more than 1,86,000 Palestinians have lost their lives in this genocidal war, with now the numbers reaching 200,000. All in a matter of the last 10 months, in a scale that is unprecedented.
The Axis of Resistance, namely Palestine, the Hezbollah in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran & the Ansarallah of Yemen now constitute a powerful alliance, as they fight the last war of independence, to liberate their region from the talons of Israel & the US.
Needless to say, the egregious hypocrisy of the so-called ‘Rules Based Order’, or rather, ‘The No-Rules Based Order of Chaos & Disorder’, is evident. This is leading to their utter isolation on the world stage, evident in the voting patterns at the UN.
10. Whilst the collective West, continues down its neocolonial path, the trio of Russia, Iran and China, the primary pillars of Eurasian integration, are engaged in major global political, diplomatic, economic & geostrategic initiatives, all which are strengthening the Global Majority, the real international community.
The Global Balance of Power is indiscernibly and rapidly, shifting towards the East, towards the Global South, towards the Global Majority.
It’s only a matter of time.
Feroze Mithiborwala is Founder, National Gen. Sec., India Palestine Solidarity Forum
US anti-Muslim incidents rise by 70% in first half of 2024: CAIR
Human rights advocates report a global rise in anti-Muslim hate and anti-Palestinian sentiment in the wake of Israel's war on Gaza.
Discrimination and attacks against Muslims and Palestinians have risen by about 70 percent in the US in the first half of 2024 amid heightened anti-Muslim hate due to Israel's war in Gaza, the Council on American-Islamic Relations advocacy group said.
Human rights advocates have reported a global rise in anti-Muslim hate and anti-Palestinian sentiment since the eruption in October of the Israel's war which has killed tens of thousands civilians and caused a humanitarian crisis.
In the first six months of 2024, CAIR said it received 4,951 complaints of anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian incidents, a rise of nearly 70 percent compared with the same period in 2023.
Most of the complaints were in the categories of immigration and asylum, employment discrimination, education discrimination and hate crimes, CAIR said.
In 2023, CAIR documented 8,061 such complaints in the whole year, including about 3,600 in the last three months after the war broke out.
Alarming US incidents in the last nine months include the fatal October stabbing of a six-year-old Palestinian-American child in Illinois, the February stabbing of a Palestinian-American man in Texas, the shooting of three students of Palestinian descent in Vermont in November and the attempted drowning of a three-year-old Palestinian-American girl in May.
There have been numerous protests in the US, Israel's no-matter-what ally, against the war in Gaza since October. The CAIR report noted the crackdown by police and university authorities on pro-Palestinian protests and encampments on campuses.
The Health Ministry in Gaza says that Israel's brutal military offensive on the enclave has killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians while also displacing nearly the entire population of 2.3 million, causing a hunger crisis and leading to genocide allegations that Israel denies.
CAIR says it compiles numbers by reviewing public statements and videos as well as reports from public calls, emails and an online complaint system. It also contacts people whose incidents are reported by media.
Islamophobia: from crusaders, to colonialists, to cartoonists
Orientalism has plagued the Western narrative on Islam for centuries.
Anti-Muslim discourse has plagued the European horizon, but never has it taken on so many dimensions.
Karima Ahdad
Islamophobia remains a hot topic across the West and minority communities are feeling the pinch of the prejudice in their daily lives more than ever before.
To these minorities, their marginalisation is the result of misconceptions about Muslims and Islam.
Is Islamophobia the cause or the result of terrorism? There is no clear answer to that question. But if one thing is for sure, it is that xenophobia has become widespread and has increasingly more complex ramifications on the lives of Muslims living in the West.
This has implications for Western human rights standards, as well. Islamophobia can be defined as the unjustified fear of all things Muslim based on preconceived notions that define it as a religion of violence.
While many think this form of racism bears an inextricable correlation with modern-day terrorism, many Western thinkers say anti-Islam sentiment goes back more than a century, way before the media started creating and perpetuating stereotypes, especially after the September 11 attacks.
The advent of the colonial mindset
The term “Islamophobia” was first coined during the French colonisation of several Muslim countries at the beginning of the 20th century. It was the year 1910 when French thinker Alain Quellien published a book entitled “Muslim politics in French west Africa”.
In it, the writer says Islamophobia is based on preconceived prejudice that is specific to the Christian world.
“To some Europeans and Christians, Muslims are naturally and intrinsically the enemies,” he wrote.
“Being Muslim fundamentally entails refuting civilisation, while following the religion of Muhammad necessitates violence, bad intentions and aggression.”
That same year, Muslim specialist Maurice Delafosse went on to use the same terminology in a study he conducted in defence of Muslims in sub-Saharan Africa.
He said that the spirit of Islam in no way contradicts the essence of Western thought despite what Islamophobes say about Islam.
“France has nothing to fear when it comes to African Muslims and there is no reason for Islamophobia to be so blatant in this part of the globe,” he wrote.
In this context, Moroccan writer and thinker Hassan Oreed says the rampant fear of Islam began with the advent of colonialism within several Muslim countries.
“This sentiment was based on the idea that Muslim civilisation is built on myth and nonsensical practice,” he told TRT Arabic.
Some sociologists and thinkers have attributed the return of rampant Islamophobia to the Iranian Revolution of 1979, when conservative Shia clerics who took power at the time declared anyone who opposes laws stipulating that women must wear headscarves in public in Muslim countries as "Islamophobic".
Contempt and fear characterise the Muslim world
The strife that led to tension between the Muslim world and the West has existed since the Muslims occupied southern Europe, the Christians Crusades and European colonialism in Muslim countries.
Renowned Palestinian intellectual Edward Said wrote in his famous work Orientalism that the Muslim orient was the only real threat to Christian Europe. The concept of the orient to the Western mind is characterised by contempt and fear.
In 2016, French writer Alain Ruscio wrote that Islamophobia is institutionalised in Western thought through the Christian crusader narrative.
The notion flourished during the era of European colonialism and made a comeback in full force with the advent of the infamous “war on terror” post-2001.
French philosopher Ernest Renan described the spirit of contempt in his 1871 work The Ethics of Intellectual Reform.
He writes: "Islam is the anti-thesis of Europe and knowledge and the antidote to civilisation. It belittles the human mind and contradicts all forms of sound sentiment and reasoning.”
9/11 and the renaissance of Islamophobia
Islamophobia entered a new phase in the 21st century in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the US.
The “threat” of Islam became a more widespread notion and even officially made its way into French dictionaries, being described as “a specific type of anti-Muslim contempt that manifests as acts of hatred against Muslim minority communities of North African origin”.
In short, while Muslims were seen as savages in previous centuries, Islam is intrinsically considered the enemy in Europe and in the US today, according to Oreed, and anti-Muslim sentiment took on a specific dimension in the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Centre.
The attacks on the headquarters of a liberal magazine publication in Paris in 2015 for having depicted the Prophet Muhammad in a satirical capacity marked a new front for anti-Muslim sentiment.
“The attack on Charlie Hebdo means that the rapport with ‘the other’ is not just by virtue of their immigrant background, but by virtue of the fact that they are Muslim,” Oreed told TRT Arabic.
This is a fundamentally politicised narrative, especially among right-wing parties. After all, there are those who differentiate between Islam and militant groups and those who don’t, especially among those who see the Islamic narrative as fundamentally militarised and warlike.
The most recent and notable manifestation of anti-Muslim hatred was the attacks on a mosque in New Zealand, in which dozens of Muslim worshippers were killed as they attended Friday prayers.
The tragic incident brought Islamophobia back to the fore, but more importantly, it broke the stereotype of Islam being the main source of terror, as it was a Christian Australian who massacred Muslims.
The construction of the Islamophobia narrative
Though anti-Islam narratives have long existed in Christian Europe, researchers know full well that the most recent form Islamophobia has taken on momentum of its own, with its proponents all to happily fanning its flames.
Husam Shakir, an academic specialising in Islam-related affairs, says right-wing groups are fear-mongering to score big in elections and for other political gains.
He said French ex-president Francois Holland benefited from the phenomenon, consolidating new fronts in the political and economic spheres.
Similarly, the gains made by right-wing groups across European nations are diametrically opposed to the very democratic foundations on which they were built.
In short, Islamphobia has brought back classicism to Europe, says Shakir, where Muslims come from troubled backgrounds and less fortunate social milieus.
Still, Oreed insists that Islamophobia in the modern day takes on several dimensions, the most significant being social alienation between Muslim and non-Muslim communities across Europe. Muslims have largely become the marginalised proletariats and live in slums on unemployment benefits.
Still, although many consider that Muslims have played a big role in exacerbating stereotypes, one thing remains clear: fanning the flames of Islamophobia will do the West, the scene of mass migration in recent years, no favours down the line.
Originally published in2019
|
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
