Tag: palestine

What US Got Most Crucially Wrong in UN Veto

The United States has once again voted for genocide before all the world. 

There is no government in the world that has more power to put an end to likely the worst crime of the century than the United States. 

And yet on Friday at the U.N. Security Council Washington vetoed a resolution that would have demanded an immediate ceasefire and an end to Israel’s unmitigated slaughter. The U.S. blocked the measure because it unequivocally wants the killing to continue. 

It can talk all it wants about its rejection of the resolution because it did not condemn Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7.  But the crux of the U.S. justification for a vote that has brought it worldwide condemnation is a willfully ignorant statement about the cause of this war. 

In the U.S. explanation of its veto, the U.S. deputy ambassador Robert Wood said: 

“Perhaps most unrealistically, this resolution retains a call for an unconditional ceasefire. I explained in my remarks this morning why this is not only unrealistic but dangerous: it would simply leave Hamas in place, able to regroup and repeat what it did on October 7. …

As long as Hamas clings to its ideology of destruction, any ceasefire is at best temporary and is certainly not peace. And any ceasefire that leaves Hamas in control of Gaza would deny Palestinian civilians the chance to build something better for themselves.”

This formulation reveals the U.S. government’s twisted thinking. The occupation of the West Bank and the blockade of Gaza are not the causes of this and previous wars, but instead Hamas’ “ideology of destruction.” Which stems from what? Just some evil DNA?

Thus for the U.S. the solution is not ending the occupation but maintaining the slaughter supposedly to destroy Hamas, even though Israel has killed relatively few of its fighters and none of its top commanders and is instead waging a war of annihilation against the Gazan people.  

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Biden admin uses emergency authority to approve tank shells sale to Israel

The Biden administration has authorized the sale of almost 14,000 tank shells to Israel, bypassing congressional rules, the Pentagon announced Saturday.

The Department of Defense used an emergency declaration from the Arms Export Control Act to sell 13,981 tank cartridges, worth $106.5 million, immediately to Israel as the country continues its ongoing war against the militant group Hamas.

The Arms Export Control Act “authorizes the President to control the import and export of defense articles and services,” according to Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute.

“The Secretary of State determined and provided detailed justification to Congress that an emergency exists that requires the immediate sale to the Government of Israel of the above defense articles and services in the national security interests of the United States, thereby waiving the Congressional review requirements under Section 36(b) of the Arms Export Control Act, as amended,” reads a release from the Defense Security Cooperation Agency.

It continued, “The United States is committed to the security of Israel, and it is vital to U.S. national interests to assist Israel to develop and maintain a strong and ready self-defense capability. This proposed sale is consistent with those objectives.”

This sale is part of a larger package, first reported by Reuters Friday, that President Biden has asked Congress to approve. The overall deal includes 45,000 shells for Israel’s Merkava tanks, which have been consistently deployed by Israel during its fight in Gaza.

The sale of the tank shells comes after the United States used its veto power to block a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. The ceasefire would have required Israel to halt its war with Hamas on Friday.

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Another Shameful US Veto at the United Nations

Yesterday was another shameful day for the Biden administration and the United States:

The United States vetoed a United Nations resolution Friday backed by almost all other Security Council members and dozens of other nations demanding an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza. Supporters called it a terrible day and warned of more civilian deaths and destruction as the war goes into its third month.

The excuses that Robert Wood, the U.S. deputy ambassador, gave for opposing the resolution added insult to injury. He said that a ceasefire would “only plant the seeds for the next war,” as if the continuation and intensification of the current war weren’t already doing that to a much greater extent. The resolution called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and the unconditional and immediate release of all hostages, but the U.S. representative had the gall to call it “unbalanced.”

The U.S. objected that the process had been “rushed,” but speed is obviously crucial when there is a major humanitarian crisis that requires urgent attention. If the U.S. hadn’t shot down other Security Council resolutions on this conflict over the last two months, the situation would not be quite as far gone as it is. Wood claimed that the resolution was “divorced from reality,” but nothing could be more divorced from reality than an administration that is actively stoking the conflict while pretending that a ceasefire is bad for the cause of peace.

The resolution that the U.S. vetoed had the support of almost 100 other member states, including several major treaty allies. Vetoing this measure doesn’t just leave the U.S. isolated on the world stage, but it also confirms in the eyes of the world that our government is a rogue great power that cannot be trusted. In addition to being profoundly wrong in itself, this veto will do significant damage to our country’s reputation in the eyes of almost all other nations in the world. Agnes Callamard of Amnesty International summed it up well:

US veto of ceasefire resolution displays callous disregard for civilian suffering in face of staggering death toll. It is morally indefensible, a dereliction of the US duty to prevent atrocity crimes and a complete lack of global leadership. Just appalling.

While the U.S. continues to shield Israel from international pressure, it is also rushing more weapons to Israel without Congressional review. This is the first time that an administration has used the emergency provision in the Arms Control Act since the Trump administration did this in 2019 to rush weapons to the Saudi coalition for use in Yemen. The Trump administration’s move was widely criticized as a cynical attempt to escape scrutiny of the U.S. role in fueling that war, and the Biden administration is doing the same thing today. The president has been eager to skirt Congressional oversight in this conflict. Arms transfers to Israel over the last two months have been carried out with virtually no transparency, and Biden has lifted all restrictions on the kinds of weapons that Israel could receive from the U.S.

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Top Defense Official: US Can Handle Middle East, Russia & China Operations All At Once

It might be difficult for most any American, especially in the younger generation, to remember a time when America was not deeply involved in a raging foreign conflict – whether directly or via proxies. At this very moment the US is shipping heavy weapons and sinking billions in aid into to no less than two major wars which have the potential to erupt into broader regional or even world conflagrations involving clashing large powers: namely, the Ukraine-Russia and Israel-Gaza conflicts.

While much of the public might rightly think the United States has once again overextended itself, one top defense official has shrugged it off and essentially said… no problem. At an Atlantic Council event held days ago Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Christopher Grady said that the Pentagon stands ready to handle missions connected to three potential proxy wars in defense if its interests if it comes to that.

Grady described that the US Navy in particular is capable of waging battle against Russia in Ukraine, against China in Taiwan, and is ready to assist the Israelis in Gaza if called upon. This could be done simultaneously, he described, while admitting this would stretch naval forces thin.

Adm. Grady explained, “You look at what is required to support Ukraine, look at what might be required to support our partner in Israel, and then, of course, you put Taiwan on top of that—we have the construct that we do with combatant commanders and the rest that should allow us to command and control those three things all at one time.”

He stressed, “It’s part of our campaigning process, which is central to the national defense strategy. Is it challenging? Sure.” During the remarks he spoke of various emerging global hotspots as “test cases” and suggested that the so-called rules-based order would collapse if the US didn’t rise to the challenge.

On China in particular, and the potential for future clash over Taiwan independence, he said as follows:

Grady said increased Chinese activity near the shoal was “a case where the probability of buffoonery goes way high as you start to see the Chinese PRC, PLA and, more importantly, not PLA and but kind of white and white vessels like Coast Guard equivalents,” participating in activities meant to coerce U.S. allies in the region like the Philippines and Taiwan. 

More disturbingly, he said, “The tempo is a little bit higher right now. This Isn’t a test case for what we would do; I think it’s a test case for the whole rules-based international order, frankly.”

This appeared an attempt to justify and rally behind Biden’s pushing Congress to pass a $106 billion funding package to further arm Ukraine, Israel, as well as support operations in the Asia-Pacific.

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Civilians make up 61% of Gaza deaths from airstrikes, Israeli study finds

The aerial bombing campaign by Israel in Gaza is the most indiscriminate in terms of civilian casualties in recent years, a study published by an Israeli newspaper has found.

The analysis in Haaretz came as Israeli forces fought to consolidate their control of northern Gaza on Saturday, bombing the Shejaiya district of Gaza City, while also conducting airstrikes on Rafah, a town on the southern border with Egypt where the Israeli army has told people in Gaza to take shelter.

The full death toll from the past 24 hours was unclear but the main hospital in central Gaza, at Deir al-Balah, reported it received 71 bodies, and 62 bodies were taken to Nasser hospital in the main southern city of Khan Younis, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Haaretz published an analysis by Yagil Levy, a sociology professor at the Open University of Israel, which found that in three earlier campaigns in Gaza, in the period from 2012-22, the ratio of civilian deaths to the total of those killed in airstrikes hovered at about 40%. That ratio declined to 33% in a bombing campaign earlier this year, called Operation Shield and Arrow.

In the first three weeks of the current operation, Swords of Iron, the civilian proportion of total deaths rose to 61%, in what Levy described as “unprecedented killing” for Israeli forces in Gaza. The ratio is significantly higher than the average civilian toll in all the conflicts around the world during the 20th century, in which civilians accounted for about half the dead, according to Levy.

“The broad conclusion is that extensive killing of civilians not only contributes nothing to Israel’s security, but that it also contains the foundations for further undermining it,” Levy concluded. “The Gazans who will emerge from the ruins of their homes and the loss of their families will seek revenge that no security arrangements will be able to withstand.”

The study confirms an investigation 10 days ago by the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call, which found Israel was deliberately targeting residential blocks to cause mass civilian casualties in the hope people would turn on their Hamas rulers. The figures will make uneasy reading for the Biden administration, which is facing global criticism and isolation for vetoing a UN security council vote for a ceasefire on Friday.

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NYC couple checks out 5 pro-Palestinian children’s books indefinitely to prevent ‘indoctrination

A Roosevelt Island couple have taken a novel approach to what they say is anti-Israel propaganda in their local library — they’ve checked out five pro-Palestinian children’s books and will keep them indefinitely to prevent them from being used for “indoctrination.”

The books — for children as young as 3 — were prominently on display at the New York Public Library branch during “Read Palestine Week,” with several titles about Palestinians arranged in a “indigenous people’s” display with books about Native Americans.

“It’s pretty easy to understand what they’re doing. They are trying to connect between these two identities, and make Israel and Jews look as if we are colonizers and not indigenous to our land,” said Asaf Eyal, whose wife checked out the books on Dec. 3.

“Placing these books next to the Native American books is a very obvious move. The library manager created this display very purposely,” Eyal, 47, added.

Among the showcased books were “We’re in This Together,” a title by anti-Israel activist Linda Sarsour — which offered her view of the situation.

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FACEBOOK APPROVED AN ISRAELI AD CALLING FOR ASSASSINATION OF PRO-PALESTINE ACTIVIST

A SERIES OF advertisements dehumanizing and calling for violence against Palestinians, intended to test Facebook’s content moderation standards, were all approved by the social network, according to materials shared with The Intercept.

The submitted ads, in both Hebrew and Arabic, included flagrant violations of policies for Facebook and its parent company Meta. Some contained violent content directly calling for the murder of Palestinian civilians, like ads demanding a “holocaust for the Palestinians” and to wipe out “Gazan women and children and the elderly.” Other posts, like those describing kids from Gaza as “future terrorists” and a reference to “Arab pigs,” contained dehumanizing language.

“The approval of these ads is just the latest in a series of Meta’s failures towards the Palestinian people,” Nadim Nashif, founder of the Palestinian social media research and advocacy group 7amleh, which submitted the test ads, told The Intercept. “Throughout this crisis, we have seen a continued pattern of Meta’s clear bias and discrimination against Palestinians.”

7amleh’s idea to test Facebook’s machine-learning censorship apparatus arose last month, when Nashif discovered an ad on his Facebook feed explicitly calling for the assassination of American activist Paul Larudee, a co-founder of the Free Gaza Movement. Facebook’s automatic translation of the text ad read: “It’s time to assassinate Paul Larudi [sic], the anti-Semitic and ‘human rights’ terrorist from the United States.” Nashif reported the ad to Facebook, and it was taken down.

The ad had been placed by Ad Kan, a right-wing Israeli group founded by former Israel Defense Force and intelligence officers to combat “anti-Israeli organizations” whose funding comes from purportedly antisemitic sources, according to its website. (Neither Larudee nor Ad Kan immediately responded to requests for comment.)

Calling for the assassination of a political activist is a violation of Facebook’s advertising rules. That the post sponsored by Ad Kan appeared on the platform indicates Facebook approved it despite those rules. The ad likely passed through filtering by Facebook’s automated process, based on machine-learning, that allows its global advertising business to operate at a rapid clip.

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The Grim Reality of Israel’s Corpse Politics

After Israeli forces shot and killed thirty-nine-year-old Fadi Samara in May of 2020, his mourning family dug him a grave in his village of Abu Qash, located in the occupied West Bank district of Ramallah.

But nearly four years later, his grave remains empty.

“I take the children to their father’s grave a few times a month even though we still have not received his body,” says Saja Muhammad, Samara’s thirty-one-year-old widow and mother to his five children, ages nine to three.

“It gives the children some comfort,” she continues, sitting on the couch at her family’s home in the city of Biddya in the northern Salfit district, where she returned following Samara’s killing. “We live with the hope that one day his body will be returned to us. And when that day comes his grave is ready to receive him.”

Samara’s body is one of hundreds currently held by Israel, part of a decades-long policy that researchers and rights groups describe as an attempt to control and punish Palestinian families by withholding the corpses of their slain loved ones. Some are buried in nameless graves and others are frozen in refrigerators.

Israeli officials claim this controversial practice is necessary to avoid incitement during funerals of Palestinians killed by Israelis. Israel also withholds the remains of slain Palestinians who are suspected of having carried out attacks against Israelis, using their corpses as bargaining chips for future negotiations with Palestinian leaders.

However, Palestinians, some of whom have waited for months, years, and in some cases decades for the return of their slain loved ones’ bodies, argue that this policy aims to punish them, condemning their lives to perpetual mourning.

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Israel knew Hamas’ attack plan more than a year ago

Israeli officials obtained Hamas’ battle plan for the Oct. 7 terrorist attack more than a year before it happened, documents, emails and interviews show. But Israeli military and intelligence officials dismissed the plan as aspirational, considering it too difficult for Hamas to carry out.

The approximately 40-page document, which Israeli authorities code-named “Jericho Wall,” outlined, point by point, exactly the kind of devastating invasion that led to the deaths of about 1,200 people.

The translated document, which was reviewed by The New York Times, did not set a date for the attack, but described a methodical assault designed to overwhelm the fortifications around the Gaza Strip, take over Israeli cities and storm key military bases, including a division headquarters.

Hamas followed the blueprint with shocking precision. The document called for a barrage of rockets at the outset of the attack, drones to knock out the security cameras and automated machine guns along the border, and gunmen to pour into Israel en masse in paragliders, on motorcycles and on foot — all of which happened Oct. 7.

The plan also included details about the location and size of Israeli military forces, communication hubs and other sensitive information, raising questions about how Hamas gathered its intelligence and whether there were leaks inside the Israeli security establishment.

The document circulated widely among Israeli military and intelligence leaders, but experts determined that an attack of that scale and ambition was beyond Hamas’ capabilities, according to documents and officials. It is unclear whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or other top political leaders saw the document, as well.

Last year, shortly after the document was obtained, officials in the Israeli military’s Gaza division, which is responsible for defending the border with Gaza, said Hamas’ intentions were unclear.

“It is not yet possible to determine whether the plan has been fully accepted and how it will be manifested,” read a military assessment reviewed by the Times.

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Israeli AI “Assassination Factory” Plays Central Role in the Gaza War

Tel Aviv has been relying on an AI Program dubbed the Gospel to select targets in Gaza at a rapid pace. In past operations in Gaza, the IDF ran out of targets to strike in the besieged enclave.

A statement on the IDF website says the Israeli military is using the Gospel to “produce targets at a fast pace.” It continues, “Through the rapid and automatic extraction of intelligence,” the Gospel produced targeting recommendations for its researchers “with the goal of a complete match between the recommendation of the machine and the identification carried out by a person.”

Aviv Kochavi, former head of the IDF, said the system was first used in the May 2021 bombing campaign in Gaza.  “To put that into perspective, in the past we would produce 50 targets in Gaza per year,” he said. “Now, this machine produces 100 targets a single day, with 50% of them being attacked.”

The IDF does not disclose what it inputs into the Gospel for the program to produce a list of targets.

Thursday, the Israeli outlet +972 Magazine reported Tel Aviv was using AI to pick targets in Gaza. A former Israeli official told the +972 that the Gospel was being used as a “mass assassination factory.” The program is selecting the home of suspected low-level Hamas members for destruction. Sources told the outlet that strikes on homes can kill numerous civilians.

One source was critical of the Gospel. “I remember thinking that it was like if [Palestinian militants] would bomb all the private residences of our families when [Israeli soldiers] go back to sleep at home on the weekend,” they said.

On Friday, the Guardian expanded on the +972 article by reporting that the Gospel plays a central role in the Gaza military operations.

A former senior Israeli military source told the Guardian that operatives use a “very accurate” calculation of the number or rate of civilians fleeing a building before an impending strike. However, other experts disputed that assertion. A lawyer who advises governments on AI and compliance with humanitarian law told the outlet there was “little empirical evidence” to support the claim.

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