Mondoweiss – June 17, 2024
‘Operation al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 255:
Netanyahu dissolves Israel’s war cabinet
Gaza authorities accuse Israel and the U.S. of inducing starvation in Gaza as a weapon of war to force their "political goals."
BY QASSAM MUADDI
Casualties
37,347 + killed* and at least 85,372 wounded in the Gaza Strip.
544+ Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.**
Israel revised its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,140.
662 Israeli soldiers have been killed since October 7, and at least 3,664 have been wounded.***
* Gaza’s Ministry of Health confirmed this figure on its Telegram channel on June 17, 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 PA’s Ministry of Health on June 13, this is the latest figure.
*** These figures are released by the Israeli military, listing the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.” According to the head of the Israeli army’s wounded association to Israel’s Channel 12, The number of Israeli soldiers wounded exceeds 20,000 including at least 8,000 permanently handicapped as of June 1.
Key Developments 
Israel kills 81 Palestinians, wounds 270 since Thursday, June 13, across Gaza, raising death toll since October 7 to 37,347 and number of wounded to 85,372, according to the Gaza health ministry.
Netanyahu dissolves Israel’s war cabinet, which was formed following October7 attack.
Israel’s channel 12 says that Netanyahu will form a small committee made of war and strategic affairs ministers, for urgent political decisions, replacing the war cabinet.
Israel’s supreme court suspends investigation into October 7 failure.
The International Criminal Court expected to deliver decisions on arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant, as well as Hamas’s leaders Haniyeh, Sinwar and Deif, in the next 10 days. [Palestinians offer Eid Al Adha prayers.]
The Israeli army announces 12 solidiers have been killed, and 19 wounded, in Gaza in the last week.
The Israeli government extends military service for reservists for 3 additional months.
Israeli forces kill Palestinian journalist Mahmoud Qassem in Gaza City, marking the 151st journalist killed by Israel since October 7.
WHO says that 10,000 people in Gaza need to receive urgent medical treatment outside the strip.
UNRWA says that military operations in Rafah continue, despite the Israeli army’s announcement on Sunday of a tactical halt.
Norway increases funding for UNRWA.
Gaza’s government media office says that Israel and the US are exploiting the needs of civilians and children through starvation for political goals.
Israeli settlers torch farming lands in the village of Burqa, northeast of Ramallah.
Israeli government to approve the legalization of four settler outposts in the West Bank.
Lebanon: Israel bombed the towns of Amra, Naqoura, and öAitaroun in southern Lebanon, while Hezbollah attacked an Israeli army’s base on Mount Meron in the Galilee.
Lebanon: The Israeli army’s spokesperson says that Hezbollah has launched 5,000 rockets on Israel since October 8.
Netanyahu dissolves war cabinet, U.S. envoy arrives in the region
On Monday, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dissolved the Israeli government war cabinet that was formed immediately following the October 7 attack, and that has been directing the war for nine months.
Netanyahu’s move came a week after two key members of the war cabinet, Benny Gantz and Gadi Eizenkot, resigned in protest of Netanyahu’s leadership, calling for early elections.
The formation of the war cabinet, which excluded Netanyahu’s governing coalition allies, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, was Gantz’s condition to join, back in October. Following Gantz and Eizenkot’s resignations, both Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, who are controversial to Israel’s western allies due to their explicitly racist rhetoric, have demanded to join the cabinet.
The resignations are expected to increase pressure on Netanyahu to conclude a ceasefire and prisoners’ exchange deal with Hamas. However, Netanyahu will now face less opposition within the government, from which he will now direct the war. Israel’s channel 12 reported on Monday that Netanyahu will form a small committee, including minsters of war and strategic affairs, for urgent political consultation.
Meanwile, the U.S. special envoy, Amos Hochstein, arrived in Tel Aviv on Monday to meet top Israeli officials, in an attempt to prevent a wider escalation between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Last week, the Lebanese group launched the largest-yet rocket attack against Israel, in response to the killing of one of its commanders by an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon. Meanwhile, Israel continues to target south Lebanon towns with air strikes, killing at least 414 Lebanese.
On Sunday, U.S. President Joe Biden repeated that the deal drafted by the U.S. earlier in June was the best way to end the current war. Washington maintains that the draft is an Israeli proposal, while Israeli officials have publicly rejected it.
Starvation spreads in Gaza as fighting intensifies
Gaza’s government media office said in a statement on Monday that Israel and the U.S. are using starvation to exploit the civilian population’s needs for their own political goals. The statement came days after the World Health Organization warned that half of Gaza’s population will face starvation by July, as Israel continues to close the strip’s crossing points.
Last Thursday, the UN said that some 8,000 children were diagnosed with malnutrition in Gaza. Several reports have warned over recent weeks of a new wave of starvation in the north of the Gaza Strip. Already 32 Palestinians, including 28 under the age of five have died of malnutrition since October, according to reports.
Israel has been closing the land crossings into Gaza since its invasion of Rafah, in early May, significantly reducing the already-crippled entry of humanitarian aid to the strip.
Meanwhile, fighting intensified over the weekend between Israeli forces and Palestinian resistance groups in Rafah, particularly around the Philadelphi corridor along the Egyptian border.
On Saturday. The Israeli army admitted the death of eight of its soldiers in the explosion of a personnel carrier, after it was attacked by Palestinian fighters, in Tel al-Sultan in Rafah. The Israeli forces also announced the killing of an officer and a soldier in Rafah, and two officers in the northern Gaza Strip.
Countercurrent – June 17, 2024
The United States Is the Main Obstacle to Peace in Palestine
by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies
On June 13, Hamasﾠresponded to persistent needling by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken over the U.S. proposal for a pause in the Israeli massacre in Gaza. The group said it has “dealt positively… with the latest proposal and all proposals to reach a cease-fire agreement.” Hamas added, by contrast, that, “while Blinken continues to talk about ‘Israel’s approval of the latest proposal, we have not heard any Israeli official voicing approval.”
The full details of the U.S. proposal have yet to be made public, but the pause in Israeli attacks and release of hostages in the first phase would reportedly lead to further negotiations for a more lasting cease-fire and the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in the second phase. But there is no guarantee that the second round of negotiations would succeed.
As former Israeli Labor Party prime ministerﾠEhud Barak told Israel Radio on June 3rd, “How do you think [Gaza military commander] Sinwar will react when he is told: but be quick, because we still have to kill you, after you return all the hostages?”
Meanwhile, as Hamas pointed out, Israel has not publicly accepted the terms of the latest U.S. cease-fire proposal, so it has only the word of U.S. officials that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has privately agreed to it. In public, Netanyahu still insists that he is committed to the complete destruction of Hamas and its governing authority in Gaza, and has actually stepped up Israel’s vicious attacks in central and southern Gaza.
The basic disagreement that President Joe Biden and Secretary Blinken’s smoke and mirrors cannot hide is that Hamas, like every Palestinian, wants a real end to the genocide, while the Israeli and U.S. governments do not.
Biden or Netanyahu could end the slaughter very quickly if they wanted to—Netanyahu by agreeing to a permanent cease-fire, or Biden by ending or suspending U.S. weapons deliveries to Israel. Israel could not carry out this war without U.S. military and diplomatic support. But Biden refuses to use his leverage, even though he hasﾠadmitted in an interview that it was “reasonable” to conclude that Netanyahu is prolonging the war for his own political benefit.
The U.S. is still sending weapons to Israel to continue the massacre in violation of a cease-fire order by the International Court of Justice. Bipartisan U.S. leaders have invited Netanyahu to address a joint session of the U.S. Congress on July 24, even as the International Criminal Court reviews a request by its chief prosecutor for anﾠarrest warrant for Netanyahu for war crimes, crimes against humanity and murder.
The United States seems determined to share Israel’s self-inflicted isolation from voices calling for peace from all over the world, including large majorities of countries in the UN General Assembly and Security Council.
But perhaps this is appropriate, as the United States bears a great deal of responsibility for that isolation. By its decades of unconditional support for Israel, and by using its UN Security Council veto dozens of times to shield Israel from international accountability, the United States has enabled successive Israeli governments to pursue flagrantly criminal policies and to thumb their noses at the growing outrage of people and countries across the world.
This pattern of U.S. support for Israel goes all the way back to its founding, when Zionist leaders in Palestine unleashed a well-planned operation to seize much more territory than the UN allocated to their new state in its partition plan, which the Palestinians and neighboring countries already firmly opposed.
The massacres, the bulldozed villages and the ethnic cleansing ofﾠ750,000 to aﾠmillion people in the Nakba have been meticulouslyﾠdocumented, despite an extraordinary propaganda campaign to persuade two generations of Israelis, Americans and Europeans that they never happened.
The U.S. was the first country to grant Israel de facto recognition on May 14, 1948, and played a leading role in the 1949 UN votes to recognize the new state of Israel within its illegally seized borders. President Eisenhower had the wisdom to oppose Britain, France and Israel in their war to capture the Suez Canal in 1956, but Israel’s seizure of the Occupied Palestinian Territories in 1967 persuaded U.S. leaders that it could be a valuable military ally in the Middle East.
Unconditional U.S. support for Israel’sﾠillegal occupation and annexation of more and more territory over the past 57 years has corrupted Israeli politics and encouraged increasingly extreme and racist Israeli governments to keep expanding their genocidal territorial ambitions. Netanyahu’s Likud party and government now fully embrace theirﾠGreater Israel plan to annex all of occupied Palestine and parts of other countries, wherever and whenever new opportunities for expansion present themselves.
Israel’s de facto expansion has been facilitated by the United States’ monopoly over mediation between Israel and Palestine, which it has aggressively staked out and defended against the UN and other countries. The irreconcilable contradiction between the U.S.’s conflicting roles as Israel’s most powerful military ally and the principal mediator between Israel and Palestine is obvious to the whole world.
But as we see even in the midst of the genocide in Gaza, the rest of the world and the UN have failed to break this U.S. monopoly and establish legitimate, impartial mediation by the UN or neutral countries that respect the lives of Palestinians and their human and civil rights.
Qatar mediated a temporary cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in November 2023, but it has since been upstaged by U.S. moves to prolong the massacre through deceptive proposals, cynical posturing and Security Council vetoes. The U.S. consistently vetoes all but its own proposals on Israel and Palestine in the UN Security Council, even when its own proposals are deliberately meaningless, ineffective or counterproductive.
The UN General Assembly is united in support of Palestine,ﾠvoting almost unanimously year after year to demand an end to the Israeli occupation.ﾠA hundred and forty-four countries have recognized Palestine as a country, and only theﾠU.S. veto denies it full UN membership. The Israeli genocide in Gaza has even shamed the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) into suspending their ingrained pro-Western bias and pursuing cases against Israel.
One way that the nations of the world could come together to apply greater pressure on Israel to end its assault on Gaza would be a “Uniting for Peace” resolution in the UN General Assembly. This is a measure the General Assembly can take when the Security Council is prevented from acting to restore peace and security by the veto of a permanent member.
Israel has demonstrated that it is prepared to ignore cease-fire resolutions by the General Assembly and the Security Council, and an order by the ICJ, but a Uniting for Peace resolution could impose penalties on Israel for its actions, such as an arms embargo or an economic boycott. If the United States still insists on continuing its complicity in Israel’s international crimes, the General Assembly could take action against the U.S. too.
A General Assembly resolution would change the terms of the international debate and shift the focus back from Biden and Blinken’s diversionary tactics to the urgency of enforcing the lasting cease-fire that the whole world is calling for.
It is time for the United Nations and neutral countries to push Israel’s U.S. partner in genocide to the side, and for legitimate international authorities and mediators to take responsibility for enforcing international law, ending the Israeli occupation of Palestine and bringing peace to the Middle East.
Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies are the authors of War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, published by OR Books in November 2022.
Medea Benjamin is the cofounder ofﾠCODEPINK for Peace, and the author of several books, includingﾠInside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher for CODEPINK and the author ofﾠBlood on Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.
https://countercurrents.org/2024/06/the-united-states-is-the-main-obstacle-to-peace-in-palestine/
Informed Comment – June 16, 2024
Israel, Defying UNSC Ceasefire Order, “Completely Dehumanizes” Palestinians
By JUAN COLE
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairsﾠreports on the humanitarian situation in Gaza this week in the aftermath of the United Nations Security Council demand (14-0 with Russia abstaining) for a ceasefire in Gaza. It required Hamas and Israel to reply with a letter outlining their response. Hamas has done so but Israel has not, and members of the government, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have made it clear in public remarks that they will defy the Security Council and will reject the Biden peace plan.
Saddam Hussein’s apparent defiance of UNSC resolutions was given as a legitimate causus belli by the George W. Bush administration, bolstering its case for invading Iraq in 2003.
To underline this defiance of the will of the world community, between June 10 when the UNSC order came down and June 14, the Israeli armed forces killed 142 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded 396. According to the professionals at the Gaza Ministry of Health, since October 7 the Israelis have killed 37,266 Palestinians in Gaza and injured 85,102, the vast majority of them women and children, with many of the rest elderly and other noncombatant men.
Doctors without Borders (French acronym MSF) points to the casualties since the start of this month as further proof of the “complete dehumanization of the Palestinians,” saying that “since the beginning of June, more than 800 people have been killed and over 2,400 wounded in intense bombing and ground offensives by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip, Palestine.”
These are physicians at the few hospitals still partially functioning, so they see the influx of the wounded and dead bodies.
Brice de le Vingne, Head of MSF Emergency Unit, asked, “how can the killing of more than 800 people in a single week, including small children, plus the maiming of hundreds more, be considered a military operation adhering to international humanitarian law? We can no longer accept the statement that Israel is taking ‘all precautions’ – this is just propaganda.”
De le Vingne added, ““Catch-all phrases like ‘war is ugly’ act as blinders to the fact that children too young to walk are being dismembered, eviscerated, and killed.”
Children too young to walk. Some children begin walking as early as 10 to 11 months old.
It reminds me of when President Joe Biden dismissed Palestinian deaths, saying “people get killed in war,” or words to that effect.
MSF rejects Israeli propaganda that they are letting in aid. They’ve seen with their own eyes that it isn’t happening. Plus, they note, “Israel repeatedly bombed so-called safe zones, refugee camps, a school and multiple humanitarian warehouses, which were formally registered as ‘deconflicted’ by Israeli forces.”
In the past month and a half, the UN’s OCHA reminds us, a million Palestinians were again displaced from the south, and 100,000 were displaced from the north. Displaced means made homeless and likely sleeping rough with few toilets or potable water or food. Most of the domiciles in Gaza have been made into rubble by the Israelis, though 16% of the displaced have tried to go home. Some erect tents over their former homes. Some 31% go to new shelters.
At “informal displacement sites” (tent cities?) in Deir al-Balah, “families reported irregular food distributions, overcrowded and dilapidated shelters with an average of eight to 10 persons per shelter, lack of sanitation infrastructure, and a range of health issues such as skin diseases, hepatitis A, gastroenteritis, and respiratory illnesses.”
Water shortages are severe among these refugees in Deir al-Balah: “average water availability per person per day was less than two litres [half a gallon] at Abo Dalal displacement site and only 0.7 litres [less than a quart] at Ard Al Ghusain displacement site. This is less than the internationally recognized minimum requirement for survival of three litres [3 quarts] per day and significantly lower than the minimum amount of 15 litres [4 gallons] per day needed in an emergency for drinking, washing and cooking.”
As for food, some 8,000 children in Gaza have been formally diagnosed with malnutrition and another 3,000 have been identified as in imminent danger of it. Given the poor state of medicine in the Strip, these figures are only the tip of the iceberg.
Israeli airstrikes have taken out water pipes, wells, and sewage treatment plants. There is only 28% the potable water in Gaza that existed on October 6. This is not an accident, as MSF pointed out. People are forced to collect surface water that is tainted with sewage, causing a range of diseases of the intestinal tract and liver.
Apparently the Israeli military has expelled all but about 90,000 people from Rafah, which had had a pre-war population of 300,000 and had swollen to 1.2 million before the Israeli invasion of early May.
Those 90,000 people have no functioning hospital, since Israel has destroyed the medical facilities there, according to the World Health Organization.
OCHA finds that “over 76 per cent of schools in Gaza are now assessed as requiring full reconstruction or major rehabilitation to be functional again.” The Israeli Air Force continues to directly target schools; this week it smashed a UN school functioning as a shelter, killing 30 refugees.
The children of Gaza have lost a school year. If they lose two more, studies suggest that they will never get back on track. Palestinians are the most educated people in the Middle East, but Israel is depriving those in Gaza of a basic education. Those who suffer malnutrition will suffer permanent cognitive losses as well as emotional problems. Others have PTSD and are traumatized, and may never be right in the head again.
https://www.juancole.com/2024/06/completely-dehumanizes-palestinians.html
Countercurrent – June 18, 2024
Does Israel Have 90 Nuclear Warheads or 200?
by Dr Marwan Asmar
Israel is upgrading its nuclear arsenal maintains the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute(SIPRI).
With regards its deathly weapons, Israel maintains what its terms “nuclear ambiguity”, neither confirming nor denying the possession of nuclear capability.
However, in its report SIPRI ranks Israel number eight globally in terms of the number of stored nuclear warheads.
The Swedish organization estimates Israel has 90 nuclear warheads, more than North Korea’s estimated 50 which comes last on the last that states with the USA, Russia, France, UK, China, India, Pakistan Israel and finally Korea.
But many say that Israel has long passed that 90 nuclear warhead and estimate the number to be over 200 as stated by David Hearst of Middle East Eye.
One blogger comments the rogue state of Israel has an estimated 200 nuclear warheads but has never signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
He maintains Israel’s “Samson Option” is a nuclear strategy that involves the use of nuclear weapons as a last resort in the event of an existential threat to the state.
Another maintains Israel controls America’s politics, money, and weapons. He adds Israel is a threat to America and the world, not Russia, not China, not North Korea, not Iran.
Israel is a terrorist state #IsraelIsATerroristState#Gaza_Genocide
Finally yet another writesﾠPresident John F. Kennedy expressed his concern about the danger to Middle East peace and stability with a nuclear armed Israel. Kennedy was assassinated shortly thereafter.
Dr Marwan Asmar is an Amman-based writer covering Middle East affairs.
https://countercurrents.org/2024/06/does-israel-have-90-nuclear-warheads-or-200/
Pakistan in Search of New Future
By Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja, PhD.
National Freedom Won by the People but Lost by the Neo-Colonial Generals and Elite
Evil is evil if not stopped, it becomes a habit then a tradition, so is the trajectory of military coups, if not stopped and reformed then one coup is an enticement to another coup until a nation is besieged by the few and its foundation destroyed forever. People won the freedom movement against the British Raj but egoistic military dictators lost half of the country and none were held accountable or punished. Now a class war is well in progress - few Generals and the civil service collaboration aligned to the Western nations (USAID, bribes and green cards), are working against the national interest to deprive the new generations of its critical role in nation-building and sustainable future-making. The neo-colonial ruling elite has corrupted all the thinking hubs of Pakistan Freedom Movement and the systems of socio-economic, educational, intellectual and political domains. They enjoy absolute power as ‘men of king’ on borrowed money and time and few Generals owe allegiance to Colonial Masters and fast becoming a scum floating on a torrent. The psychology of wide spread corruption questions the sense of national freedom and security.
People rejoice in truth, not in evil and all evils lead to violations of human values, insecurity and socio-economic trials, horrors and economic destablisation.The political-military elite have bankrupted the nation. Nobody invests in a country occupied by military dictators and indicted criminals and tourists do not come to where conflicts and insecurity prevails. Pakistan owes some 100B debt to the World Bank - unable to pay its accruing annual interest- where did that money go? Most of it was stolen by the Bhuttos, Zaradri, Sharif brothers and Musharaf to acquire businesses / properties in Western Europe and Dubai. Now the Sharif regime is begging the IMF for 6B - 8B bailout funds. Wherever martial laws are imposed on a nation, its consequences discredit the intellectual, moral and religious heritage and nation’s capacity to recover is undermined and destroyed. In a transformational age, where new educated,intelligent and proactive young people make the nation progress, Pakistanis are being victimized by the treachery,wickedness and dishonesty of few Generals and their accomplice Sharif brothers.
Systematic Corruption and Political Dishonesty Challenge the Integrity of the Nation
To recap some of the historic conspiracies and stabbing to the body of Pakistan and national interest; ZA Bhutto first tried to oust Ayub Khan via a conspiracy in 1965 war but failed and then sought help from Mrs. Gandhi (PM India) to surrender East Pakistan, (see “British Colonialism and How India and Pakistan Lost National Freedom.”https://www.globalresearch.ca/british-colonialism-how-india-pakistan-lost-freedom/5765810 ), to become a martial law administrator and president; his daughter Benazir Bhutto and wife Nusret Bhutto got help from India and Libya to kill General Zia ul, Haq and 12 elite Generals and 100 of other civilians at Bahawalpur plane crash (1988), and she was installed as elected leader and then dismissed twice on corruption charges; Nawaz Sharif tried to hijack a PIA plane carrying General Musharaf and 250 passengers to India but was saved to land at Karachi and Sharif was tried on terrorism and dismissed twice on corruption charges, yet he emerged again as PM and now his brother Shabaz Sharif already indicted on money laundering becomes the new PM. What a shame , what a disgrace to Pakistan claiming to be an Islamic state. Pakistani Generals could be bought and sold at market places wrote Bruce Riedel, Brooking Institute, USA (ﾓBattle for the Soul of Pakistanﾔ ), a former President Obama’s advisor on Pakistan and Afghanistan, 2009.
No nation is built by Generals but educated people of vision and wisdom do. The masses view Imran Khan with optimism to lead the country for a people-oriented future of governance. But Khan failed to implement any political change and wasted almost four years while surrounded by yes men party goers. If he had a plan for future-making, it never took any ground. But to his credit, Khan did not rob any bank or kill any political opponents as Sharif brothers and Zardari-Bhutto did over the years. The Five Generals maligned with the judges jailed Imran Khan on fictitious cases. If Khan is set free, he could re-energize the movement for change and political justice.
Pakistan Needs a New System of Governance, Accountability and Public Institutions to Nation-building and Future-making
Pakistan’s regional cultures represent diversity but unity lies in its ideology and nation-building disrupted by political criminals and few Generals. The February 8, 24, national elections were rigged to deprive the most popular party of Imran Khan (PTI) in favor of thugs and indicted criminals -the reinstated Sharif family. Please see more:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/17/senior-pakistan-official-admits-election-rigging-as-protests-grip-country“Pakistan: What Next after the Rigged National Elections?
https://countercurrents.org/2024/02/pakistan-what-next-after-the-rigged-national-elections/
People devoid of knowledge and integrity and military Generals do not build the socio-economic, moral and intellectual capacity of a nation. Pakistan needs an urgent systematic navigational change for legal accountability of the Generals and their accomplice for crimes against the people of Pakistan.
Towards Systematic Political Change and Nation-building
Today, the nation is crippled with catastrophic events of insecurity, mismanagement and socioeconomic and political exploitation. They never imagined–how the present and future generations will identify them? Please see more:“Pakistan Imperatives of Political Change for a Progressive Nation”2019;“Pakistan in Search of Freedom and Security”, Uncommon Thought Journal and Global Research: 10/20/22, and “Pakistan, Planned Political Chaos: Imran Khan a Victim of Hope for the Future”, Global Research: 11/06/2022; “Pakistan Striving for Its Soul.” https://www.transcend.org/tms/2023/08/pakistan-striving-for-its-soul/
The Generals must see the mirror and realize what went wrong with their thinking, professionalism and honesty as they took oath to serve the nation. Pakistan is fast becoming a trajectory of crime riddle political culture and it signals not just decadence but a downfall of the nation. Is there a cure to the cruelty of colonial systems of political governance? Pakistan urgently needs educated people of new vision,intellect and expertise to work for a systematic change and reformation of the corrupt political culture of the few.To move towards political change and a path of articulating a new system of democratic political governance, Dr. Alvi, the President of Pakistan should immediately form an independent Legal Tribunal to hold the Five Generals, the Chief Justice Qazi Esa and the Election Commissioner responsible for their involvement in fraudulent elections and crimes against the people of Pakistan. This should include the possibility of a firing squad to set the course of history straight and fair for a sustainable future.The following statements were shared worldwide to safeguard our national interest, security and future-making:
1. Pakistan, its people and its future are NOT the property of few Generals or the Chief Justice or a bogus national assembly.
2. The General’s insane ambitions and actions are the outcome of the briefing and dictate by the US interest. They failed to learn from history how Pakistan was destabilized in 1971 when power was not transferred to the elected leader.
3. Bogus elections were held to bring the indicted criminals and money launderers - Sharif family back to power, there could be massive socioeconomic and political chaos, disruptions, street battles and bloodbath between the armed forces and common people.
4. The Generals and the judges do not plan, grow or build nations but people of knowledge, vision, moral and intellectual integrity contribute for such a vital agenda.
5. Pakistan’s socio-economic, political and strategic needs are not the task and mandates of the judges and the Generals - they are unfit for such roleplays, it is the role and responsibility of morally and intellectually responsible leaders.
Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in international affairs-global security, peace and conflict resolution with keen interests in Islamic-Western comparative cultures and civilizations, and author of several publications including the latest: One Humanity and the Remaking of Global Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution. Germany, 12/2019.
St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) 2024:
Marking the Rise of the Global South Century and Decline of Western Economies
This year, SPIEF's theme was "The Foundations of a Multipolar World - The Formation of New Areas of Growth."
By George Eliason
The St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, an annual event bringing together global leaders, policymakers, and influential business figures, took place in St. Petersburg, Russia from June 5th to 8th, 2024. Attendees representing 130 countries and roughly 3 billion people worldwide attended. This year, SPIEF’s theme was “The Foundations of a Multipolar World – The Formation of New Areas of Growth.”
Foreign companies are eager to access the Russian market’s potential, despite Western sanctions aimed at isolating Moscow.
Deals involve firms from Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, suggesting a pragmatic approach prioritizing commercial interests over politics and avoiding missed opportunities in Russia. The diversity of participants indicates many businesses recognize the risks of being left out of this lucrative market.
What should be a wakeup call for the global West is instead falling on deaf ears. While Washington and European capitals report declining economies, Russia, in spite of severe sanctions, continues to adapt and flourish.
Policymakers are not testing their countries’ long-term economic policies against the implications of the rise of multipolarism. Let’s consider the Green/degrowth policies favored by the Biden administration and former European economic powerhouses like Germany. They are not protecting the future of their people.
SPIEF 2024 introduced concepts the Global South Century will move forward on driving the world economy while the American and European economies recede. Russia is positioning itself as a leader.
What Is the Global South?
“Take the 3.5 billion population of China, India, and the ASEAN countries, for example.
In 2000, only 150 million of these people enjoyed middle-class living standards. Today, the number has exploded to around 1.5 billion, double the total population of Western countries. And it is predicted to grow to 3 billion by 2030.”
If the Global South’s middle class are that large, who will be controlling the economy? At the same time, America will be deindustrializing and the sheer weight of debt will push most of the middle class into poverty.
This is a far cry from what we see in the headlines. First, we were told the Russian economy would collapse under the sanction load. Later, it was; the growth we are seeing is temporary, even as Western economies faltered from being directly affected by the sanctions levied and cutting off the energy it needs to fuel industry.
In the same vein, we’re assured Ukraine is winning the war on the battlefield and Russia is reduced to going into battle in golf carts. All the while Ukraine needs more out of our treasuries and constant weapon deliveries that drained Western stockpiles to the point it will take 5 years to replenish.
While headlines read Moscow’s booming because of the Ukrainian war, they also state Russia’s economy is said to have slipped to 12th place globally.
What is the truth?
“By August 2023, it was reported that Russia overtook Germany as the fifth-largest economy based on purchasing power parity (PPP) GDP rankings. Recently impacted by shocks and the loss of cheap Russian gas, Germany has stagnated and fallen to sixth place in the World Bank’s ranking. PPP GDP accounts for local price differences, similar to The Economist’s Big Mac index comparing burger costs across countries.”
The World Bank revised Russia’s ranking, stating that Russia overtook Japan in 2021 and has maintained its position at number four since then. The previous calculations were based on 2017 data, now updated to reflect the 2021 figures.
This data is pre-war and supplants the notion Russia’s expanding economy is riding solely on a war economy bump. Russia is currently the fastest growing major economy in the world.
The St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) is heavily invested in the Global South’s growth, where developing countries are outpacing the West.
China and India, currently ranked first and third in PPP terms, are expected to also lead nominally in the coming decades. The fastest-growing economies are from the Global South.
Over 980 agreements worth a staggering $71. 87 billion were concluded at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) in 2024, highlighting the immense opportunities that Washington and European Union planners are inadvertently leaving their own industries out of.
The sheer volume of deals indicates a strong appetite among foreign companies to tap into the Russian market’s vast potential, even as Western nations impose sanctions and seek to isolate Moscow from the global economy. Notably, the agreements were not limited to traditional Russian allies or partners; they involved companies and investors from various regions, including Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. This diversity of participants suggests that many businesses are taking a pragmatic approach, prioritizing commercial interests over political considerations, and recognizing the risks of being left out of lucrative opportunities in the Russian market.
US Imported $6 Billion From Russia as It Forces Others to Quit Doing Business with Moscow
How Russia Is Doing It, Lessons to Learn
Russia has shifted its economic model, investing heavily in areas like the military-industrial complex and civilian sectors through initiatives like National Projects 2. 1. This has benefited the country’s poorest regions, leading to a record low in Russia’s despair index – a measure of inflation, unemployment, and poverty.
This is supposedly a time when Russia, according to Ukraine and the Biden administration is supposed to be conscripting soldiers they can’t arm or even feed?
This is supposed to be a time when battlefield casualty numbers for Russian soldiers are over 500,000 and climbing?
This defies logic and the evidence is plain to see. The Russian military is inundated with so many volunteers they can’t handle the inflow. If the battlefield deaths were what is being reported, this would be another story altogether. Civilians don’t volunteer for war if they are being sent into a meat grinder.
“It is certainly true that 88 per cent of the world population lives outside the West in what is now called the Global South. Arguably, many Global South countries across Latin America, Africa and Asia are no longer passive participants on the world stage, instead acting independently of the West in many ways.
It is equally notable that other forums and institutions of the Global South are gaining weight. The BRICS forum – comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – was set up in 2009 as a counterpoint to the G7 club of nations, to criticism from some quarters that it was little more than ‘marketing’.
Yet, it is now clear that the BRICS is growing in clout. In 1980, the G7 accounted for about 50 per cent of the world’s GDP in purchasing power parity terms, while the BRICS countries – excluding Russia, then part of the Soviet Union – accounted for about 11 per cent.
Today, the G7 accounts for 30 per cent of the world’s GDP, while the BRICS countries account match it at around 30 per cent. Equally importantly, the membership of BRICS is growing dramatically, while the G7’s is stagnant.” Chatham House
What else are we being lied to about?
America’s Despair Index Problem
To put Russia’s record low in perspective, this US Joint Congressional report on the American despair index is shocking to the senses.
“Mortality from deaths of despair far surpasses anything seen in Americaﾠsince the dawn of the 20th century. (The trend for middle-aged whites reveals a more dramatic rise but only goes back continuously to 1959.) The recent increase has primarily been driven by an unprecedented epidemic of drug overdoses, but even excluding those deaths, the combined mortality rate from suicides and alcohol-related deaths is higher than at any point in more than 100 years. Suicides have not been so common since 1938, and one has to go back to the 1910s to find mortality from alcohol-related deaths as high as today’s.”
The gravity of this report titled Long-Term Trends in Deaths of Despair shows Washington has been out of touch with the needs of the American people for such a long time, they don’t remember Congress is supposed to be steering the ship and are hellbent on capsizing it for political gain and personal profit.
“The US national debt just hit a new all-time high of $34.667 trillion. New numbers from the Treasury Department’s Debt to the Penny system show the country’s national debt reached the milestone on Friday, May 31st.
The current law debt trajectory will reduce income growth by 12% over the next three decades and 13% annually by Fiscal Year (FY) 2049.
Rapidly rising debt could reduce income growth by 33% over the next three decades and 42% annually by FY 2049.
Rapidly rising debt would reduce projected income by about $14,500 per person in FY 2054, in today’s dollars.”
The CBO says the reduction in household income is due to “crowding out,” an economic theory that traces how high debt and deficits slow economic growth on national and individual level.
“…High debt and deficits carry significant risks and threats to the budget and the economy.
High and rising debt hinders economic growth by crowding out investments, pushes up interest rates, strains the federal budget through rising interest payments, creates geopolitical challenges and risks, makes responding to new emergencies more challenging, imposes burdens on future generations, and increases the risk of a fiscal crisis.”
Russia’s wartime industry is simultaneously shifting to manufacture consumer goods. After a resolution, Moscow intends to have these new facilities and industries providing products to new partners, where the collective West will struggle to compete.
Putin stressed achieving this through enhancing domestic production and reducing import reliance, rather than trade barriers.
The approach recognizes that sustainable growth requires more than protectionism. Russia will achieve long-term economic resilience through diversification and self-sufficiency, setting its economy up for long-term growth.
Conversely, the Biden and EU model stresses switching to carbon-neutral manufacturing decades before the technology and infrastructure are in place to do so. This is a sure recipe for long term austerity and more citizens giving up on the future.
The Russian president noted that the center of economic development was gradually shifting further eastwards and northwards
“The basis of the US economy is ‘cracking’ due to government debt and inflation, according to Putin. “It is an unequivocal problem for all holders of dollar assets,” the Russian president said. He further stated that the development center is shifting to Asia, and Russia needs to be closer.
According to the Russian leader, Peter the Great opened the window into Europe precisely because this is where development was seen. Well, no more.”
Or at least, not now.
What sanctions and the theft of Russian assets has shown the world is America can no longer be trusted. The days when the world’s economy is pegged on the American Dollar, which is the only thing propping up America today are over.
Would you trust your national assets, like gold for instance, with a bank that may or may not turn around and seize them? Of course not.
Countries with a combined population of over 3 billion people represented at SPIEF are divesting in American assets because of the above. Traditional trade done in US Dollars is shifting to local currencies.
As this economic decoupling accelerates the CBO report becomes the optimistic view. The reality is much starker because the report doesn’t consider the eventual loss of the Dollar’s status as the indispensable currency.
The fact Americans are already facing the impact of this situation is disastrous and is a matter of policy. What policy?
Imagine the economy going so backwards that for any single item, there are only two producers. You still have freedom of choice between the two but the quality is constrained by state policy. Many of the things you took for granted growing up, become unavailable.
While Russia, China, India, and the Global South enjoy the benefits of Capitalism and democracy which large middle classes demand, the collective West has no choice but to step away from it to address the new and harsher realities.
This isn’t a pro-Russia, pro-China, or India ideological statement. If left unchanged, this is the future unfolding before us.
As industry becomes restricted and labor markets overburdened with the perpetually unemployed, services people count on will roll back. All of this is the natural progression forward from the Paris Accords. It was never about the environment.
Green Growth Is “Degrowth” Policy as It Rolls Out
The EU spent $630 billion on replacing gas from Russia in 2021-2023. This amount is comparable to Europe’s total gas spending over the previous eight years.
At the September 12th, 2022 Yalta European Strategy conference September 12th, German Foreign Minister Analena Baerbock bluntly stated she didn’t care what the German people suffered over the next 10 years, they wouldn’t import Russian gas.
Within 10 days, Germany updated its security policy to include Russian gas purchases as dangerous to the state. Within 2 weeks, the Nord Stream explosions happened which cemented Baerbock’s Green Party green agenda in Germany and across Europe.
For the German Greens, the Nord Stream explosions were a godsend that enabled them to start decoupling German industry from the economy as companies were forced to relocate to survive.
When you consider that Joe Biden’s Build Back Better program is a copy of Baerbock’s Green Party platform on economics and society, the concept of “degrowth” shows why it’s necessary for America and the West to push down their economies and get populations used to living on the brink.
“German Greens have lengthy political experience with many ups and downs, becoming less compromising, more system focused, and more pragmatic in recent years. Paths to achieving ecological sustainability are now more readily understood in their social dimensions. Influenced by German activists and sustainability scholars who have made a degrowth turn to the subsistence orientation pioneered by German ecofeminists decades ago, German Greensﾠincorporate strong concerns with equity, reducing over-consumption and modifying work.”
Degrowth doesnﾒt mean they want you to buy electric cars. They want to take electric cars away and the ability to purchase them. They want to destroy industries so products are no longer available. This was never about “saving” the planet.
Degrowth means shrinking down major economies like America’s as close to the level of second-world economies as possible so there is social equity. There’s that word again.
Was destroying German industry necessary to support Ukraine? Or America’s? The question looms large because if Russia was wielding energy prices like a foreign policy sword, an orderly withdrawal to new sources would have supported economic stability.
If the question was “will” Russia do this? And it’s spot on, then once again, policymakers were lied to as well as the general public. Governments tore up the social contract with the “people” to support the common good in favor of something else.
Russia offered long-term energy contracts that locked the price of energy at affordable levels. Europe and the US decided to pay spot pricing instead. The locked in prices and contracts specifying terms for deliverables negates the “Russia using energy as a diplomatic weapon” argument.
And yet, the global demand for oil continues to grow, mainly due to developing countries. Developing countries will be the main drivers of oil consumption in the coming decades. The President of Bolivia is discussing supplies of liquid hydrocarbons with Rosneft.
The global demand for technology, products, research, and skilled workers continues to grow. For America and Europe, the path they’re taking leads these countries to the sidelines as this policy develops.
Russia, China, India, and the Global South will become the economic juggernauts driving the world while economically devolving green/degrowth agenda countries have less and less to offer.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/spief-2024-rise-global-south-century-decline-western-economies/5860241
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The Journal of America Team:
Editor in chief:
Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Senior Editor:
Prof. Arthur Scott
Special Correspondent
Maryam Turab
