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The Gaza genocide has galvanized immense opposition among healthcare workers and students around the world. Despite freezing temperatures, thousands of people, including many healthcare workers, students and youth, joined a rally in Union Square, Manhattan on Monday to protest against the genocide in Gaza.

Thousands demonstrating today against the #gazagenocide in #nyc including many healthcare workers pic.twitter.com/8bWlJzFBcs

— Clara Weiss (@claraweiss_wsws) January 15, 2024

The rally was jointly organized by Doctors against Genocide and Healthcare Workers for Palestine. Protesters chanted, “We are all Palestinians, in the thousands, in the millions,” and “Hands off Yemen.” Many held up posters with the names of healthcare workers who had been killed in Gaza over the past 100 days.

The WSWS spoke with a physician and a medical student about the genocide and the crackdown on freedom of speech at workplaces and on campuses in the US.

The medical student explained why he came to the rally:

I feel that it is my responsibility as a person of conscience and as a person who will soon serve patients as my career to advocate for the rights of oppressed people, especially when healthcare institutions and healthcare workers are being intentionally targeted by imperialist powers. This is an opportunity to grow the liberation movement for oppressed people everywhere, not just in Palestine, but particularly in Palestine.

Asked about the crackdown on freedom of speech on campuses, he said:

In my personal experience, I’ve found it difficult to talk openly and in public about these issues because in many cases universities have a very strong bias to Zionism and invest in the war and genocide. Having students call universities out on these issues is very dangerous for their donor base and must be avoided at all costs by the administration. That means the administration will punish students for speaking out. We’ve seen this all across New York City, with places like Columbia shutting down groups that are advocating for the liberation of Palestine. We’ve experienced it personally at my school as well. That gives us all the more reason to remain steadfast and to be out here and be advocates for each other.

"In many cases, Universities have very strong ties to Zionism and invest in war and genocide… That means the administration will punish students for speaking out."

"That gives us all the more reason to remain steadfast and be out here."#GazaGenocide pic.twitter.com/hl1UAn2YmI

— World Socialist Web Site (@WSWS_Updates) January 18, 2024

A physician who teaches part-time and asked to remain anonymous told the WSWS:

As healthcare workers, we have a duty to prevent harm and also attempt to heal. We are organizing because today in the world there is a tremendous amount of suffering and killing that’s happening in a very tiny, small piece of land called Gaza, which is being unrelentingly bombed. The entire infrastructure is destroyed. Those who have not been murdered by the IDF are now facing starvation, lack of access to clean water, and lack of healthcare. We know that this is literally genocide and we as doctors have a duty to speak out against that. That’s why we’re here.

I’ve always been pro-Palestinian. Thirty years ago I did a rotation in a hospital in east Jerusalem and in the West Bank, and I learned a lot. I saw the devastating effects of the occupation, especially with children and young adults. Unarmed people shot in the back and paralyzed by the Israeli police. Ambulances stopped at IDF checkpoints for hours, despite having critically ill patients, like a comatose child with a head injury. Since that time I’ve been a supporter [of the Palestinian cause].

Describing the situation facing his colleagues in Gaza, he said:

If their hands haven’t been blown off by the bombing, their hands are still tied, because there is not even the basic infrastructure to provide even the most fundamental healthcare. There’s not even clean water. That’s one of the basic foundations of having a healthcare institution — it’s got to have clean water. They don’t even have that. It’s really dire, very, very dire. People use the expression “bombing something to the Stone Age.” They literally are doing that. And it’s unconscionable, it’s absolutely unconscionable. Surgeries and amputations without anesthesia? It’s just absolutely abominable.

The discussion then turned to the climate of fear that has been created on campuses and at workplaces. The physician noted:

It’s been hard because there’s a lot of doxxing. I actually got doxxed at my work. I signed a letter supporting students who were being doxxed — the letter simply denounced the doxxing of students. But then I got doxxed by patients and families. I’m OK though, I didn’t get fired, although I got a lot of flak for it. Other healthcare workers who have been doxxed have not been as lucky as I am; some had job offers rescinded, some were fired.

It’s been very difficult. There’s a lot of retribution at workplaces, whether it’s a small workplace like a private practice or whether it’s a large academic institution. People have been fired for simply saying what’s on their mind, for simply calling out genocide. One of the reasons why we formed is not only to organize against this, but also as a social support for physicians and other healthcare workers who are facing this kind of discrimination and this kind of intimidation just for speaking out against the killing of an innocent people.

Asked about the role of the Democratic Party in the genocide, he laughed and said:

They’re contributing to it. Joe Biden has a $13 billion check and he’s like: “You know what, you guys should stop settling in the West Bank. Oh, but here’s your $13 billion.” What kind of pressure is that? That’s not pressure.

A WSWS reporter noted,

“We’re heading into an election now where voters are going to have the so-called choice between ‘Genocide Joe’ and fascist Trump. And no doubt some will try to make the case to vote for ‘Genocide Joe’ as the lesser evil, but how can you seriously make this argument now?”

The physician replied,

“Yep, couldn’t agree with you more!”

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Featured image: Doctors, healthcare workers and medical students protested Monday in New York City against the genocide in Gaza. (Source: WSWS)

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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Ukrainian air defense has almost collapsed. Kiev’s officials already admit the country’s failure to effectively continue confronting Russia in the air. Given the intense use of missiles and drones by the Russians and the constant decrease in Western aid, Ukraine has exhausted its resources and no longer has the ability to protect itself from enemy strikes.

The country’s situation was admitted by the official spokesman of the Ukrainian Air Force, Yury Ignat. According to him, Kiev’s air defense arsenal has been depleted and there are no longer appropriate conditions to continue fighting for long, which is why he urges Western countries to keep on sending equipment to Ukraine. Ignat believes that the Russian armed forces have further increased the frequency and intensity of their air strikes, with Ukraine needing to replenish its arsenal so as not to be vulnerable to Moscow’s incursions.

“Intense Russian air attacks force us to use a corresponding amount of air defense means (…) That’s why we need more of them, as Russia keeps increasing its attack capabilities”, he said.

Ignat added that Kiev is currently relying exclusively on Western air defense systems and old Soviet equipment, as the country is unable to produce weapons at adequate levels. This is due to the fact that the Russians are launching massive high-precision strikes against Ukrainian industrial targets, seeking to neutralize Kiev’s ability to restore arms production. In this scenario, neo-Nazi forces begin to depend on foreign equipment or old and inefficient Soviet-era weapons, becoming even weaker in the conflict.

To avoid a quick defeat, Kiev would need to receive many Western weapons in order to immediately rebuild its air defense arsenal. Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba believes that for this it is necessary to receive missiles for the Patriot, IRIS-T and NASAMS systems as quickly as possible.

“First and foremost, we expect the meeting to expedite critical decisions on further strengthening Ukraine’s air defense capabilities, both in terms of modern systems and their ammunition (…) [Supplying missiles for Patriot, IRIS-T, and NASAMS systems is a] top priority that must be completed today, not tomorrow”, the minister said.

This lack of ammunition for Ukraine’s air defense is nothing new. Since the first months of 2023, the media has already shown that Kiev is struggling to continue using its air defense systems, with the lack of missiles having already become one of the main obstacles for Ukraine in the conflict. In May, Western newspapers even stated that the total depletion of Ukrainian air defense ammunition would happen in a matter of a few days – which shows how the situation may be even more worrying now.

“[…] Officials said the continuing need to defend against Russian missile and drone attacks had systematically depleted Ukraine’s stockpiles — a warning backed up by US intelligence documents leaked online this spring that suggested Kyiv might run out of ammunition for five critical air defence systems. According to documents reviewed by the Financial Times, the US assessed in late February that Ukraine’s ability to protect its troops on the front lines would be ‘completely reduced’ by May 23”, a May 2023 Financial Times’ article reads.

At the time, Kiev managed to gain additional aid from the West to continue fighting, but the situation has gotten much worse since then. The Russians intensified their attacks, also reaching facilities where many of the Western weapons were stored. In practice, Moscow’s strategy of maintaining a high-intensity conflict caused irreversible damage to the structure of the enemy troops, forcing Kiev to rapidly exhaust its defense arsenal.

There is an even bigger problem now for Ukraine, however. The West does not seem able to continue spending large amounts of money on useless support for Kiev. The war in Israel has changed the focus of attention of Western elites. In the same sense, Biden was unsuccessful in approving his billion-dollar aid plan for Ukraine and the EU had a similar project vetoed by Hungary.

The difficulty in approving new aid packages has no chance of being resolved soon. The matter is expected to be discussed over the next few months, during which Kiev will continue to need adequate air defense, being vulnerable to Russian attacks. All of this makes Kiev even closer to defeat, with no possibility of reversing the military scenario.

Indeed, it is impossible to win a conflict without maintaining control of the air. The winning side in a contemporary war is the one most efficient in protecting its territory from air attacks and most successful in launching missile and drone attacks. In this case, the Russians have an absolute advantage, as admitted by Ukrainian authorities themselves.

It only remains to be seen whether awareness of its own failure will be enough to make Kiev agree to negotiate peace.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Lucas Leiroz is a journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant. You can follow Lucas on X (former Twitter) and Telegram. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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The levels of anti-Russian paranoia are reaching dangerous levels in Sweden. Recently, the country’s authorities asked its citizens to prepare for a possible conflict situation with Russia in the near future. The case clearly shows how Western governments are acting irrationally in their decisions, ignoring reality and failing to properly understand the European geopolitical scenario.

The Swedish authorities’ statements were made during the Folk och Forsvar National Conference in Salen. Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs Tobias Billstrom stated on the occasion that Russia is becoming the biggest threat to Sweden and the entire Europe, adding that his country must be prepared to face a possible situation of prolonged conflict with Moscow.

“Russia will constitute a serious threat to the security of Sweden and Europe for the foreseeable future (…) [So] Stockholm must be realistic and assume – and be prepared for – a drawn-out confrontation”, he said.

Billstrom’s words were reinforced by the position of Defense Minister Pal Jonson, who said that the war could “come” to the Swedes. Jonson stated that Ukraine currently works as a kind of “shield for Europe”, preventing hostilities from affecting other countries. He fears that, with a failure on Kiev’s part, the security crisis will worsen and more countries will begin to engage in direct conflict with Russia.

As well known, since the beginning of the Russian special operation, Sweden has violated its own tradition of neutrality and adhered to an aggressive military policy, having requested membership in NATO. Although the process to accept Sweden into the alliance seems far from complete, the country has already taken important steps in its integration with member states, participating in a series of joint exercises and operations.

The Swedish government recently authorized the deployment of 800 soldiers to Latvia, where the troops will join the “Enhanced Forward Presence in the Baltic states” – an international NATO team led by Canada that aims to “improve” Baltic security amid current tensions. In the same vein, there was a statement by Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson last year saying that Sweden could have NATO nuclear weapons on its territory, which would represent a serious escalation in the regional crisis.

All of this shows how the Swedes, even though they are not yet formally members of NATO, are already engaged in the alliance’s war plans against Russia. Just like Finland, which has already achieved its membership, Sweden is resolute in working in favor of the interests of the Western military bloc, contributing as much as possible to the alliance’s projects. Scandinavian countries have irrationally adhered to the unsubstantiated narratives of the Western mainstream media, so that Swedish and Finnish decision-makers actually believe that there is a kind of “Russian danger”.

There is no evidence that Russia plans to launch military actions against any European country. Moscow does not have any territorial claims in Europe and does not see any need to use force against other countries on the continent. The reason that led Russia to intervene militarily in Ukraine is very clear: there was a genocide of ethnic Russians in Donbass. This was the only reason why Russia, after failing diplomatically, began its special operation and decided to reintegrate some territories into its Federation. There is currently no situation similar to the Ukrainian one in any European country, so Moscow obviously does not plan to “expand” its military actions.

However, it is necessary to emphasize how anti-Russian paranoia creates a kind of “self-fulfilling prophecy” as Russophobic governments implement measures that put regional security at risk, prompting reactions from Moscow. For its part, the Russians have no military interest in Sweden, Finland or the Baltics, but if these countries begin to engage in operations that threaten the Russian strategic environment, then Moscow will certainly retaliate in the appropriate way to keep its borders secure.

In other words, Russia poses no threat to Europe, but Europe is close to posing a threat to Russia. By calling on its soldiers to prepare for conflict, Sweden is engaging in a dangerous way that could have devastating consequences. From the moment it becomes known that a foreign country is preparing for a war with Russia, Moscow has the right to also put its troops on combat readiness. The result can be the beginning of a vicious cycle of tensions and frictions.

Sweden should stop believing Western lies about Russia and focus on its internal problems instead of taking anti-strategic military measures. Stockholm needs to resume its neutrality and stay out of NATO’s war plans, respecting its own diplomatic tradition.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Lucas Leiroz is a journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant. You can follow Lucas on X (former Twitter) and Telegram. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is licensed under Wikimedia Commons

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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“No president from either party should have the sole power to shut down or take control of the internet or any other of our communication channels during an emergency.”—Senator Rand Paul

What’s to stop the U.S. government from throwing the kill switch and shutting down phone and internet communications in a time of so-called crisis?

After all, it’s happening all over the world.

Communications kill switches have become tyrannical tools of domination and oppression to stifle political dissent, shut down resistance, forestall election losses, reinforce military coups, and keep the populace isolated, disconnected and in the dark, literally and figuratively.

As the Guardian reports,

“From Ukraine to Myanmar, government-run internet outages are picking up pace around the world. In 2021, there were 182 shutdowns in 34 countries… Countries across Africa and Asia have turned to shutdowns in a bid to control behaviour, while India, largely in the conflict-ridden region of Jammu and Kashmir, plunged into digital darkness more times than any other last year… Civil unrest in Ethiopia and Kazakhstan has triggered internet shutdowns as governments try to prevent political mobilisation and stop news about military suppression from emerging.”

In an internet-connected age, killing the internet is tantamount to bringing everything—communications, commerce, travel, the power grid—to a standstill.

Tyrants and would-be tyrants rely on this “cloak of darkness” to advance their agendas.

In Myanmar, for example, the internet shutdown came on the day a newly elected government was to have been sworn in. That’s when the military staged a digital coup and seized power. Under cover of a communications blackout that cut off the populace from the outside world and each other, the junta “carried out nightly raids, smashing down doors to drag out high-profile politicians, activists and celebrities.”

These government-imposed communications shutdowns serve to not only isolate, terrorize and control the populace, but also underscore the citizenry’s lack of freedom in the face of the government’s limitless power.

Yet as University of California Irvine law professor David Kaye explains, these kill switches are no longer exclusive to despotic regimes. They have “migrated into a toolbox for governments that actually do have the rule of law.”

This is what digital authoritarianism looks like in a technological age.

Digital authoritarianism, as the Center for Strategic and International Studies cautions, involves the use of information technology to surveil, repress, and manipulate the populace, endangering human rights and civil liberties, and co-opting and corrupting the foundational principles of democratic and open societies, “including freedom of movement, the right to speak freely and express political dissent, and the right to personal privacy, online and off.”

For those who insist that it can’t happen here, it can and it has.

In 2005, cell service was disabled in four major New York tunnels, reportedly to avert potential bomb detonations via cell phone.

In 2009, those attending President Obama’s inauguration had their cell signals blocked—again, same rationale.

And in 2011, San Francisco commuters had their cell phone signals shut down, this time, to thwart any possible protests over a police shooting of a homeless man.

With shutdowns becoming harder to detect, who’s to say it’s not still happening?

Although an internet kill switch is broadly understood to be a complete internet shutdown, it can also include a broad range of restrictions such as content blocking, throttling, filtering, complete shutdowns, and cable cutting.

As Global Risk Intel explains:

“Content blocking is a relatively moderate method that blocks access to a list of selected websites or applications. When users access these sites and apps, they receive notifications that the server could not be found or that access was denied by the network administrator. A more subtle method is throttling. Authorities decrease the bandwidth to slow down the speed at which specific websites can be accessed. A slow internet connection discourages users to connect to certain websites and does not arouse immediate suspicion. Users may assume that connection service is slow but may not conclude that this circumstance was authorized by the government. Filtering is another tool to censor targeted content and erases specific messages and terms that the government does not approve of.”

How often do most people, experiencing server errors and slow internet speeds, chalk it up to poor service? Who would suspect the government of being behind server errors and slow internet speeds?

Then again, this is the same government that has subjected us to all manner of encroachments on our freedoms (lockdowns, mandates, restrictions, contact tracing programs, heightened surveillance, censorship, overcriminalization, shadow banning, etc.) in order to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, preserve the integrity of elections, and combat disinformation.

These tactics have become the tools of domination and oppression in an internet-dependent age.

It really doesn’t matter what the justifications are for such lockdowns. No matter the rationale, the end result is the same: an expansion of government power in direct proportion to the government’s oppression of the citizenry.

According to Global Risk Intel, there are many motives behind such restrictions:

“For instance, the kill switch serves to censor content and constrain the spread of news. This particularly concerns news reports that cover police brutality, human rights abuses, or educational information. Governments may also utilize the kill switch to prevent government-critical protestors from communicating through message applications like WhatsApp, Facebook, or Twitter and organizing mass demonstrations. Therefore, internet restrictions can provide a way of regulating the flow of information and hindering dissent. Governments reason that internet limitations help stop the spread of fake news and strengthen national security and public safety in times of unrest.”

In this age of manufactured crises, emergency powers and technofascism, the government already has the know-how, the technology and the authority.

Now all it needs is the “right” crisis to flip the kill switch.

This particular kill switch can be traced back to the Communications Act of 1934. Signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Act empowers the president to suspend wireless radio and phone services “if he deems it necessary in the interest of national security or defense” during a time of “war or a threat of war, or a state of public peril or disaster or other national emergency, or in order to preserve the neutrality of the United States.”

In the event of a national crisis, the president has a veritable arsenal of emergency powers that override the Constitution and can be activated at a moment’s notice. These range from imposing martial law and suspending habeas corpus to shutting down all forms of communications, restricting travel and implementing a communications kill switch.

That national emergency can take any form, can be manipulated for any purpose and can be used to justify any end goal—all on the say so of the president.

The seeds of this ongoing madness were sown several decades ago when George W. Bush stealthily issued two presidential directives that granted the president the power to unilaterally declare a national emergency, which is loosely defined as “any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions.“

Comprising the country’s Continuity of Government (COG) plan, these directives (National Security Presidential Directive 51 and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 20), which do not need congressional approval, provide a skeletal outline of the actions the president will take in the event of a “national emergency.”

Just what sort of actions the president will take once he declares a national emergency can barely be discerned from the barebones directives. However, one thing is clear: in the event of a perceived national emergency, the COG directives give unchecked executive, legislative and judicial power to the president.

The country would then be subjected to martial law by default, and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights would be suspended.

The internet kill switch is just one piece of the government’s blueprint for locking down the nation and instituting martial law.

There may be many more secret powers that presidents may institute in times of so-called crisis without oversight from Congress, the courts, or the public. These powers do not expire at the end of a president’s term. They remain on the books, just waiting to be used or abused by the next political demagogue.

Given the government’s penchant for weaponizing one national crisis after another in order to expand its powers and justify all manner of government tyranny in the so-called name of national security, it’s only a matter of time before this particular emergency power to shut down the internet is activated.

Then again, an all-out communications blackout is just a more extreme version of the technocensorship that we’ve already been experiencing at the hands of the government and its corporate allies.

Packaged as an effort to control the spread of speculative or false information in the name of national security, restricting access to social media has become a popular means of internet censorship.

In fact, these tactics are at the heart of several critical cases before the U.S. Supreme Court over who gets to control, regulate or remove what content is shared on the internet: the individual, corporate censors or the police state.

Nothing good can come from techno-censorship.

As Glenn Greenwald writes for The Intercept:

“The glaring fallacy that always lies at the heart of pro-censorship sentiments is the gullible, delusional belief that censorship powers will be deployed only to suppress views one dislikes, but never one’s own views… Facebook is not some benevolent, kind, compassionate parent or a subversive, radical actor who is going to police our discourse in order to protect the weak and marginalized or serve as a noble check on mischief by the powerful. They are almost always going to do exactly the opposite: protect the powerful from those who seek to undermine elite institutions and reject their orthodoxies. Tech giants, like all corporations, are required by law to have one overriding objective: maximizing shareholder value. They are always going to use their power to appease those they perceive wield the greatest political and economic power.“

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, these censors are laying the groundwork to preempt any “dangerous” ideas that might challenge the power elite’s stranglehold over our lives.

Whatever powers you allow the government and its corporate operatives to claim now, whatever the reason might be, will at some point in the future be abused and used against you by tyrants of your own making.

By the time you add AI technologies, social credit systems, and wall-to-wall surveillance into the mix, you don’t even have to be a critic of the government to get snared in the web of digital censorship.

Eventually, as George Orwell predicted, telling the truth will become a revolutionary act.

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This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His most recent books are the best-selling Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the award-winning A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, and a debut dystopian fiction novel, The Erik Blair Diaries. Whitehead can be contacted at [email protected].

Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.

They are regular contributors to Global Research.

Featured image is from Countercurrents

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

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Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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Reading the tea leaves for the 2024 economy is challenging. On January 5th, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said we have achieved a “soft landing,” with wages rising faster than prices in 2023. But critics are questioning the official figures, and prices are still high. Surveys show that consumers remain apprehensive.

There are other concerns. On Dec. 24, 2023, Catherine Herridge, a senior investigative correspondent for CBS News covering national security and intelligence, said on “Face the Nation,”

“I just feel a lot of concern that 2024 may be the year of a black swan event. This is a national security event with high impact that’s very hard to predict.”  

What sort of event she didn’t say, but speculations have included a major cyberattack; a banking crisis due to a wave of defaults from high interest rates, particularly in commercial real estate; an oil embargo due to war; or a civil war. Any major black swan could prick the massive derivatives bubble, which the Bank for International Settlements put at over one quadrillion (1,000 trillion) dollars as far back as 2008. With global GDP at only $100 trillion, there is not enough money in the world to satisfy all these derivative claims. A derivative crisis helped trigger the 2008 banking collapse, and that could happen again. 

The dangers of derivatives have been known for decades. Warren Buffett wrote in 2002 that they were “financial weapons of mass destruction.” James Rickards wrote in U.S. News & World Report in 2012 that they should be banned. Yet Congress has not acted. This article looks at the current derivative threat, and at what might motivate our politicians to defuse it. 

What Regulation Hath Wrought

Derivatives are basically just bets, which are sold as “insurance” — protection against changes in interest rates or exchange rates, defaults on loans and the like. When one of the parties to the wager has a real economic interest to be protected – e.g. a farmer ensuring the value of his autumn crops against loss — the wager is considered socially valuable “hedging.” But most derivative bets today are designed simply to make money from other traders, degenerating into what has been called “casino capitalism.” 

In 2008, derivative trading brought down investment bank Bear Stearns and international insurer A.I.G. These institutions could not be allowed to fail because the trillions of dollars in credit default swaps on their books would have been wiped out, forcing the counterparty banks and financial institutions to write down the value of their own risky and now “unhedged” loans. Bear and A.I.G. were bailed out by the taxpayers; but the Treasury drew the line at Lehman Brothers, and the market crashed.  

Under the rubric of “no more bailouts,” the Dodd Frank Act of 2010 purported to fix the problem by giving derivatives special privileges. Most creditors are “stayed” from enforcing their rights while a firm is in bankruptcy, but many derivative contracts are exempt from these stays. Counterparties owed collateral can grab it immediately without judicial review, before bankruptcy proceedings even begin. Depositors become “unsecured creditors” who can recover their funds only after derivative, repo and other secured claims, assuming there is anything left to recover, which in the event of a major derivative crisis would be unlikely. We saw this “bail-in” policy play out in Cyprus in 2013.  

That’s true for deposits, but what of stocks, bonds and money market funds? Under the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) and the Bankruptcy Act of 2005, derivative securities also enjoy special protections. “Safe harbor” is provided to privileged entities described in court documents as “the protected class.” Derivatives enjoy “netting” and “close-out” privileges on the theory that they are a major source of systemic risk, and that allowing claimants to jump ahead of other investors in order to net and close out their bets reduces that risk. However, critical analysis has shown that derivative “super-priority” in bankruptcy can actually increase risk and propel otherwise viable financial entities into insolvency. 

It is also highly inequitable. The collateral grabbed to close out derivative claims may be your stocks and bonds. In a 2016 American Banker article called “You Don’t Really Own Your Securities; Can Blockchains Fix That?”, journalist Brian Eha explained:

In the United States, publicly traded stock does not exist in private hands.

It is not owned by the ostensible owners, who, by virtue of having purchased shares in this or that company, are led to believe they actually own the shares. Technically, all they own are IOUs. The true ownership lies elsewhere.

While private-company stock is still directly owned by shareholders, nearly all publicly traded equities and a majority of bonds are owned by a little-known partnership, Cede & Co., which is the nominee of the Depository Trust Co., a depository that holds securities for some 600 broker-dealers and banks. For each security, Cede & Co. owns a master certificate known as the “global security,” which never leaves its vault. Transactions are recorded as debits and credits to DTC members’ securities accounts, but the registered owner of the securities — Cede & Co. — remains the same.

What shareholders have rather than direct ownership, then, “is a [contractual] right against their broker…. The broker then has a right against the depository institution where they have membership. Then the depository institution is beholden to the issuer. It’s [at least] a three-​step process before you get any rights to your stock.”

This attenuation of property rights has made it impossible to keep perfect track of who owns what.

Fifty Years of “Dematerialization”

In a 2023 book called The Great Taking (available for free online), Wall Street veteran David Rogers Webb traces the legislative history of these developments. The rules go back 50 years, to when trading stocks and bonds was done by physical delivery – shuffling paper certificates bearing titles in the names of the purchasers from office to office. In the 1970s, this trading became so popular that the exchanges could not keep up, prompting them to turn to “dematerialization” or digitalization of the assets.

The Depository Trust Company (DTC) was formed in 1973 to alleviate the rising volumes of paperwork. The DTCC was established in 1999 as a holding company to combine the DTC and the National Securities Clearing Corporation (NSCC). 

The DTCC is a central clearing counterparty (CCP) sitting at the top of a pyramid of banks, brokers and exchanges. All have agreed to hold their customers’ assets in “street name,” collect those assets in a fungible pool, and forward that pool to the DTCC, which then trades pooled blocks of stock and bonds between brokers and banks in the name of its nominee Cede & Co. The DTCC, a private corporation, owns them all. This is not a mere technicality. Courts have upheld its legal ownership, even in a dispute with client purchasers. According to the DTCC website, it provides settlement services for virtually all equity, corporate and municipal debt trades and money market instruments in the U.S., and central safekeeping and asset servicing for securities issues from 131 countries and territories, valued at $37.2 trillion. In 2022 alone, the DTCC processed 2.5 quadrillion dollars in securities.

The governing regulations are set out in Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) sections 8 and 9, covering investment securities and secured transactions. The UCC is a set of rules produced by private organizations without an act of Congress. It is not itself the law but is only a recommendation of the laws that states should adopt; but the UCC has now been adopted by all 50 U.S. states and has been “harmonized” with the rules for trading securities in Europe and most other countries. 

The Wikipedia summary of the relevant UCC provisions concludes:

The rights created through these links [up the collateral chain] are purely contractual claims ….  This decomposition of the rights organized by Article 8 of the UCC results in preventing the investor to revindicate [demand or take back] the security in case of bankruptcy of the account provider [the broker or bank], that is to say the possibility to claim the security as its own asset, without being obliged to share it at its prorate value with the other creditors of the account provider. 

You, the investor, have only a contractual claim against your broker, who no longer holds title to your stock either, since title has been transferred up the chain to the DTCC. Your contractual claim is only to a pro rata share of a pool of the stock designated in street name, title to which is held by Cede & Co. 

Rehypothecation: The Problem of Multiple Owners

The Wikipedia entry adds:

This re-characterization of the proprietary right into a simple contractual right may enable the account provider [the “intermediary” broker or bank] to “re-use” the security without having to ask for the authorization of the investor. This is especially possible within the framework of temporary operations such as security lending, option to repurchase, buy to sell back or repurchase agreement. 

“Security lending” by your broker or other intermediary may include lending your stock to short sellers bent on bringing down the value of the stock against your own financial interests. Illegal naked short selling is also facilitated by the impenetrable shield of the DTCC, and so is lending to “shadow banks” for the re-use of collateral. As Caitlin Long, another Wall Street veteran, explains:

[T]he shadow banking system’s lifeblood is collateral, and the issue is that market players re-use that same collateral over, and over, and over again, multiple times a day, to create credit. The process is called “rehypothecation.” Multiple parties’ financial statements therefore report that they own the very same asset at the same time. They have IOUs from each other to pay back that asset—hence, a chain of counterparty exposure that’s hard to track. Although improving, there’s still little visibility into how long these “collateral chains” are.

It is this reuse of the collateral to back multiple speculative bets that has facilitated the explosion of the derivatives bubble to ten times the GDP of the world. It should be the collateral of the actual purchaser, but you, the purchaser, are at the bottom of the collateral chain. Derivative claims have super priority in bankruptcy, ostensibly because the derivative edifice is so risky that their bets need to be cleared. 

What About the “Customer Protection Rule”?

Broker-dealers argue that their customers’ assets are protected under the “Customer Protection Rule” of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC). The SIPC provides insurance for stocks similar to FDIC insurance for bank deposits, maintaining a pool that can be tapped in the event of a member bankruptcy. But a 2008 memorandum on The Customer Protection Rule from the law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher asserts:

With respect to cash and securities not registered in the name of the customer, but held by the broker- dealer for the customer’s benefit, the customer would receive a pro rata portion of the aggregate amount of the cash and securities actually held by the broker- dealer. If there is a remaining shortfall, SIPC would cover a maximum of $ 500,000, only $ 100,000 of which may be a recovery for cash held at the broker- dealer.

… [M]ost securities are held by broker-dealers in street name and would be available to satisfy other customers’ claims in the event of a broker- dealer’s insolvency.

If the member has a large derivatives book (JPMorgan holds $54.4 trillion in derivatives and a mere $3.4 trillion in assets), derivative customers with priority could wipe out the pool and the SIPC fund as well. 

What Webb worries about, however, is the bankruptcy of the DTCC itself, which could wipe out the entire collateral chain. He says the DTCC is clearly under-capitalized, and that the startup of a new Central Clearing Counterparty is already planned and pre-funded. If the DTCC fails, certain protected creditors can take all the collateral, upon which they will have perfected legal control.

Defensive Measures

In the event of a cyberattack that destroys the records of banks and brokers, there could be no way for purchasers to prove title to their assets; and in the event of a second Great Depression, with a wave of 1930s-style bank bankruptcies, derivative claimants with super-priority can take the banks’ assets without going through bankruptcy proceedings. In today’s fragile economy, these are not remote hypotheticals but are real possibilities, which can wipe out not just the savings of middle class families but the fortunes of billionaires. 

And there, argues Webb, is our opportunity. The system by which Cede & Co. holds title to all “dematerialized” securities is clearly vulnerable to being exploited by “the protected class,” and Congress could mitigate those concerns by legislation. If our representatives realized that they are not the owners of record of their assets but are merely creditors of their brokers and banks, they might be inspired to hold some hearings and take action. 

The first step is to shine a light on the obscure hidden workings of the system and the threat they pose to our personal holdings. Popular pressure moves politicians, and the people are waking up to many issues globally, with protests on the rise everywhere — economic, political and social. Possible action that could be taken by Congress includes reversing the “special privileges” granted to the derivatives casino in the form of “super priority” in bankruptcy. A 0.1% Tobin tax or financial transaction tax is another possibility. For protecting title to assets, blockchain is a promising tool, as discussed by Brian Eha in the American Banker article quoted above. These and other federal possibilities, along with potential solutions at the local level, will be the subject of a followup article. 

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This article was first posted on ScheerPost.

Ellen Brown is an attorney, co-chair of the Public Banking Institute, and author of thirteen books including Web of Debt, The Public Bank Solution, and Banking on the People: Democratizing Money in the Digital Age. She also co-hosts a radio program on PRN.FM called “It’s Our Money.” Her 400+ blog articles are posted at EllenBrown.com.  

She is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is by Tech Daily on Unsplash

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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“The strikes in Yemen were necessary, proportionate, and consistent with international law.”

With this statement, the United States delegate to the United Nations defended the joint US-UK military strikes against targets affiliated with the Houthi militia undertaken on the night of January 12, 2024.

The irony of this statement is that it was made before a body, the United Nations Security Council, which had not authorized any such action, thereby eliminating any claim to legitimacy that could possibly be made by the US.

The Charter of the UN specifies two conditions under international law in which military force can be used. One is in the conduct of legitimate self-defense as articulated in Article 51 of the Charter. The other is in accordance with the authority granted by the UN Security Council through a resolution passed under Chapter VII of the Charter.

British Foreign Minister David Cameron cited the UN Security Council in his justification of the UK’s involvement in the attacks on Yemen, claiming that the Council had “made clear” that the “Houthi must halt attacks in the Red Sea.”

While the Security Council had issued a resolution demanding that the Houthi cease their attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea, this resolution was not passed under Chapter VII, and therefore neither the US nor the UK had any authority under international law to carry out their attacks on Yemen.

Both the US and UK invoked the notion of self-defense in their attacks on Yemen, thereby indirectly alluding to a possible cognizable action under Article 51 of the UN Charter. US President Joe Biden justified the US military attack on Houthi militia forces in Yemen in a statement released shortly after the strikes ended.

“I ordered this military action,” he declared, “in accordance with my responsibility to protect Americans at home and abroad.” 

The main problem with this argument is that the Houthis had not attacked Americans, either at home or abroad. To the extent that US forces had previously engaged weapons fired by the Houthis, they had done so to shield non-American assets – either the State of Israel or international shipping – from Houthi attack. Under no circumstances could the US argue that it had been attacked by the Houthis.

The US attacks, Biden asserted, “were carried out to deter and weaken the Houthi ability to launch future attacks.”

This language suggests that the US was seeking to eliminate an imminent threat to commercial maritime operations in international shipping lanes. To comply with the requirements of international law regarding collective self-defense – the only possible argument for legitimacy since the US itself had not been attacked – the US would need to demonstrate that it was part of a collective of nation states that were either under attack by the Houthis or were threatened with imminent attack of a nature that precluded seeking Security Council intervention. 

In late December 2023, the US had, together with several other nations, gathered military forces in what was known as Operation Prosperity Guardian to deter Houthi attacks on maritime shipping that had been taking place since November 19, 2023.

However, the US subsequently undermined any case it could possibly have made that its actions were consistent with international law, namely that they were an act of collective pre-emptive self-defense done in accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter.

US Central Command (CENTCOM), which is responsible for operations in the Middle East, issued a press release shortly after Washington launched a second attack against a Houthi radar installation that it claims was involved in targeting shipping in the Red Sea.

The statement claimed the attack on the Houthi radar installation was a “follow-on action” of the strikes carried out on January 12, and had “no association with and are separate from Operation Prosperity Guardian, a defensive coalition of over 20 countries operating in the Red Sea, Bab al-Mandeb Strait, and the Gulf of Aden.”

By distancing itself from Operation Prosperity Guardian, the US has fatally undermined any notion of pre-emptive collective self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter, highlighting the unilateral, and inherently illegal, nature of its military attacks on Yemen.

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Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of ‘Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika: Arms Control and the End of the Soviet Union.’ He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector. 

Featured image: A RAF Typhoon aircraft taking off RAF Akrotiri to join the US-led coalition to conduct air strikes against military targets in Yemen. ©  AFP / British Ministry of Defence

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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Shawn Fain, President of the UAW International, noted during his major policy address at the 21st Annual Detroit MLK Day Rally that the labor movement and the struggle for civil rights remains at the center of change and transformation in the United States.

Speaking at the beginning of a year following monumental developments in the labor and civil rights movements, Fain has gained widespread recognition for his work in placing the working class back at the center of social change in the leading economy in the world.

Image: Shawn Fain

The UAW President who only took office over the last year said at MLK Day that:

“Today, we find our government backing the destruction of lives in villages – not in Vietnam – but in Gaza. We hear the boosters of war claiming that ‘real patriots’ support the bombing. But we know in this room that there is nothing more patriotic than the pursuit of justice no matter where that takes us.

Economic justice cannot end at the doors of the factory or worksite. Social justice cannot end at the border of our country.
We must not be silent when it comes to the pursuit of peace and justice for working class people, the poor, for all of humanity.

The fight against hate and greed is never ending. The fight for economic and social Justice – the fight for humanity – is eternal, and there is no more of a just cause in all of the world.”

Only when we stand up – together – will we rise up and realize the dream of Dr. King; not just for ourselves, but for all of humanity.”

Image: Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib

On January 15, the actual date of the 95th anniversary of the birth of civil rights and peace activist Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was celebrated as a federal holiday in the United States. Shawn Fain and Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib were the featured guest speakers at the most significant and progressive event in Detroit which is committed to the upholding of the actual legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who was assassinated on April 4, 1968, while embroiled in supporting a strike by the largely African American sanitation workers seeking union recognition in Memphis, Tennessee during the early months of that year.

Dr. King had linked the movements for an end to institutional racism, poverty and the opposition to the war in Vietnam which had cost the people of the U.S. billions of dollars along with shifting the focus from reform to imperialist intervention between 1965 to 1968. The ongoing war resulted in the refusal of then President Lyndon B. Johnson to seek reelection in 1968 as well as the assassination of Dr. King right on the verge of the launching of the original Poor People’s Campaign to occupy Washington to demand the passage of legislation to end the impoverishment of African Americans and all other nationalities in the U.S.

2024 Represents Six Decades of Mass Struggles in Labor, Civil Rights and Peace

In the city of Detroit, the MLK Committee chaired by veteran activist Dorothy Dewberry Aldridge, held its 21st consecutive rally and march at the St. Matthew’s-St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church located in the North End district.

This MLK Day manifestation came just months in the aftermath of the largest upsurge in industrial action and international solidarity in years. Hundreds of thousands of members of labor unions in the automotive, entertainment and service sectors of the United States economy went out on strike demanding higher wages and improved working conditions.

Also, the Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip in Palestine for more than three months has resulted in a burgeoning solidarity movement which is unprecedented in history. Millions of people in the U.S. and billions more around the world have rallied and marched calling for an immediate ceasefire and the liberation of the oppressed people of this settler-colonial occupied state.

Both featured speakers at the rally have come out solidly for a ceasefire. Shawn Fain, President of the UAW International and Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib of Detroit.

Over the last several months, Detroit has been designated as “Strike City.” There was the UAW “Stand-Up Strike” which resulted in advances for not only the automotive employees. These industrial actions brought about an increase in wages for workers in non-union shops. The UAW under President Fain has pledged to enhance its recruitment efforts in the auto industry throughout the South which remains a bastion of anti-union labor production.

Therefore, having Fain and Tlaib as key speakers at the event symbolized the reemergence of a broad coalition between civil rights, labor and the antiwar movements. Congresswoman Tlaib, who has been censured by the U.S. House of Representative based upon false information, racial bias and political discrimination, has been elected three times by a diverse spectrum of people within the Detroit metropolitan area. The UAW brings together people from various ethnic and cultural groupings who are committed to improving the situation among its members as well as promoting the notion of social unionism. This approach recognizes that working people are also members of communities which are engaged in struggles related to environment, quality food and water access, universal healthcare, police misconduct, housing and education.

These events in recent months are reflective of the developments which occurred during 1964 when hundreds of youths were deployed to the South in Mississippi and Southwest Tennessee to register people to vote and assist in building independent political movements. In Mississippi, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Congress on Racial Equality (CORE), the state National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), along with other groupings, formed the Coalition of Federated Organizations (COFO) which led to the formation of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). The MFDP challenged the seating of the all-white segregationist delegates from the state at the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Although the MFDP was not seated as the official representatives of the state of Mississippi despite their democratic practices of selection during 1964, the protest by their delegation and its allies changed the character of party politics in the South. Today, the Democratic Party is facing a challenge to maintain unity amidst rising labor militancy and the movement to end the war against the Palestinians in Gaza and to seek a permanent solution to the situation in West Asia.

Other events in 1964, such as the St. Augustine movement in Florida, prefigured the militant struggle for equality and the need to extend the tactics of the civil rights organizations based upon the objective conditions of the people. Even though the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed by President Johnson in early July 1964, the repression and deaths of the people continued. Three civil rights workers from the Summer Project of 1964 were killed by the Ku Klux Klan and the police in Neshoba County, Mississippi.

Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney died that faithful summer at the hands of racist violence. In the third decade of the 21st century, the existence of racist violence remains a major challenge for African Americans and other oppressed peoples in the current period.

A Broad Alliance of Progressive Forces

This year’s MLK Day event in Detroit brought together many organizations who provided speakers, artists and other forms of support. In addition to Fain and Tlaib, the program featured cultural worker Sarah Torres providing land acknowledgement for Indigenous people at the beginning of the program.

Image: Atty. Nancy Parker

Other speakers included: Atty. Nancy Parker, Executive Director of the Detroit Justice Center; Libations were delivered by Moratorium NOW! Coalition and MLK Committee member Yvonne Jones; The Rev. Anthony Estes of the St. Matthew’s-St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church welcomed the participants to the event; Jazz musicians Allen Dennard and Bill Meyer performed a rendition of the Black National Anthem; the LaShelle’s School of Dance performed a tribute to the history of African Americans; Piper Carter, Artist, Community Organizer and Activist spoke on the environmental crisis in Detroit; Wardell Montgomery, Detroit poet and songwriter read a piece in tribute to the struggles of the people in the city and the country; DJ Righteous delivered a spoken word contribution; Russ Bellant of the Detroiters for Tax Justice talked about the large-scale transfer of wealth from working people to the billionaires in the city and the need to defeat this trend; Aurora Harris, co-chair of the event alongside this author, read a poem by veteran SNCC organizer Maryam Lowen as well as a piece of her own; Harris also spoke as a steward for the Lecturers Employee Organization (LEO) on the conditions at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, which was the focus of a strike of the Graduate Employees Organization (GEO) last year; Shushanna Shakur, Poet and Community Activist and Educator, addressed the plight of political prisoners and the need for fundamental change; Ben Will, Motown MIC and Spoken Word Winner for 2022, made a presentation; representatives of the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) spoke on the role of young people along with a poetic contribution; and Joshua Feinstein of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) addressed the audience on the objectives of the work being done by this local and national organization.

The event was attended and supported by veteran SNCC activists John Hardy and Dr. Gloria Aneb House. A community meal was served at the conclusion of the event by the Detroit Wobbly Kitchen.

A host of co-sponsors and endorsers made this event possible. These organizations and individuals included: Detroit Coalition for Police Transparency and Accountability (CPTA); Jennifer Fassbender; Autoworker Caravan; Rev. Denise Griebler & Rev. Bill Wylie-Kellerman; Nelson and Yvonne Jones; Metro Detroit A. Philip Randolph Institute; General Baker Institute; Detroit Active and Retired Employees Association (DAREA); Buck Dinner Fund; Chuck Altman; Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice (MECAWI), founders of MLK Day in Detroit; Central United Methodist Church; Huntington Woods Peace Project; Detroit Communist Party, USA; Detroit Action; Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP); Michigan Coalition for Human Rights (MCHR); Michigan Welfare Rights Organization (MWRO); Moratorium NOW! Coalition; People’s Water Board Coalition; Senior Water Systems Chemists Association; Linda Szyszko; The Ron Allen Project; Unite All Workers for Democracy; Viola Liuzzo Park Association, We the People of Detroit; Wisdom Institute; Detroit Wobbly Kitchen; Pan-African News Wire; Communist Workers League (CWL); Michigan Peace Council; U.S. Palestinian Community Network, among others.

This rally was covered widely by the local media along with the UAW International. The MLK Committee is already thinking about future activities which will advance the organization and unity of progressive forces going forward in 2024.

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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of the Pan-African News Wire. He is a regular contributor to Global Research. 

Featured image: Detroit MLK Day 2024 audience in sanctuary and balcony (All images in this article are from Abayomi Azikiwe)

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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No matter how it concludes, South Africa’s lawsuit in the International Court of Justice arguing Israel has violated the Genocide Convention will go down in history. It will either be remembered as the first step towards finally holding a rogue state accountable for repeated, longstanding violations of international law; or as the last, dying breath of a dysfunctional, Western-led international system.

For the hypocrisy of Western governments (and the Western political elite as a whole) has finally brought the so-called “rules-based world order” they purport to lead to the point of no return. Full-throttled Western support for Israel’s genocidal rampage in Gaza has truly exposed the double standards of the West with regard to human rights and international law. There is no turning back, and the West has only its own arrogance to blame.

The litany of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Israel in Gaza are clear as the light of day for anybody who has access to a smartphone. Social media feeds are overflowing with video clips of hospitals and schools being bombed, fathers pulling out the lifeless bodies of their children from under destroyed buildings, mothers crying over the corpses of their babies. And yet, the reaction of Western governments – besides seemingly limitless military and political support – has been to label any criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism and attempt to ban outright any expression of solidarity with the Palestinian people.

Regardless of this oppression, tens of thousands of people are coming out on the streets day after day expressing their disgust at Israeli atrocities and Western complicity. Desperate to regain some semblance of credibility, Western governments (including the US) have recently started to be marginally critical of Israeli attacks. However, it is too little, too late. Western credibility has been shredded irrevocably.

Of course, Western hypocrisy is nothing new. According to Western governments, the world should be up in arms about Russian aggression but should be perfectly happy with Israeli brutality and flouting of international norms. Ukrainians who throw Molotov cocktails at Russian occupation forces are heroes and freedom fighters, while Palestinians (and others) who dare to speak out against Israeli apartheid are terrorists. White-skinned refugees from Ukraine are more than welcome, while black and brown-skinned refugees from conflicts in the Middle East, Asia and Africa (most of which the West are behind) can sink to the bottom of the Mediterranean. The Western attitude has truly been: rules for thee, not for me.

Source: Cartooning for Peace

The Western position towards China exhibits the same insincerity. China is virtually encircled by American and allied military bases, armed to the hilt. Yet it is China that is guilty of… what? Unable to point to any concrete infraction, Western governments and media can only accuse China of “increased assertiveness”, ie, not knowing its assigned subjugate place in the Western hegemonic order.

International justice has become a sick joke. Were the International Criminal Court (ICC) functioning effectively, Israeli leaders would be on trial even as we speak, and there would have been no need for South Africa to approach the ICJ. As it stands, though, the ICC only indicted Africans until 2022, when it announced an investigation into the Russian invasion of Ukraine less than a week after its start. The ICC issued indictments, including for Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, in less than a year. Conversely, it took over six years for the ICC to open an investigation into the situation in Palestine, and even now, years later, meaningful action has yet to be taken. While Israel continued its orgy of violence against the people of Gaza, Karim Khan, the British Chief Prosecutor of the ICC, visited Israel and stressed the need for Hamas’s crimes to be prosecuted, while going soft on Israeli crimes. Little wonder many civil society organisations are calling for him to be fired.

Of course, Western hypocrisy is nothing new. From the get-go, international legal norms were intended to apply only to so-called “civilised” – read white – peoples. Savages did not count, and the powerful Western states could – and did – do to them what they pleased. Natives certainly did not “own” land or natural resources, and colonial powers were free to steal and exploit those as they wished. Zionism was also founded on such racist attitudes – attitudes that remain at the core of Israeli policies to this day.

These double standards are apparent with regard to the right to national self-determination – the fundamental right of all peoples to choose their own political system and control their own natural resources. After World War I, US President Woodrow Wilson insisted that self-determination be the guiding principle of the new world order – but, of course, only for Europeans. Palestinians and other Arab peoples found out the hard way that colonialism was alive and well: They were subject to League of Nations Mandates, which justified colonial rule for “peoples not yet able to stand by themselves”. The Charter of the United Nations also included provisions for Trusteeship, essentially along similar lines as the Mandates of the League.s

The wars of independence in Asia and Africa put a stop to this. The newly independent countries demanded successfully that self-determination be elevated to a right for all. The two international covenants on human rights, adopted in 1966, both stipulate the right of all peoples to self-determination in their common Article 1, making it clear that only with political and economic self-determination can any other human right be meaningful.

The discussion on the right of self-determination went further, to the chagrin of Western governments. The UN General Assembly has stated repeatedly that armed struggle (including that of the Palestinian people) against colonial rule is legitimate. And the 1977 Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions, on the laws of war, also stated that struggles against colonial and racist regimes are valid. International law has definitely developed in the right direction.

Still, the systems to implement international law remain weak. This is by design, and it allows powerful countries to act with impunity, and to shield its proteges – as we see with the US and Israel. Even if the ICJ issues a provisional order for Israel to halt its violence, and even if, years later, it finds Israel guilty of genocide, without any enforcement, Israel can (and probably will) simply ignore those decisions. That would surely be the end of the current world order, as any facade of fairness would collapse.

Enforcement of international law is in the hands of the UN Security Council, but with its veto rights for the five countries that happened to be on the winning side in 1945, that body has time and time again proven itself incapable of fulfilling its mandate. The General Assembly lacks any enforcement power. And the UN, the ICC, and most other international organisations are perennially underfunded, meaning they rely heavily on voluntary contributions from states. This makes them vulnerable to undue influence by the rich and powerful: in other words, the wealthy Western countries.

On a more fundamental level, these international institutions are not representative. Though civil society organisations can contribute to most of the debates, only governments have a say in the decision-making process – despite the fact that, as we see in the case of Gaza, even the governments of ostensible democracies do not necessarily represent the will of their people.

Israeli aggression and colonisation must stop, and abusers of human rights in Palestine must be held accountable – including Western leaders who are complicit in genocide. However, we must not stop there. We must demand a revolutionary reform of international institutions. They must be made truly democratic and egalitarian. They must reflect the voice of the people, through civil society organisations and other democratic modes of representation – not governments that are too often in the pocket of rich and powerful interests.

Creating a world order that will ensure justice and equal rights for all will not be easy. It will require sustained efforts on the part of global citizenry, through putting pressure for change on governments and international organisations. However, it is the only way to ensure that “never again” becomes a reality.

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Saul J Takahashi is Professor of Human Rights and Peace Studies at Osaka Jogakuin University in Osaka, Japan. An international human rights lawyer, he was Deputy Head of Office of the UN human rights agency in Occupied Palestine from 2009 to 2014.

Johnson & Johnson to Acquire $2 Billion Drug Developer “Ambrx Biopharma” to Treat Turbo Cancers with Same Tech as Pfizer’s $43 Billion Seagen Acquisition

By Dr. William Makis, January 17, 2024

Many pharmaceutical companies are rushing to position themselves to profit from treating a tsunami of cancers that they are all expecting to hit starting in 2025.

Israel — “Nation of Murderers and Murder Victims”. Prof. Rima Najjar

By Rima Najjar, January 17, 2024

The hope was that the pressure the families of the hostages was exerting on the Israeli government would succeed in making their release a priority for the Israeli cabinet over the impulse of vengeance. That obviously did not happen and most of them continue to be solidly behind the strategic aims of their blood-thirsty government, if not its tactics.

Shot Dead the Movie: Heartbreaking Stories of Children Who Died After Receiving COVID-19 Shots

By Dr. Joseph Mercola, January 17, 2024

“Shot Dead The Movie,” tells the heartbreaking stories of children who died after receiving COVID-19 shots. Their parents are left behind to pick up the pieces, wondering how and why a shot they were assured was safe took the lives of their children, ranging in age from newborn to 18.

The Case for Genocide. The International Court of Justice May be All That Stands Between the Palestinians in Gaza and Genocide. Chris Hedges

By Chris Hedges, January 17, 2024

Israel’s smearing of South Africa as “the legal arm” of Hamas exemplifies the bankruptcy of its defense, a smear replicated by those who claim that demonstrations held to call for a ceasefire and protect Palestinian human rights are “anti-Semitic.” Israel, its genocide live streamed to the world, has no substantial counter argument.

Milk and the Police State: Another State/Bureaucratic Steroid Overdose in Action

By Judge Andrew P. Napolitano, January 17, 2024

Last week, in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, state troopers and investigators executed a search warrant on the farm of Amos Miller. Miller has been producing fresh unadulterated dairy products and grass-fed beef for 40 years. He does not sell to the public. Rather, he sells only to folks who join his club because they want pure raw dairy products, not pasteurized and not chemically treated, as the state commands.

Cancelling the Journalist: The ABC’s Coverage of the Israel-Gaza War

By Dr. Binoy Kampmark, January 17, 2024

What a cowardly act it was. A national broadcaster, dedicated to what should be fearless reporting, cowed by the intemperate bellyaching of a lobby concerned about coverage of the Israel-Gaza war. The investigation by The Age newspaper was revealing in showing that the dismissal of broadcaster Antoinette Lattouf last December 20 was the nasty fruit of a campaign waged against the corporation’s management.

War on Gaza: Namibia Slams Germany for Offering to Defend Israel in ICJ Genocide Case

By Middle East Eye, January 17, 2024

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Men of Military Age “Refuse to Fight”. The Are Fleeing the Country. Zelensky Refuses to Take Responsibility for the “Deeply Unpopular Mobilisation Plan”

By Ahmed Adel, January 17, 2024

Since the beginning of the conflict, the Ukrainian Border Guard has detained more than 17,000 citizens who tried to leave the country illegally. More than 20,000 unsuccessful attempts to flee the country by men of military age seeking to avoid the draft were also recorded.

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In the wake of Hamas’ October 7 assault, arch-neoconservative official John Bolton was invited on CNN, where he claimed that what we witnessed was really an “Iranian attack on Israel using Hamas as a surrogate” and that the U.S. must immediately respond.

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First published on July 12, 2018

This review article was prepared by the author in relation to his presentation to The Criminalization of War: Gaza, Conference event (July 16, 2018) organized by the Perdana Global Peace Foundation (PGPF), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

We repost this 2018 report, with a view to providing a broader understanding and historical perspective regarding Israel’s all out war against the People of Palestine: 

Following the Al Aqsa Storm Operation on October 7, 2023 Israel‘s defence minister described Palestinians as “human animals” and vowed to “act accordingly,” as fighter jets unleashed a massive bombing of the Gaza Strip home of 2.3 million Palestinians…” (Middle East Eye). A complete blockade on the Gaza Strip was initiated on October 9, 2023 consisting in   blocking and obstructing the importation of food, water, fuel, and essential commodities to 2.3 Million Palestinians. It’s an outright crime against humanity. It’s genocide. 

In Solidarity with the People of Palestine

“What is at stake is the universal recognition of the value of human life, solidarity and understanding between nationalities, ethnic groups and religions, as well as respect for national sovereignty. 

These are the preconditions for World peace.”  

Michel Chossudovsky, July 2018, January 18, 2023

The Criminalization of War: Gaza

by

Michel Chossudovsky 

 

The following issues will be examined: 

The ongoing crimes committed against the people of Palestine,

The broader process of Israeli territorial expansion,

Israel and the criminalization of war as defined by the Kuala Lumpur Declaration launched by former Prime Minister Dr. Tun Mahathir Mohamad in 2005,

The mounting tide of Islamophobia,

The role of the “Global War on Terrorism” as a pretext to wage war on the broader Middle East,

The propaganda campaign directed against Palestine, 

The recent history of Israeli aggression against the People of Palestine including the strategic and geopolitical dimensions, 

The Israeli plan to confiscate Gaza’s offshore natural gas reserves.

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I

INTRODUCTION

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Israel’s blockade of Gaza is a criminal undertaking: Gaza is a concentration camp, the World’s largest open air prison  from which no one can escape. 

Two million Palestinians live  under an Israeli siege. Israel controls the entry of essential goods including food, water, energy and medicine. Israel also controls Gaza’s territorial waters in derogation  of international law.

The Zionist project supports the Jewish settlement movement. More broadly it involves a policy of killing, impoverishing and excluding Palestinians from Palestine with a view to eventually implementing the annexation of both the West Bank and Gaza to the State of Israel:

Today, six million Palestinians dispersed in various refugee camps are denied the right of return to their ancestral Palestine; the other six million lived under occupation in Gaza and the West Bank.  For twelve years, two million Palestinians have been imprisoned under a brutal land and sea military blockade in Gaza.

During this time there were three major military assaults where Gaza was relentlessly bombed for weeks. Recently, since 30 March 2018, unarmed Gaza demonstrators calling for the Right of Return are shot at with high grade military assault rifles leaving more than 124 dead and 13,000 severely wounded with hundreds of amputees and potential amputees. (Dr Swee Ang, Global Research, July 2018

The crimes committed by Israel against the people of Palestine, with the tacit support of Western governments must be addressed in the broader context of the criminalization of war.

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II

THE GREATER ISRAEL PROJECT 

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The expansionist policies of the State of Israel including the annexation of the illegally occupied territories, not to mention the “Greater Israel” project of territorial extension are an integral part of the US-led military agenda in Middle East.

When viewed in the current context, the siege on Gaza and the Zionist Plan for the Middle East are related to the US-NATO military agenda including the US-led 2003 invasion of  Iraq, the 2006 war on Lebanon, the 2011 war on Libya, the ongoing wars on Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

There is a broader US-NATO-Israel war crimes agenda under the thrust of the so-called “Global War on Terrorism” which serves as a pretext for the bombing of civilians under the pretext of  going after ISIS-Daesh.

The “Greater Israel” project consists in weakening and eventually fracturing neighboring Arab states as part of a US-Israeli expansionist project, with the support of NATO and Saudi Arabia. In this regard, the Saudi-Israeli rapprochement is from Netanyahu’s viewpoint a means to expanding Israel’s spheres of influence in the Middle East as well as confronting Iran. Needless to say, the “Greater Israel” project is consistent with America’s imperial design.

Greater Israel would create a number of proxy States. It would include parts of Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, the Sinai, as well as parts of  Iraq and Saudi Arabia. (See map). According to Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya in a 2011 Global Research article,   The Greater Israel Yinon Plan should be viewed as a continuation of Britain’s colonial design in the Middle East:

“[The Yinon plan] is an Israeli strategic plan to ensure Israeli regional superiority. It insists and stipulates that Israel must reconfigure its geo-political environment through the balkanization of the surrounding Arab states into smaller and weaker states.

Greater Israel” requires the breaking up of the existing Arab states into small states.

“The [Yinon Plan] plan operates on two essential premises. To survive, Israel must 1) become an imperial regional power, and 2) must effect the division of the whole area into small states by the dissolution of all existing Arab states. Small here will depend on the ethnic or sectarian composition of each state. Consequently, the Zionist hope is that sectarian-based states become Israel’s satellites and, ironically, its source of moral legitimation…  This is not a new idea, nor does it surface for the first time in Zionist strategic thinking. Indeed, fragmenting all Arab states into smaller units has been a recurrent theme.” (Yinon Plan)

Viewed in this context, the US-NATO led wars on Syria and Iraq are part of  the process of Israeli territorial expansion.

In this regard, the defeat of US-Saudi-Israeli sponsored terrorists (ISIS, Al Nusra) by Syrian Forces with the support of Russia, Iran and Hizbollah constitute a significant setback for Israel.

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III

THE CRIMINALIZATION OF WAR

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US-NATO-Israeli War Crimes: The Kuala Lumpur Initiative to Criminalize War

The State of Israel is responsible for extensive war crimes.

In turn the US-NATO led war applied Worldwide is a criminal undertaking under the disguise of counter-terrorism. It violates the Nuremberg Charter, the US constitution and the UN charter. According to former chief Nuremberg prosector Benjamin Ferencz, in relation to the 2003 invasion of Iraq:

“a prima facie case can be made that the United States is guilty of the supreme crime against humanity — that being an illegal war of aggression against a sovereign nation.”

Moreover, the evidence amply confirms that the United States of America is a “State Sponsor of Terrorism” and that the campaign against the Islamic State is a smokescreen used by the US and its allies including Israel to justify in the eyes of public opinion its global war of conquest.

‘Operation Protective Edge (OPE)  directed against Gaza was reminiscent of the infamous 2001 Dagan Plan entitled “Operation Justified Vengeance” in which the deaths of innocent Israeli civilians had been envisaged and foreseen by IDF military planners.

The deaths are then used to muster the support of the Israeli public as well as provide a justification for a “legitimate” counter-terrorism operation in the eyes of the international community directed against the Palestinian occupied territories.

‘Operation Protective Edge (OPE) directed against Gaza was planned well in advance of the kidnapping and murder of the three Israeli teenagers. Prime Minister Netanyahu has called up 40,000 reservists. In the wake of the shelling and bombing raids, a major ground operation scenario was envisaged.

Moreover, similar to the logic of the Dagan Plan, the head of Israeli intelligence (Mossad) had “predicted” the kidnapping of the three teenagers. Under the title Mossad chief’s chillingly prescient kidnap prophecy, Haaretz confirms that

“Mossad chief Tamir Pardo had “outlined a scenario that was spookily [sic] similar to the kidnapping of three teens missing in the West Bank” (Haaretz, July 13, 2014, emphasis added)

Israeli civilian deaths are blamed on Hamas without evidence to justify military action against Gaza.

The ultimate objective of “Operation Protective Edge” is to break the institutional base of the Hamas leadership and destroy Gaza’s civilian infrastructure, with a view to eventually carrying out the annexation of the Gaza Strip to Israel.  As of July 13, Israel is reported to have struck 1,320 sites within Gaza, resulting in 167 deaths and more than 1,000 injured (Mannam News, July 13, 2014)

Were the three boys killed by Hamas?

Israeli press reports intimate that the three teenagers could have been executed by the Al Qaeda affiliated jihadist entity the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) which just so happens to be supported “covertly” as well “overtly” by the State of Israel.

From the Dagan Plan to the present, Israel’s objective is genocide and expulsion of Palestinians from their ancestral lands:

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I don’t see them much anymore — I mean the “Israeli public.” In the first few weeks after al-Aqsa Flood, their images and voices were all over the live coverage on Al Jazeera Arabic and al-Mayadeen.

The hope was that the pressure the families of the hostages was exerting on the Israeli government would succeed in making their release a priority for the Israeli cabinet over the impulse of vengeance. That obviously did not happen and most of them continue to be solidly behind the strategic aims of their blood-thirsty government, if not its tactics.

“Holding on to the occupied territories will turn us into a nation of murderers and murder victims.” Declaration published in Haaretz in 1967 signed by a minority of Israelis who were against Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories after the 1967 war.

Since the news stream kept flipping back and forth between images and voices from Israel and those from Gaza, the contrast in what the cameras were capturing was arresting and telling. On the one hand, there were images of orderly, rallying Israeli crowds in spacious squares with music emanating from the speakers’ platform; on the other were images of apocalyptic chaos, raw grief and screams of despair, arms flung up to heaven. On the one hand was the image of a little Palestinian girl, bandaged and traumatized and barely able to move, who, upon noticing the camera pointed at her, made a slow and laborious victory sign with her injured hand, her face still blank. On the other was the image of an Israeli teenager marching and giggling with her friends in a youth rally for the hostages stopping to pose sexily for the camera and raise a victory sign.

I used to think that much of the Israeli public isn’t actually aware of the horrendous human consequences of what their military was doing in Gaza, hence their apathy toward its crimes against humanity. Now, however, I am convinced that the degree of denial of the occupation, dehumanization of Palestinians and sense of entitlement is not merely a disconnectedness from reality. Rather, it is a determination not to know and not to hear, a reflection of the Israeli psyche. Because Israel’s national security strategy is apparently driven by a deep-seated fear of annihilation, the Israeli national psyche can be characterized by a sense of insecurity that no degree of military might can fully alleviate.

Israel has always exploited the Holocaust both at home and internationally to bolster its claim to Palestine, molding its identity as a victim entitled to defend itself from the people it oppresses. Israel’s psyche has led it straight to the dock, where it is now defending itself against accusations of genocide against Palestinians at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague

A few early Israelis were strong and smart enough to escape the pull of their national psyche even as it was being forged. They were prescient enough to predict exactly where such a psyche would lead. Such were the Machovers. In an interview by Owen Jones (This Lawyer Reveals Why Israel’s Gaza Onslaught Could Be Stopped By Genocide Case), Daniel Machover, a UK civil litigation lawyer, explains how his parents who “were born in Palestine as it then was” became very concerned about what was happening in Israel in the 1950s.

Following the 1967 war, Machover’s parents were among a very small number of Israelis (including a Palestinian citizen of Israel) who immediately opposed the fact of the occupation and signed a declaration that was published by Haaretz on the 22nd of September 1967. It said:

Our right to defend ourselves from extermination does not give us the right to oppress others. Occupation entails foreign rule; foreign rule entails resistance; resistance entails repression; repression entails terror and counter-terror. The victims of terror are mostly innocent people; holding on to the occupied territories will turn us into a nation of murderers and murder victims. Let us get out of the occupied territories immediately.

The biggest irony of all is that Israel is not “defending itself from extermination,” no matter what its fancy lawyers are saying in The Hague. Israel’s bogus argument that Hamas is out to exterminate all Jews is a legitimization for its mass killing of Palestinian civilians and their ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the West Bank. In both places, Israel is making the conditions of life unbearable to drive Palestinians out and “settle” Jews in their place.

We must radicalize the Israeli public.

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This article was originally published on the author’s blogsite.

Rima Najjar is a Palestinian whose father’s side of the family comes from the forcibly depopulated village of Lifta on the western outskirts of Jerusalem and whose mother’s side of the family is from Ijzim, south of Haifa. She is an activist, researcher and retired professor of English literature, Al-Quds University, occupied West Bank.

She is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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Israel has killed more people per day in its attack on Gaza than were killed daily in any other major conflict during the 21st century.

Oxfam reported Thursday that Israel has killed an average of 250 Palestinians in Gaza each day since October 7, compared to 96.5 killed daily in Syria, 51.6 in Sudan, 50.8 in Iraq, 43.9 in Ukraine, 23.8 in Afghanistan, and 15.8 in Yemen.

“The scale and atrocities that Israel is visiting upon Gaza are truly shocking,” Oxfam Middle East director Sally Abi Khalil said in a statement. “For 100 days the people of Gaza have endured a living hell. Nowhere is safe, and the entire population is at risk of famine.”

Also on Thursday, Save the Children reported that Israel’s bombardment and invasion of Gaza had killed more than 10,000 children in nearly 100 days, or 1% of the 1.1 million children living in Gaza before the war began. More than 40% of the total number killed in Gaza were children.

“There can never be any justification for killing children,” Jason Lee, Save the Children’s country director for the occupied Palestinian territory, said in a statement. “The situation in Gaza is monstrous and a blight on our common humanity.”

More than 10K children have been killed by Israeli airstrikes and ground operations with thousands more missing, presumed buried under rubble.

We need a definitive ceasefire now.

Read more: https://t.co/dWdIl3WvEO pic.twitter.com/GqzkTmJi4j

— Save the Children US (@SavetheChildren) January 11, 2024

On October 7, Hamas launched an attack on southern Israel that killed around 1,100 people and took around 240 hostages. Israel then launched its assault on Gaza in retaliation. Before Hamas’ attack, however, Israel had blockaded Gaza for 16 years and occupied the Palestinian West Bank for 56 years. Since October 7, Israel has killed 330 Palestinians in the West Bank, according to Oxfam.

Both Oxfam and Save the Children’s statements came the same day that a South African legal team appeared before the International Court of Justice to argue that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. It is asking the court to take “provisional measures” to stop the violence. Several other countries, including Brazil, Bolivia, and Pakistan, have supported South Africa’s efforts, but the United States dismissed its case as “meritless.”

Oxfam and Save the Children criticized the wider international community for failing to stop the bloodshed.

“It is unimaginable that the international community is watching the deadliest rate of conflict of the 21st century unfold, while continuously blocking calls for a cease-fire,” Khalil said.

Lee stated:

“Despite the record number of children killed and maimed, the international community has failed to act again and again. One grave violation committed against children is one too many. For the last three months, children in Gaza have faced grave violations every day, while conditions to provide them with the humanitarian assistance they need are simply not there. All parties must agree to a definitive cease-fire now.”

PRESS RELEASE: Israel's military is killing #Palestinians at an average rate of 250 people a day, which massively exceeds the daily death toll of any other major conflict of recent years.
https://t.co/vkORKxvphS pic.twitter.com/j5V8ccixmn

— Oxfam International Media Team (@newsfromoxfam) January 11, 2024

The two non-governmental organizations also emphasized the danger civilians in Gaza now face not only from military action, but also from hunger and disease. Israel only allows 10% of the necessary food aid to enter Gaza’s borders, according to Oxfam. The colder weather increases the risk of illness, especially as people displaced by the conflict are forced to shelter in smaller and smaller spaces. More than 1 million people are now crowded together in Rafah, and Oxfam partner Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees said conditions for people living in tents was “worse than anything you could imagine.”

“The rain was going down from all sides of the tent,” displaced engineer named Mutaz told Oxfam. “We had to sleep lying over the bag of flour to protect it from the rain. My wife and three of my daughters use one blanket at night. There are only enough blankets for four people to share. We have nothing.”

Save the Children pointed out that these hardships took a toll on children especially.

“For children who have survived, the mental harm inflicted and the utter devastation of infrastructure including homes, schools, and hospitals has decimated their futures,” Lee said.

The organization counted a record number of violations against children by both Israel and Hamas, including the destruction or damaging of 370 schools in Gaza, the attacking of 94 hospitals and healthcare facilities, the denial of humanitarian aid to all of Gaza’s 1.1 million children, and Hamas’ taking of children as hostages and killing of 33 children in Israel.

“The war has affected us so badly,” Lana, an 11-year-old girl living in Rafah, told Save the Children. “We had to leave our homes and couldn’t do anything. We learned many things during the war, like how important it is to save water. I hope the war ends, and we live in peace and safety.”

In a statement on Sunday, Save the Children said that, each day of the conflict, more than 10 children in Gaza had lost one or both of their legs. Amputations are also often performed without anesthetic, as Gaza’s hospitals and healthcare system are overwhelmed by the violence, with a shortage of doctors and nurses and only 13 out of 36 hospitals partially functioning.

“Unless action is taken by the international community to uphold their responsibilities under international humanitarian law and prevent the most serious crimes of international concern, history will and should judge us all,” Lee said Sunday. “We must heed the lessons from the past and must prevent ‘atrocity crimes’ from unfolding.”

[From Common Dreams: Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.]

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Olivia Rosane is a staff writer for Common Dreams. 

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The exhaustive 84-page brief submitted by South Africa to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) charging Israel with genocide is hard to refute. Israel’s campaign of indiscriminate killing, wholesale destruction of infrastructure, including housing, hospitals and water treatment plants, along with its use of starvation as a weapon, accompanied by genocidal rhetoric from its political and military leaders who speak of destroying Gaza and ethnically cleansing the 2.3 million Palestinians, makes a strong case against Israel for genocide. 

Israel’s smearing of South Africa as “the legal arm” of Hamas exemplifies the bankruptcy of its defense, a smear replicated by those who claim that demonstrations held to call for a ceasefire and protect Palestinian human rights are “anti-Semitic.” Israel, its genocide live streamed to the world, has no substantial counter argument.

But that does not mean the judges on the court will rule in South Africa’s favor. The pressure the U.S. will bring – Secretary of State Antony Blinken has called the South African charges “meritless” – on the judges, drawn from the member states of the U.N., will be intense. 

A ruling of genocide is a stain that Israel – which weaponizes the Holocaust to justify its brutalization of the Palestinians – would find hard to remove. It would undercut Israel’s insistence that Jews are eternal victims. It would shatter the justification for Israel’s indiscriminate killing of unarmed Palestinians and construction of the world’s largest open air prison in Gaza, along with the occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. It would sweep away the immunity to criticism enjoyed by the Israel lobby and its Zionist supporters in the U.S., who have successfully equated criticisms of the “Jewish State” and support for Palestinian rights with anti-Semitism.  

Over 23,700 Palestinians, including over 10,000 children, have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, when Hamas and other resistance fighters breached the security barriers around Gaza. Some 1,200 people were killed – there is strong evidence that some of the victims were killed by Israeli tank crews and helicopter pilots that intentionally targeted the some 200 hostages along with their captors. Thousands more Palestinians are missing, presumed buried under the rubble. Israeli attacks have left over 60,000 Palestinians wounded and maimed, the majority of them women and children. Thousands more Palestinian civilians, including children, have been arrested, blindfolded, numbered, beaten, forced to strip to their underwear, loaded onto trucks and transported to unknown locations. 

A ruling by the court could be years away. But South Africa is asking for provisional measures that would demand Israel cease its military assault – in essence a permanent ceasefire. This decision could come within two or three weeks. It is a decision that is not based on the final ruling by the court, but on the merits of the case brought by South Africa. The court would not, by demanding Israel end its hostilities in Gaza, define the Israeli campaign in Gaza as genocide. It would confirm that there is the possibility of genocide, what the South African lawyers call acts that are “genocidal in character.”  

The case will not be determined by the documentation of specific crimes, even those defined as war crimes. It will be determined by genocidal intent – the intent to eradicate in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group – as defined in the Genocide Convention.

These acts collectively include the targeting of refugee camps and other densely packed civilian areas with 2,000-pound bombs, the blocking of humanitarian aid, the destruction of the health care system and its effects on children and pregnant women – the U.N. estimates there are around 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza, and that more than 160 babies are delivered every day – as well as repeated genocidal statements by leading Israeli politicians and generals. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu equated Gaza with Amalek, a nation hostile to the Israelites in the Bible, and cited the Biblical injunction to kill every Amalek man, woman, child or animal. Defence Minister Yoav Gallant called Palestinians “human animals.” Israeli President Isaac Herzog stated, as the South African lawyers told the court, that everybody in Gaza is responsible for what happened on Oct. 7 because they voted for Hamas, although half the population in Gaza are children who are too young to vote. But even if the entire population of Gaza did vote for Hamas this does not make them a legitimate military target. They are still, under the rules of war, civilians, and entitled to protection. They are also entitled under international law to resist their occupation via armed struggle.  

The South African lawyers, who compared Israel’s crimes with those carried out by the apartheid regime in South Africa, showed the court a video of Israeli soldiers celebrating and calling for the death of Palestinians – they sang as they danced “There are no uninvolved civilians” – as evidence that genocidal intent descends from the top to the bottom of the Israeli war machine and political system. They provided the court with photos of mass graves where bodies were buried “often unidentified.” No one – including newborns – was spared, the South African lawyer Adila Hassim, Senior Counsel, explained to the court.

https://twitter.com/DrLoupis/status/1745507554229121448

The South African lawyers told the court the “first genocidal act is mass killing of Palestinians in Gaza.”

The second genocidal act, they stated, is the serious bodily or mental harm inflicted on Palestinians in Gaza in violation of Article 2B of the Genocide Convention.

Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, another lawyer and legal scholar representing South Africa, argued that “Israel’s political leaders, military commanders and persons holding official positions have systematically and in explicit terms declared their genocidal intent.”

Lior Haiat, spokesperson for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, called Thursday’s three hour hearing one of the “greatest shows of hypocrisy in history, compounded by a series of false and baseless claims.” He accused South Africa of seeking to allow Hamas to return to Israel to “commit war crimes.” 

Israeli jurists, in their response on Friday, called the South African charges “unfounded, “absurd” and amounting to “libel.” Israel’s legal team said it had – despite U.N. reports of widespread starvation and infectious diseases from a breakdown in sanitation and shortage of clean water – not impeded humanitarian assistance. Israel defended attacks on hospitals, calling them “Hamas command centers.” It told the court it was acting in self-defense. “The inevitable fatalities and human suffering of any conflict is not of itself a pattern of conduct that plausibly shows genocidal intent,” said Christopher Staker, a barrister for Israel.

Israeli leaders accuse Hamas with carrying out genocide, although legally if you are the victims of genocide you are not permitted to commit genocide. Hamas is also not a state. It is not, therefore, a party to the Genocide Convention. The Hague, for this reason, has no jurisdiction over the organization. Israel also claims the Palestinians are warned to evacuate areas that will come under attack and provided with “safe areas,” although as the South African lawyers documented, “safe areas” are routinely bombed by Israel with numerous civilian casualties.

Israel and the Biden administration intend to prevent any temporary injunction by the court, not because the court can force Israel to halt its military assaults, but because of the optics, which are already disastrous. The ICJ’s ruling depends on the Security Council for enforcement – which given the veto power by the U.S., renders any ruling against Israel moot. The second objective of the Biden administration is to make sure Israel is not found guilty of committing genocide. It will be unrelenting in this campaign, heavily pressuring the governments that have jurists on the court not to find Israel guilty. Russia and China, who have jurists in The Hague, are battling their own charges of genocide and may decide it is not in their interests to find Israel guilty.

The Biden administration is playing a very cynical game. It insists it is trying to halt what, by its own admission, is Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of Palestinians, while bypassing Congress to speed up the supply of weapons to Israel, including “dumb” bombs. It insists it wants the fighting in Gaza to end while it vetoes ceasefire resolutions at the U.N. It insists it upholds the rule of law while it subverts the legal mechanism that can halt the genocide.  

Cynicism pervades every word Biden and Blinken utter. This cynicism extends to us. Our revulsion for Donald Trump, the Biden White House believes, will impel us to keep Biden in office. On any other issue this might be the case. But it cannot be the case with genocide.

Genocide is not a political problem. It is a moral one. We cannot, no matter what the cost, support those who commit or are accomplices to genocide. Genocide is the crime of all crimes. It is the purest expression of evil. We must stand unequivocally with Palestinians and the jurists from South Africa. We must demand justice. We must hold Biden accountable for the genocide in Gaza.

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Featured image: I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream- by Mr. Fish via Chris Hedges

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Russia’s top UN envoy called on Friday the joint US-UK strikes on Yemen’s Houthis a “blatant armed aggression against another country” that was in breach of the UN Charter.

“These states all carried out a mass strike on Yemeni territory,” Vasily Nebenzya told the UN Security Council.

“I’m not talking about an attack on some group within the country, but an attack on the people of the country on the whole. Aircraft were used, warships and submarines.”

Mr Nebenzya said the strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen “blatantly” violated Article 2 of the UN Charter.

“All of these pseudo-legal justifications of the White House don’t stand up to any criticism,” he added, saying that the right to self-defence does not apply to ensuring the freedom of shipping.

“Our American colleagues know this fact very well.”

Both the US and Britain defended the military strike as consistent with international law.

The strikes launched overnight were “to disrupt and degrade the Houthis’ ability to continue the reckless attacks against vessels and commercial shipping”, US ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield told council members.

“And they were taken only after none military options proved inadequate to address the threat. Still, any strike of this nature is a decision the United States does not take lightly,” she stressed.

With more than 2,000 vessels forced by Houthi attacks to divert from the Red Sea, the US envoy pointed out that no country on the UN Security Council is immune from the effects of these attacks.

“Not even Russia. No one. Whether your ship flies an American flag or the flag of another nation, whether you voted for this week’s resolution or you abstained from it … All of our ships are vulnerable.”

Ms Thomas-Greenfield also underscored Iran’s involvement in aiding Houthi rebels in Yemen. Without Iranian support, she said, the Houthis would face significant challenges in effectively tracking and attacking commercial vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

UK ambassador Barbara Woodward said Thursday’s operation took particular care to minimise risks to civilians and “limited, necessary and proportionate action in self-defence”.

Khaled Khiari, assistant secretary general for the Middle East, told the 15-member Security Council:

“We are witnessing the cycle of violence that risks grave political security, economic and humanitarian repercussions in Yemen and the region.”

“These developments in the Red Sea and the risk of exacerbating regional tensions are alarming.”

Earlier, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called on all parties involved not to further escalate the situation in the interest of peace and stability in the Red Sea and the wider region.

The situation in the Red Sea has become untenable, said Ms Thomas-Greenfield.

“Every single country has been affected by these attacks. So de-escalation needs to happen,” she said.

“It needs to happen from the Houthis who are putting all of our shipping lines in jeopardy.”

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Featured image: On Jan. 11 at 2:30 a.m. (Sanaa time), U.S. Central Command forces, in coordination with the United Kingdom, and support from Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, and Bahrain conducted joint strikes on Houthi targets to degrade their capability to continue their illegal and reckless attacks on U.S. and international vessels and commercial shipping in the Red Sea. Image from CENTCOM/X

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When CNN goes out on all limbs like this, quite something. Shattering – again.

—Felicity Arbuthnot, Global Research, January 17, 2024

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Israel’s war in Gaza has brought famine with “such incredible speed,” the United Nations’ emergency relief chief told CNN on Monday, as he warned that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are starving in the besieged enclave.

The “great majority” of 400,000 Gazans characterized by UN agencies as at risk of starving “are actually in famine, not just at risk of famine,” Martin Griffiths, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.

“It’s been an extraordinary and wholly unwelcome aspect of the Gazan war,” he said. “It has brought famine with such incredible speed to the front of the lines.”

Aid has been trickling into Gaza slowly from two border crossings in the south but agencies have been warning it is a fraction of what is needed.

Last week, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Israel had denied critical supplies from entering northern Gaza. But Israel has accused the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency of not doing enough and “stalling” the progress.

Griffiths told CNN Monday that work to provide humanitarian aid to 300,000 Gazans who remain in the north of the strip continues to be a challenge.

“It’s not a matter of the number of trucks that can get in,” he said after listing a series of roadblocks stopping aid including unreliable “deconfliction of access routes”, and civilians having to move “from one place of insecurity to another place of insecurity.”

Click here to read the full article on CNN.

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Featured image is a screenshot from a CNN video

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Last week, in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, state troopers and investigators executed a search warrant on the farm of Amos Miller. Miller has been producing fresh unadulterated dairy products and grass-fed beef for 40 years. He does not sell to the public. Rather, he sells only to folks who join his club because they want pure raw dairy products, not pasteurized and not chemically treated, as the state commands.

The members of Miller’s club believe that they own their own bodies and that they — and not the government — can decide what they should ingest. Miller has never been successfully sued or credibly charged with harming anyone. He remains without the products the state stole from him, and he remains uncharged with any wrongdoing. The state has prohibited his club members from acquiring the products for which they have already paid.

Here is the backstory.

Not far from where Miller’s farm now stands, in the spring of 1776, revolution was in the air. Congress was meeting in Philadelphia, and it was impatient. Bloody skirmishes between colonial militias and British troops were upsetting the countryside. More British troops were on their way. Congress sensed it needed to do something. It wanted to vote for secession from Great Britain, and it needed a compelling document setting forth the reasons for doing so.

Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 2, 1776. It was dated July 4 and not fully signed until later that summer. The vote was unanimous. The word went forth to the 13 colonies that they were now free and independent.

The word also went forth to the king — whom the British people believed was divinely chosen to rule over them — who interpreted the Declaration as an act of treason and an invitation to war.

The Declaration’s essence is that all persons have natural rights that no government can take away by legislation or command. Those rights can be used freely to pursue and defend life, liberty and happiness. Those rights can also be used to consent or not to consent to a government. And the only legitimate role of government, the Declaration states, is to protect the rights of those who consented.

The colonists were not trying to kill the king — as the French would soon do — they just wanted him gone.

But the real revolution was a revolution of minds — the idea that the government was not legitimate unless consented to and limited; that individual personal freedom, not government power, is the default position. All of this was stirred up by the radicals, articulated by Jefferson, embraced by Congress, achieved by blood and reluctantly accepted by the king.

By 1783, they were free. The revolutionary spirit of maximum individual liberty and minimum government embraced and personified the new America.

Where did it go?

Today, in Amos Miller’s America, we have government — at the local, state and federal levels — that claims authority to right any wrong, regulate any behavior, tax any event and transfer any wealth so long as it can find public support.

What once was a government that needed the consent of the governed not only to exist but also to do anything is now one that requires of us its permission to do nearly everything. What once were liberties guaranteed are now liberties mocked.

How is it that men and women take oaths to uphold the liberties that the founders risked all to achieve and then enter office and ignore them? If I can legally refuse health care, why can’t I legally take the chance of exercising my rights to drink whatever milk product I want to drink? Is there not among the freedoms Jefferson wrote about the freedom to take chances?

Are laws written to preserve liberty or to enforce order? Is the concept of the consent of the governed real, or is it make-believe? Does liberty expand in each generation, or does it shrink? Does the government really believe that our liberties are natural and it lacks legitimacy without our individual consent? Has any living person actually consented to the government we now have, or is the belief that we have consented to the government merely a myth?

Just as the colonists were sick and tired of taxes imposed upon them by London aristocrats, aren’t we sick and tired of police state regulations imposed upon us by nanny staters telling us how to live? A police state is one where the laws do not protect liberty from the government, but protect the government from liberty.

Amos Miller is a successful businessman who delivers products his clients seek. He is also a metaphor for government out of control and out of its mind.

Isn’t government the negation of liberty? Does it have our consent, or doesn’t it? Are our liberties natural to our existence, or aren’t they? Is freedom real, or is it make-believe?

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All images in this article are from Judging Freedom

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Jan. 8, 2024 (CNBC) – J&J to acquire cancer drug developer Ambrx Biopharma for $2 billion 

• Johnson & Johnson said it will acquire Ambrx Biopharma for $2 billion, picking up a drugmaker specializing in one of the hottest areas of cancer treatment.
• The deal makes J&J the latest drugmaker to bet on antibody-drug conjugates, or ADCs (same tech as Pfizer’s latest $43 billion Seagen acquisition)
• The acquisition also comes as J&J scrambles to fill a revenue hole that’s approaching in 2025 (!)
• Johnson & Johnson on Monday said it will pay $2 billion in cash to acquire Ambrx Biopharma
• “Ambrx’s pipeline and ADC platform present exciting future opportunities to deliver enhanced, precision biologics as we look to transform the treatment of cancer and improve patients’ lives”
• Under the terms of the deal, J&J will pay $28 a share for Ambrx, or about DOUBLE the firm’s Friday closing price of $13.63. J&J expects to close the deal in the first half of 2024.
  

Jan. 9, 2024 (Health & Pharma) – J&J’s $2 Billion Strategic Acquisition of Ambrx Biopharma: Leading in ADC Oncology 

• Johnson & Johnson announced the acquisition of Ambrx Biopharma for $2 billion, aiming to boost its oncology pipeline with Ambrx’s innovative antibody drug conjugates
• This strategic move focuses on targeted therapies like ARX517 for prostate cancer
• ADCs, a class of therapeutics that combines the specificity of monoclonal antibodies with the potency of cytotoxic drugs, aiming to target and destroy cancer cells more effectively
• The jewel in Ambrx’s crown is ARX517, their proprietary ADC targeting Prostate-Specific Membrane Antigen (PSMA) for treating metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC)
• In addition to ARX517, Ambrx’s portfolio includes other promising ADCs like ARX788, targeted at HER2+ metastatic breast cancer
• ARX305, its proprietary ADC targeting CD-70 for renal cell carcinoma.

Jan. 8, 2024 (Businesswire) – Johnson & Johnson to Acquire Ambrx, Advancing Next Generation Antibody Drug Conjugates to Transform the Treatment of Cancer

• Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) announced today it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Ambrx Biopharma, Inc., or Ambrx, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company with a proprietary synthetic biology technology platform to design and develop next-generation antibody drug conjugates (ADCs), in an all-cash merger transaction for a total equity value of $2.0 billion
• results seen to date with ARX517 in mCRPC (prostate cancer) are promising and represent a potential first- and best-in-class targeted therapy for the treatment of this aggressive disease.
• Ambrx’s proprietary ADC technology incorporates the advantages of highly specific targeting monoclonal antibodies securely linked to a potent chemotherapeutic payload to achieve targeted and efficient elimination of cancer cells without the prevalent side-effects typically associated with chemotherapy
• Following completion of the transaction, Ambrx’s common stock will no longer be listed for trading on the NASDAQ Global Select Market.

Turbo Cancers

This is my original prediction about COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine Induced Turbo Cancers, which may change slightly over time as more data comes in.

Top 5 Turbo Cancers by # of people who will be affected long term: 

1. Lymphoma (various types)
2. Brain Cancers (mostly glioblastoma)
3. Breast Cancer (mostly triple negative)
4. Colon Cancer
5. Lung Cancer

Top 10 Turbo Cancers by # of people affected (no particular order): 

• leukemias
• melanomas
• sarcomas
• testicular/ovarian
• kidney

Dec. 14, 2023 – Pfizer’s $43 billion acquisition of Seagen 

• Pfizer has positioned itself to be able to treat 7 of the top 10 Turbo Cancers as I have identified at this early stage.
• Seagen added ADC cancer drugs (or drugs in pipeline) to Pfizer to treat: lymphoma, breast, colorectal, lung, as well as cancers not in my top 10: cervical, urothelial bladder and multiple myeloma.

Johnson & Johnson adds:

• This $2 billion acquisition gives J&J the ability to use the same ADC technology as Pfizer’s $43 billion Seagen, to treat 2 of the top 10 turbo cancers: breast cancer and kidney cancer.
• I have not seen a major spike in prostate cancer yet, but they may know something I don’t.

My Take…

Many pharmaceutical companies are rushing to position themselves to profit from treating a tsunami of cancers that they are all expecting to hit starting in 2025.

• Dec. 14, 2023 – Pfizer closed a $43 billion acquisition to treat several turbo cancers on Dec.14, 2023 and expects to “fill a gap” for the period 2025-2030.
• Dec. 14, 2023 – Moderna targets new mRNA Cancer vaccine to treat melanoma to be available by 2025
• Jan. 8, 2024 – Johnson & Johnson to acquire $2 billion cancer drug company that uses same tech as Pfizer, to “fill a revenue gap in 2025”
• Jan. 10, 2024 – BioNTech expects to return to revenue growth in 2025, when its COVID vaccine business would bottom out, and it would invest to “scale up its oncology business thereafter”
• Oct.12, 2023 – Dxcover targets 2025 launch for blood test that uses light to detect brain cancer
• Sep.2023 – Harbinger Health raises $140M to study blood-based cancer screening test – ahead of a planned launch in 2025.
• Jun.1, 2023 – Multi-cancer blood test shows real promise in NHS study – NHS in England plans to extend the rollout to a further one million people in 2024 and 2025

Cancer Centers to Open by 2025

• Aug. 2023 – Cape Breton (NS, Canada) Cancer centre to open in 2025
• Jul. 2023 – $120M Cancer center (Tennessee Oncology) set for 2025 finish
• Jun. 2023 – $200M Cancer center set to open in NJ in 2025
• Mar. 2023 – Orange County’s only cancer specialty hospital will open in 2025
• May 2023 – Kearney, Nebraska to welcome new cancer center in 2025
• Jan. 2023 – OU Health to open cancer center in 2025
• Dec. 2022 – $2 billion Alberta, Canada cancer centre to open in 2024
• Aug. 2022 – Baltimore, MD – Sinai Hospital to build cancer center by 2025
• Jul. 2022 – Wales – New Velindre cancer centre to open in 2025
• Dec. 2023 – 123 cancer centers opening, expanding, affiliating in 2023

It seems the population is the last to know, but everyone from the largest pharmaceutical companies, to politicians, and healthcare providers are all betting on a tsunami of cancers starting in 2025. 

Johnson & Johnson is just the latest company to secure a piece of the pie, now that they’ve paid a $700 million settlement for the Talc baby powder scandal.

 And they overpaid the latest acquisition by more than 100% of the current stock price.

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Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.

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The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity

by Michel Chossudovsky

Price: $11.50 FREE COPY! Click here (docsend) and download.

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What a cowardly act it was. A national broadcaster, dedicated to what should be fearless reporting, cowed by the intemperate bellyaching of a lobby concerned about coverage of the Israel-Gaza war. The investigation by The Age newspaper was revealing in showing that the dismissal of broadcaster Antoinette Lattouf last December 20 was the nasty fruit of a campaign waged against the corporation’s management. This included its chair, Ita Buttrose, and managing director David Anderson.

The official reason for that dismissal was disturbingly ordinary. Lattouf had not, for instance, decided to become a flag-swathed bomb thrower for the Palestinian cause. She had engaged in no hostage taking campaign, nor intimidated any Israeli figure. The sacking had purportedly been made over sharing a post by Human Rights Watch about Israel that mentioned “using starvation of civilians as a weapon of war in Gaza”, calling it “a war crime”. It also noted the express intention by Israeli officials to pursue this strategy. Actions are also documented: the deliberate blocking of the delivery of food, water and fuel “while wilfully obstructing the entry of aid.” The sharing by Lattouf took place following a direction not to post on “matters of controversy”.

Human Rights Watch might be accused of many things: the dolled up corporate face of human rights activism; the activist transformed into fundraising agent and boardroom gaming strategist. But to share material from the organisation on alleged abuses is hardly a daredevil act of dangerous hair-raising radicalism.

Prior to the revelations in The Age, much had been made of Lattouf’s fill-in role as a radio presenter, a stint that was to last for five shows. The Australian, true to form, had its own issue with Lattouf’s statements made on various online platforms. In December, the paper found it strange that she was appointed “despite her very public anti-Israel stance.” She was also accused of denying the lurid interpretations put upon footage from protests outside Sydney Opera House, some of which called for gassing Jews. And she dared accused the Israeli forces of committing rape.

It was also considered odd that she discuss such matters as food and water shortages in Gaza and “an advertising campaign showing corpses reminiscent of being wrapped in Muslim burial cloths”. That “left ‘a lot of people really upset’.” If war is hell, then Lattouf was evidently not allowed to go into quite so much detail about it – at least when concerning the fate of Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli war machine.

What also transpires is that the ABC managers were not merely targeting Lattouf on their own, sadistic initiative. Pressure of some measure had been exercised from outside the organisation. According to The Age, WhatsApp messages had been sent to the ABC as part of a coordinated campaign by a group called Lawyers for Israel.

The day Lattouf was sacked, Sydney property lawyer Nicky Stein buzzingly began proceedings by telling members of the group to contact the federal minister for communication asking “how Antoinette is hosting the morning ABC Sydney show.” Employing Lattouff apparently breached Clause 4 of the ABC code of practice on impartiality.

Stein cockily went on to insist that, “It’s important ABC hears from not just individuals in the community but specifically from lawyers so they feel there is an actual legal threat.” She goes on to read that a “proper” rather than “generic” response was expected “by COB [close of business] today or I would look to engage senior counsel.”

Did such windy threats have any basis? No, according to Stein. “I know there is probably no actionable offence against the ABC but I didn’t say I would be taking one – just investigating one. I have said that they should be terminating her employment immediately.” Utterly charming, and sufficiently so to attract attention from the ABC chairperson herself, who asked for further venting of concerns.

Indeed, another member of the haranguing clique, Robert Goot, also deputy president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, could boast of information he had received that Lattouf would be “gone from morning radio from Friday” because of her anti-Israeli stance.

There has been something of a journalistic exodus from the ABC of late. Nour Haydar, an Australian journalist also of Lebanese descent, resigned expressing her concerns about the coverage of the Israel-Gaza conflict at the broadcaster. There had been, for instance, the creation of a “Gaza advisory panel” at the behest of ABC News director Justin Stevens, ostensibly to improve the coverage of the conflict. “Accuracy and impartiality are core to the service we offer audiences,” Stevens explained to staff. “We must stay independent and not ‘take sides’.”

This pointless assertion can only ever be a threat because it acts as an injunction on staff and a judgment against sources that do not favour the accepted line, however credible they might be. What proves acceptable, a condition that seems to have paralysed the ABC, is to never say that Israel massacres, commits war crimes, and brings about conditions approximating to genocide. Little wonder that coverage on South Africa’s genocide case against Israel in the International Court of Justice does not get top billing on in the ABC news headlines.

Palestinians and Palestinian militias, on the other hand, can always be written about as brute savages, rapists and baby slayers. Throw in fanaticism and Islam, and you have the complete package ready for transmission. Coverage in the mainstays of most Western liberal democracies of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as the late Robert Fisk pointed out with pungency, repeatedly asserts these divisions.

After her signation Hayder told the Sydney Morning Herald that, “Commitment to diversity in the media cannot be skin deep.  Culturally diverse staff should be respected and supported even when they challenge the status quo.” But Haydar’s argument about cultural diversity should not obscure the broader problem facing the ABC: policing the way opinions and material on war and any other divisive topic is shared. The issue goes less to cultural diversity than permitted intellectual breadth, which is distinctly narrowing at the national broadcaster.

Lattouf, for her part, is pursuing remedies through the Fair Work Commission, and seeking funding through a GoFundMe page, steered by Lauren Dubois. “We stand with Antoinette and support the rights of workers to be able to share news that expresses an opinion or reinforces a fact, without fear of retribution.”

Kenneth Roth, former head of Human Rights Watch, expressed his displeasure at the treatment of Lattouf for sharing HRW material, suggesting the ABC had erred. ABC’s senior management, through a statement from managing director David Anderson, preferred the route of craven denial, rejecting “any claim that it has been influenced by any external pressure, whether it be an advocacy group or lobby group, a political party, or commercial entity.” They would, wouldn’t they?

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). Email: [email protected] 

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Germany’s full throttle denial regarding the unimaginable horrors being committed in Palestine is surely entirely related to the horrors their forbears committed. But they seemingly don’t realise they are backing, endorsing, another one. Minute by minute, devastation, torture, heartbreak, slaughter. And they thus do the same again, by proxy.

—Felicity Arbuthnot, Global Research, January 17, 2024

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Namibia on Sunday strongly condemned Germany for supporting Israel in its defence against genocide accusations in last week’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) hearings.

The Namibian presidency issued a statement condemning the German move to act on Israel’s behalf as a third party in defence, recalling Germany’s role in the first 20th-century genocide of the Herero and Nama peoples in the 1900s.

“The German Government has chosen to defend in the International Court of Justice the genocidal and gruesome acts of the Israeli Government against innocent civilians in Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian Territories,” read the statement, posted on X.

On Friday, the ICJ concluded a two-day hearing of a lawsuit brought by South Africa against Israel’s ferocious war in Gaza, accusing it of breaching the 1948 Geneva Convention.

Since the war started on 7 October, Israel has killed more than 24,000 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Eight thousand more people are missing, presumed killed under the rubble.

Namibia has pointed to Germany’s atrocities carried out on its lands against the indigenous Herero and Nama people, killing more than 70,000 of them between 1904 and 1908. The German massacres in Namibia are now described as the 20th Century’s first genocide.

In 2021, Germany officially admitted committing genocide in Namibia, offering around $1.34bn in financial aid, to be paid over 30 years to help the impacted population.

“The German government is yet to fully atone for the genocide it committed on Namibian soil,” says the Namibian statement.

Namibian President Hage Geingob urged his country’s former colonial ruler to retract its “untimely decision to intervene as a third-party in defence and support of the genocidal acts of Israel before the International Court of Justice”.

Vehement Supporter of Israel

On Friday, German government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit rebuffed South Africa’s accusations against Israel at the ICJ hearings, which took place in the Hague. He said in a post on X that Berlin “firmly rejects the accusation of genocide made against Israel. It has no basis whatsoever”.  

Die Bundesregierung weist den gegen Israel erhobenen Vorwurf des Völkermordes entschieden zurück. Er entbehrt jeder Grundlage. Wir werden uns daher in der Hauptverhandlung vor dem Internationalen Gerichtshof als Drittpartei äußern: https://t.co/qZYb4SiacD

— Steffen Hebestreit (@RegSprecher) January 12, 2024

He added that his country “will therefore speak as a third party in the main hearing before the International Court of Justice”.

Staunchly supporting Israel, Germany issued a statement stating that Israel “has been defending itself” against Hamas. The statement defines the South African case as a “political instrumentalisation” of the UN Genocide Convention, which it opposes.

South Africa has called upon the ICJ to take provisional measures against Israel, which includes an immediate halt to Israeli military activity in Gaza. Although the interim rulings are expected to be reached in the next few weeks, a final verdict is expected to take years.

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In 2023, Ukrainian border guards (DPSU) detained several young people who were trying to cross the Tisza River on the border with Romania and Hungary to avoid being conscripted and sent to the battlefield,  The Times reported. This revelation comes as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky refuses to take any responsibility for a deeply unpopular mobilisation plan that he wants to introduce.

Since the beginning of the conflict, the Ukrainian Border Guard has detained more than 17,000 citizens who tried to leave the country illegally. More than 20,000 unsuccessful attempts to flee the country by men of military age seeking to avoid the draft were also recorded.

The Times reported that men now try every day to cross the borders between Ukraine, Romania, and Hungary, risking their lives to enter the forests or cross the Tisza River. According to the outlet, some Ukrainian men attempting to escape the country jumped into the swift winter currents of the Tisza wearing wetsuits and life jackets, whilst others used car tires or rubber rings for the dangerous crossing.

The newspaper also noted that many young people fail to cross the border and end up dead.

“Since 2022, the Mukachevo unit of the DPSU has pulled the bodies of 19 men who drowned trying to cross the river and found a further five frozen to death in the forests. Some men attempt to cross the border without a guide,” the newspaper reported.

These desertion attempts continue to occur while a new bill is being drafted with the aim of mobilising an additional 500,000 people for military service. Clauses of the initiative, which are currently passing through the Ukrainian parliament, include lowering the draft age from 27 to 25, limiting draft exemptions, mobilising men online, and increasing penalties for those who avoid conscription.

Yet, despite the Ukrainian parliament pushing for this, according to Politico, Kiev regime leaders are afraid to take responsibility for the new mobilisation plan. The bill, which was withdrawn on December 11 for review, is so unpopular among Ukrainians that Zelensky prefers it to be proposed by the government and not by him.

Politico admits that Ukrainians are in no rush to join the Ukrainian military amid the failed counteroffensive, corruption scandals, and concerns about human rights violations. According to the newspaper, the initial enthusiasm of Ukrainians and other Eastern European countries to fight Russian forces “evaporated” for these reasons.

Furthermore, the article indicates that the mobilisation also brings economic problems to the country. Around $46 billion, or more than a fifth of the Ukrainian economy, is dedicated to the futile war effort against Russia.

It is recalled that Zelensky said in December,

“The mobilisation of an additional 450,000 to 500,000 people will cost Ukraine 500 billion hryvnia ($13.2 billion), and I would like to know where the money will come from. Considering that it takes six Ukrainian working civilians paying taxes to pay the salary of one soldier, I would need to get 3 million more working people somewhere to be able to pay for the additional troops.”

Clarifying this issue in Estonia on January 11, Zelensky said:

“If you are in Ukraine and you are not at the front, but you work and pay taxes, you also defend the state. And this is very necessary,” adding that citizens out of Ukraine who are neither fighting nor paying taxes face an ethical dilemma.

“If we want to save Ukraine, if we want to save Europe, then all of us must understand: Either we help Ukraine or we don’t. Either we are citizens who are at the front, or we are citizens who work and pay taxes,” he said.

However, for the brave talk of mobilisation, the simple fact is that taking people away from their jobs to become soldiers will destroy Ukraine’s already aid-reliant economy. Ukraine is completely reliant on the West, so much so that the plan to plug next year’s $43 billion budget deficit is to hope foreign financial aid arrives, including 18.5 billion euros from the European Union and more than $8 billion from a US package containing military assistance.

Effectively, Ukraine does not have a serious economic plan, especially when considering that both US and European packages continue to be blocked and face growing opposition. Since the war began, Ukraine has relied entirely on foreign aid to support social services as its financial resources are funnelled into the military.

With Ukraine having no chance of winning the war and the economy completely in tatters, it is little wonder that Ukrainians are desperately fleeing the country. The mobilisation plan, which Zelensky does not want to take responsibility for after cancelling this year’s election, has spread panic to the extent that Ukrainians would rather take the risk of drowning in a river to escape the country than forcibly be taken to the frontlines.

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Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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Social media users are pressing ahead for continued boycotts of Western brands as the US and its allies pound Yemen with air strikes and missiles to neutralize Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

“Boycott these brands that support the invasion of Yemen,” X user Naila Ayad said in a post viewed more than 1.6 million times. 

Boycott these brands that support the invasion of Yemen. pic.twitter.com/rYNpCmldV3

— Naila Ayad🇵🇸 (@Naila_Ayad) January 12, 2024

And this. 

Calls for boycott of top German brands are spreading on social media after Germany announced that it would join Israel at the ICJ as a third party https://t.co/BpTjUb40Bn

— Dima Khatib (@Dima_Khatib) January 13, 2024

🚨🇾🇪OFFICIAL HOUTHI STATEMENT: BOYCOTT AMERICAN AND ISRAEL PRODUCTS

Abdul Malik: "The West talks about freedoms and rights, but their position on Gaza is like a scandal

The Palestinian people have the right to confront injustice and liberate their homeland

We must take action… https://t.co/Squ2ajCVHU pic.twitter.com/r3hjaw5Gfq

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) January 11, 2024

One X user pointed out,

“None of these brands have anything to with Yemen and the US didn’t invade Yemen, also why is their idea of a boycott just targeting snacks.” 

“Actually, boycotting these brands will improve your health, too,” another X user said. 

These calls come as boycotts across the Middle East have battered Western brands following the deadly Hamas attack in southern Israel on October 7. 

McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski wrote a LinkedIn post earlier this month that explained the Middle East boycotts have had a “meaningful business impact.” He said the boycotts were “due to the war and associated misinformation.” 

“I also recognize that several markets in the Middle East and some outside the region are experiencing a meaningful business impact due to the war and associated misinformation that is affecting brands like McDonald’s. This is disheartening and ill-founded. In every country where we operate, including in Muslim countries, McDonald’s is proudly represented by local owner operators who work tirelessly to serve and support their communities while employing thousands of their fellow citizens. That local community connection is the genius of the McDonald’s System.” 

Last week, Papa John’s International Inc. blamed “lower-than-anticipated net unit openings” on “unanticipated international restaurant closures in the fourth quarter including 10 UK franchised restaurants; 12 international units that were re-classified as closed locations in the fourth quarter through a review of temporary restaurant closures; restaurant openings moved into 2024; and restaurant opening delays due to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.” 

It’s not just McDonald’s. Reuters said other Western brands, such as Starbucks and KFC, have been boycotted. 

It remains to be seen if boycotts will intensify since the US bombing campaign in Yemen began on Wednesday. 

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle Thursday night were lambasting the Biden administration for not getting congressional approval before moving ahead with military strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen.

According to reports, the U.S. and UK launched the strikes via ships, fighter jets, and a submarine Thursday night. Tomahawk missiles reportedly hit the capital of Sana’a, and the governorates of Sa’dah, Hodeidah, Taiz, and Dhamar. Officials told the press that the strikes hit radars, missile- and drone-launch sites, and weapons storage facilities and were not intended to kill leaders or Iranian trainers. The Houthis later said at least five of their fighters had been killed.

“The President needs to come to Congress before launching a strike against the Houthis in Yemen and involving us in another middle east conflict. That is Article I of the Constitution. I will stand up for that regardless of whether a Democrat or Republican is in the White House,” posted California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna on X, just as news was breaking that the strikes were in progress. Some 30 minutes earlier, there were reports that congressional leaders were given a heads up that the strikes were a go.

The President needs to come to Congress before launching a strike against the Houthis in Yemen and involving us in another middle east conflict. That is Article I of the Constitution. I will stand up for that regardless of whether a Democrat or Republican is in the White House.

— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) January 11, 2024

“Only Congress has the power to declare war,” posted Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie. “I have to give credit to @RepRoKhanna here for sticking to his principles, as very few are willing to make this statement while their party is in the White House.”

But several progressive Democrats were already posting their dismay at the news of the strikes.

“@POTUS is violating Article I of the Constitution by carrying out airstrikes in Yemen without congressional approval,” charged Michigan Democrat Rashida Tlaib. “The American people are tired of endless war.”

Democratic Reps. Cori Bush, Val Hoyle, Mark Pocan, Barbara Lee, and Pramila Jayapal weighed in similarly as of last tonight.

On the Republican side, Sen. Mike Lee, who has often crossed the aisle on war powers issues, also gave Khanna a boost.

“The Constitution matters, regardless of party affiliation.”

“The Constitution is clear, only Congress has the power to declare war. President Biden must come to Congress and ask us to authorize this act of war,” posted Florida Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna.

She was not enjoined, however, by Republican leadership, which effusively supported Biden’s actions. House Speaker Mike Johnson said in a post that

“America must always project strength, especially in these dangerous times.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said,

“President Biden’s decision to use military force against these Iranian proxies is overdue. I am hopeful these operations mark an enduring shift in the Biden Administration’s approach to Iran and its proxies.”

This action by U.S. and British forces is long overdue, and we must hope these operations indicate a true shift in the Biden Administration’s approach to Iran and its proxies that are engaging in such evil and wreaking such havoc. They must understand there is a serious price to… https://t.co/fAUoR07yMb

— Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) January 12, 2024

In a statement, President Biden said the strikes were in response to three months of Houthi attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea. U.S. and UK warships have been thwarting most of the Houthi drones and rockets and have reportedly been the target of such attacks at times too, though the U.S. has incurred no damage or injuries, and no casualties have been reported in any of the cases. The U.S. did retaliate against one attempted hijacking by sinking three Houthi boats and reportedly killing 10 fighters at the end of December.

“These attacks have endangered U.S. personnel, civilian mariners, and our partners, jeopardized trade, and threatened freedom of navigation,” Biden said. “I will not hesitate to direct further measures to protect our people and the free flow of international commerce as necessary.”

The Houthis have said they would continue the attacks until “crimes in Gaza stop and food, medicines and fuel are allowed to reach its besieged population.” The Biden administration, which has not supported a ceasefire in Gaza, said it would hit back hard if the Houthis did not stand down. After a particularly heavy volley of drones and rockets on Tuesday, the administration made its move.

This has a lot of analysts worried about escalation — something the Biden administration said it didn’t want.

“If the objective is to stop Houthi attacks without escalating matters toward a full war, then bombing them has proven quite inefficient in the past. Just ask the the Saudis,” said the Quincy Institute’s Trita Parsi, on X, referring to the Yemen civil war in which the Houthis gained major victories despite routine missile bombardments from U.S.-backed Saudi Arabia.

“Moreover, bombing them very likely will escalate matters, which means that not only will the attacks not be stopped, but the broader war that Biden seeks to prevent will likely become a reality.”

Meanwhile, governments in the region have begun to respond. Oman, which otherwise has positive relations with Washington, was one of the first out of the gate. The foreign ministry said it viewed the strikes with “deep concern” and said “it is impossible not to denounce that an allied country resorted to this military action, while meanwhile, Israel is continuing to exceed all bounds in its bombardment, brutal war and siege on Gaza without any consequence.”

Story is developing and updated for detail.

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Kelley Beaucar Vlahos is Editorial Director of Responsible Statecraft and Senior Advisor at the Quincy Institute.

Featured image: On Jan. 11 at 2:30 a.m. (Sanaa time), U.S. Central Command forces, in coordination with the United Kingdom, and support from Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, and Bahrain conducted joint strikes on Houthi targets to degrade their capability to continue their illegal and reckless attacks on U.S. and international vessels and commercial shipping in the Red Sea. Image from CENTCOM/X

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba warned that “time is running out” for US lawmakers to approve additional military aid to Kiev, falsely claiming that the costs to Western nations will be much higher if Russian forces defeat Ukraine. Despite the reality of not being able to win the war, Ukraine’s only attempt at peace is to engage in dialogues without Russia and impose ridiculous terms.

Providing more money and weapons to Ukraine will help the US and NATO allies avoid a direct confrontation with Russia, Kuleba said in an interview with ABC News published on January 15.

“Whatever the price of supporting Ukraine is now, the price of fixing the mess in the world if Ukraine loses will be much, much higher,” he added.

Washington, the biggest sponsor of what some US politicians describe as a proxy war in Ukraine, ran out of money for Kiev after spending $113 billion on aid packages approved by Congress. US President Joe Biden’s latest funding request, which includes $61.4 billion in additional military and financial assistance for Ukraine, has been stalled due to growing opposition from Republican lawmakers. 

Kuleba claimed that a Russian victory in Ukraine would send a dangerous message to other US adversaries, ignoring that Moscow has repeatedly stressed that it does not seek conflict with NATO.

“If the West is not able to stop Russia in Ukraine, who else is able to stop it in other parts of the world?” he asked. The diplomat promised that the Ukrainians “will fight with shovels” if they are left without weapons.

ABC noted that Russian forces have made territorial gains in recent weeks and taken the lead in terms of firepower. However, Kuleba argued that the gains were “minimal” and delusionally denied that Russian President Vladimir Putin is now in a stronger position.

Asked about drone strikes against Russia, the Ukrainian diplomat justified the terrorism as being important to show that the conflict was having an adverse impact on the Russian people. 

“President Putin must explain to his people why all of this is happening,” he said.

Kuleba also dismissed a report last week that showed an internal Pentagon investigation concluded the US had failed to properly track more than $1 billion worth of weapons sent to Ukraine. 

“Every attempt by Russia to disinform the world about (the) alleged leak or illicit traffic of U.S. weapons into other parts of the world… turned out to be fake,” he said.

The diplomat insisted that reports of US arms trafficking from Ukraine to other parts of the world were “fakes,” adding: “So don’t believe in fakes, believe in Ukraine.”

Kuleba’s delusions and claims of Russian disinformation demonstrate that in the short term, there will be no peaceful conclusion to the conflict as the Kiev regime would rather see Ukrainians die fighting with shovels than accept the reality that Russia has won the war.

So long as this delusion persists in Kiev, peace initiatives, like the meeting of Western national security officials in Davos on January 14 over Ukraine’s peace proposal, will continue to end without a clear path forward. In fact, the British media reported that the talks’ “main achievement” was a “more diverse family photo than last time,” which included Global South countries, such as Brazil and South Africa.

“There was no progress on an actual peace deal. That would also be impossible without Russia, and Russia wasn’t invited,” the Financial Times highlighted.

The Kiev regime operates out of reality so much so that Zelensky’s peace plan requires Russia to give up Crimea, Donbass, Zaporozhye and Kherson; pay reparations to Ukraine; subject its officials and military to war tribunals; and make other unilateral concessions that look less like a peace agreement of Ukraine, a losing country, and more like demands against a capitulated Russia that has no choice but to submit. Obviously, Moscow rejected the proposal, with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov recently calling the proposal a “product of a sick imagination.”

In the context of Ukraine refusing to seek a legitimate peace deal with Russia, it makes it even more bizarre that Kuleba is ensuring that Ukrainians will continue to fight with shovels in a futile war effort even if the US stops providing support. Republicans in the US have been blocking aid for Ukraine for several months now, demanding amendments to migration policy and the strengthening of the southern border in the context of illegal migration.

Although the funds for Ukraine will eventually be approved, each passing day only marks a day closer to Russia’s victory, and a new aid package will make no difference to the course of the war. Rather, Kuleba’s outburst has served to give further insight into the detachment from reality that the Kiev regime operates in and how they really do mean fighting until “the last Ukrainian.”

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Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Ukrainian snipers attend shooting training near the front line amid Russia-Ukraine war in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, on February 18, 2023. [Source: businessinsider.com]

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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It should surprise no one that the prize-match fight for the rule of international law has pitted Israel and South Africa against each other at the International Court of Justice at The Hague.

The world is split between those who have crafted a self-serving global and regional order that guarantees them impunity whatever their crimes, and those who pay the price for that arrangement.

Now the long-time victims are fighting back at the so-called World Court.

Last week, each side presented its arguments for and against whether Israel has implemented a genocidal policy in Gaza over the past three months.

South Africa’s case should be open and shut. So far Israel has killed or seriously wounded close to 100,000 Palestinians in Gaza, almost one in every 20 inhabitants. It has damaged or destroyed more than 60 percent of the population’s homes. It has bombed the tiny “safe zones” to which it has ordered some two million Palestinians to flee. It has exposed them to starvation and lethal disease by cutting off aid and water.

Meanwhile, senior Israeli political and military officials have openly and repeatedly expressed genocidal intent, as South Africa’s submission so carefully documents.

Back in September, before Hamas’ break-out from the Gaza prison on 7 October, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had shown the United Nations a map of his aspiration for what he termed “the New Middle East”. The Palestinian territories of Gaza and the West Bank were gone, replaced by Israel.

Despite the mass of evidence against Israel, it could take years for the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to reach a definitive verdict – by which time, if things carry on as they are, there may be no meaningful Palestinian population left to protect.

South Africa has therefore also urgently requested an interim order effectively requiring Israel to stop its attack.

Opposing Corners

The peoples of Israel and South Africa still carry the wounds of the crimes of systematic European racism: in Israel’s case, the Holocaust in which the Nazis and their collaborators exterminated six million Jews; and in South Africa’s, the white apartheid regime that was imposed on the black population for decades by a colonising white minority.

They are in opposite corners because each drew a different lesson from their respective traumatic historical legacies.

Israel raised its citizens to believe that Jews must join the racist, oppressor nations, adopting a “might makes right” approach to neighbouring states. A self-declared Jewish state sees the region as a zero-sum battleground in which domination and brutality win the day.

It was inevitable that Israel would eventually spawn, in Hamas and groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon, armed opponents who view their conflict with Israel in a similar light.

South Africa, by contrast, has aspired to carry the mantel of “moral beacon” nation, that western states so readily ascribe to their top-dog, nuclear-armed Middle Eastern client state, Israel.

South Africa’s first post-apartheid president, Nelson Mandela, famously observed in 1997:

“We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”

Israel and apartheid South Africa were close diplomatic and military allies until apartheid’s fall 30 years ago. Mandela understood that the ideological foundations of Zionism and apartheid were built on a similar racial supremacist logic.

He was once cast as a terrorist villain for opposing South Africa’s apartheid rulers, much as Palestinian leaders are by Israel today.

Jackboot of Colonialism

It should also not surprise us that lined up in Israel’s corner is most of the West – led by Washington and Germany, the country that instigated the Holocaust. Berlin asked last Friday to be considered a third party in Israel’s defence at The Hague.

Meanwhile, South Africa’s case is backed by much of what is called the “developing world”, which has long felt the jackboot of western colonialism – and racism – on its face.

Notably, Namibia was incensed by Germany’s support for Israel at the court, given that at the outset of the 20th century, the colonial German regime in south-west Africa herded many tens of thousands of Namibians into death camps, developing the blueprint for the genocide of Jews and Roma it would later refine in the Holocaust.

The Namibian president, Hage Geingob, stated:

“Germany cannot morally express commitment to the United Nations Convention against genocide, including atonement for the genocide in Namibia, whilst supporting the equivalent of a holocaust and genocide in Gaza.”

The panel of judges – 17 of them in total – do not exist in some rarified bubble of legal abstraction. Intense political pressures in this polarised fight will bear down on them.

As former UK ambassador Craig Murray, who attended the two days of hearings, observed: most of the judges looked as if they “really did not want to be in the court”.

‘Nobody Will Stop Us’

The reality is that, whichever way the majority in the court swings in its decision, the crushing power of the West to get its way will shape what happens next.

If most of the judges find it plausible that there is a risk Israel is committing genocide and insist on some sort of interim ceasefire until it can make a definitive ruling, Washington will block enforcement through its veto at the UN Security Council.

Expect the US, as well as Europe, to work harder than ever to undermine international law and its supporting institutions. Imputations of antisemitism on the part of the judges who back South Africa’s case – and the states to which they belong – will be liberally spread around.

Already Israel has accused South Africa of a “blood libel”, suggesting its motives at the ICJ are driven by antisemitism. In his address to the court, Tal Becker of the Israeli foreign ministry argued that South Africa was acting as a legal surrogate for Hamas.

The US has implied much the same by calling South Africa’s meticulous amassing of evidence “meritless”.

On Saturday, in a speech littered with deceptions, Netanyahu vowed to ignore the court’s ruling if it was not to Israel’s liking. “Nobody will stop us – not The Hague, not the axis of evil, and not anybody else,” he said.

On the other hand, if the ICJ rules at this stage anything less than that there is a plausible case for genocide, Israel and the Biden administration will seize on the verdict to mischaracterise Israel’s assault on Gaza as receiving a clean bill of health from the World Court.

That will be a lie. The judges are being asked only to rule on the matter of genocide, the gravest of the crimes against humanity, where the evidential bar is set very high indeed.

In an international legal system in which nation-states are accorded far more rights than ordinary people, the priority is giving states the freedom to wage wars in which civilians are likely to pay the heaviest price. The gargantuan profits of the West’s military-industrial complex depend on this intentional lacuna in the so-called “rules of war”.

If the court finds – whether for political or legal reasons – that South Africa has failed to make a plausible case, it will not absolve Israel of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Indisputably, it is carrying out both.

Foot Dragging

Nonetheless, any reticence on the part of the ICJ will be duly noted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), its heavily compromised sister court. Its job is not to adjudicate between states like the World Court but to gather evidence for the prosecution of individuals who order or carry out war crimes.

It is currently gathering evidence to decide whether to investigate Israeli and Hamas officials over the events of the past three months.

But for years, the same court has been dragging its feet on prosecuting Israeli officials over war crimes that long predate the current assault on Gaza, such as Israel’s decades of building illegal Jewish settlements on Palestinian land, and Israel’s 17-year siege of Gaza – the rarely mentioned context for Hamas’ break-out on 7 October.

The ICC similarly baulked at prosecuting US and British officials over the war crimes their states carried out in invading and occupying Afghanistan and Iraq.

That followed an intimidation campaign from Washington, which imposed sanctions on the court’s two most senior officials, including freezing their US assets, blocking their international financial transactions and denying them and their families entry to the US.

Terror Campaign

Israel’s central argument against genocide last week was that it is defending itself after it was attacked on 7 October, and that the real genocide is being carried out by Hamas against Israel. 

Such a claim should be roundly dismissed by the World Court. Israel has no right to defend its decades-long occupation and siege of Gaza, the background to the events of 7 October. And it cannot claim it is targeting a few thousand Hamas fighters when it is bombing, displacing and starving Gaza’s entire civilian population. 

Even if Israel’s military campaign is not intended to wipe out the Palestinians of Gaza, as all statements by the Israeli cabinet and military officials indicate, it is nonetheless still directed primarily at civilians. 

On the most charitable reading, given the facts, Palestinian civilians are being bombed and killed en masse to cause terror. They are being ethnically cleansed to depopulate Gaza. And they are being subjected to a horrifying form of collective punishment in Israel’s “complete siege” that denies them food, water and power – leading to starvation and exposure to lethal disease – to weaken their will to resist their occupation and seek liberation from absolute Israeli control.

If all of this is the only way Israel can “eradicate Hamas” – its stated goal – then it reveals something Israel and its western patrons would rather we all ignore: that Hamas is so deeply embedded in Gaza precisely because its implacable resistance looks like the only reasonable response to a Palestinian population ever more suffocated by the tightening chokehold of oppression Israel has inflicted on Gaza for decades.

Israel’s weeks of carpet bombing have left Gaza uninhabitable for the vast majority of the population, who have no homes to return to and little in the way of functioning infrastructure. Without massive and constant aid, which Israel is blocking, they will gradually die of dehydration, famine, cold and disease.

In these circumstances, Israel’s actual defence against genocide is an entirely conditional one: it is not committing genocide only if it has correctly estimated that sufficient pressure will mount on Egypt that it feels compelled – or bullied – into opening its border with Gaza and allowing the population to escape.

If Cairo refuses, and Israel does not change course, the people of Gaza are doomed. In a rightly ordered world, a claim of reckless indifference as to whether the Palestinians of Gaza die from conditions Israel has created should be no defence against genocide.

War Business as Usual

The difficulty for the World Court is that it is on trial as much as Israel – and will lose whichever way it rules. Legal facts and the court’s credibility are in direct conflict with western political priorities and war industry profits. 

The risk is the judges may feel the safest course is to “split the difference”. 

They may exonerate Israel of genocide based on a technicality, while insisting it do more of what it isn’t doing at all: protecting the “humanitarian needs” of Gaza’s people. 

Israel dangled just such a technicality before the judges last week like a juicy carrot. Its lawyers argued that, because Israel had not responded to the genocide case made by South Africa at the time of its filing, there was no dispute between the two states. The World Court, Israel suggested, therefore lacked jurisdiction because its role is to settle such disputes.

If accepted, it would mean, as former ambassador Murray noted, that, absurdly, states could be exonerated of genocide simply by refusing to engage with their accusers.

Aeyal Gross, a professor of international law at Tel Aviv University, told the Haaretz newspaper he expected the court to reject any limitations on Israel’s military operations. It would focus instead on humanitarian measures to ease the plight of Gaza’s population.

He also noted that Israel would insist it was already complying – and carry on as before.

The one sticking point, Gross suggested, would be a demand from the World Court that Israel allow international investigators access to the enclave to assess whether war crimes had been committed.

It is precisely this kind of “war business as usual” that will discredit the court – and the international humanitarian law it is supposed to uphold. 

Vacuum of Leadership

As ever, it is not the West that the world can look to for meaningful leadership on the gravest crises it faces or for efforts to de-escalate conflict.

The only actors showing any inclination to put into practice the moral obligation that should fall to states to intervene to stop genocide are the “terrorists”. 

Hezbollah in Lebanon is putting pressure on Israel by incrementally building a second front in the north, while the Houthis in Yemen are improvising their own form of economic sanctions on international shipping passing through the Red Sea. 

The US and Britain responded at the weekend with air strikes on Yemen, turning up the heat even higher and threatening to tip the region into a wider war. 

With its own investments in the Suez Canal threatened, China, unlike the West, seems desperate to cool things down. Beijing proposed this week an Israel-Palestine peace conference involving a much wider circle of states.

The goal is to loosen Washington’s malevolent stranglehold on pretend “peace-making” and bind all the parties to a commitment to create a Palestinian state. 

The West’s narrative is that anyone outside its club – from South Africa and China to Hezbollah and the Houthis – is the enemy, threatening Washington’s “rules-based order”.

But it is that very order that looks increasingly self-serving and discredited – and the foundation for a genocide being inflicted on the Palestinians of Gaza in broad daylight. 

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Featured image: Wounded Palestinian children, are taken to hospital after Israeli attacks in Khan Yunis, Gaza on December 23, 2023 [Belal Khaled/Anadolu Agency]

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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Israel’s appearance at The Hague last week to defend itself against South Africa’s charge of committing genocide in the Gaza Strip marked the most significant legal and diplomatic challenge to the country since its inception more than seven decades ago.

In a public hearing, South Africa’s legal team presented a solid legal document that outlined how Israel has breached the Genocide Convention during its three-month-old war on Gaza. More importantly, the plaintiff debunked Israel’s claim that its actions in Gaza were justified as self-defense in retaliation for Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, which South Africa had condemned. And finally, using the hateful rhetoric of senior Israeli officials, South Africa proved intent.

By the admission of international and even some Israeli experts, Israel’s attempt to debunk the charges against it was weak and unconvincing, considering the horrendous crimes its military has committed in the beleaguered Gaza Strip.

But Israel was not the only party on trial that day. The Western governments that have backed and justified Israeli actions with no regard for its documented breaches of international law were also present in the defendant’s corner, at least in spirit. Israel could not have carried out its genocidal war without the direct military and diplomatic backing of Washington, London, Paris, Ottawa, Berlin and the EU. These Western governments and bodies enabled Israel, both politically and physically, to carry out one of the most atrocious onslaughts on a civilian population since the Second World War.

Making things worse, these governments ignored the genocidal statements uttered on an almost daily basis by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top Israeli officials. They raced to deny charges that Israel was deliberately targeting civilians, destroying hospitals, universities, schools, mosques and churches, and applying a scorched earth policy in Gaza.

Washington and its allies rejected calls for a ceasefire, knowing full well that Israel was committing war crimes in Gaza, denying civilians access to aid, bombing hospitals and killing thousands of women and children. Despite the enormity of the killings and the scale of destruction, these governments shied away from criticizing, not to mention denouncing, Israeli atrocities.

Even when millions of people around the world saw videos of horrific and unimaginable Israeli war crimes against hapless Palestinian civilians — including the rounding up of displaced men and children, parading them half-naked in the streets of Gaza and then moving them to undisclosed locations — Western officials continued to justify Israel’s actions.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken described the genocide charges as “meritless,” while his British counterpart, David Cameron, said that the South African case against Israel was “unhelpful.” Germany stepped in to defend Israel at The Hague. This was happening while millions in the West marched in support of Palestine and denounced their governments’ complicity in the Gaza carnage.

While the world awaits the International Court of Justice’s response to South Africa’s request for a provisional ruling to stop the war until a final and binding verdict is reached, Netanyahu remains defiant, attacking the court, South Africa and any party that accuses Israel of committing genocide in Gaza.

A ruling on this case will test the integrity of the International Court of Justice and the credibility of the rules-based world order. The challenge for the judges is unprecedented. The defendant is Israel, the West’s closest ally — a state that has incredible political sway in the most influential capitals. The case is highly politicized. If Israel is ruled to have committed genocide, the case could then move to the International Criminal Court, where warrants for individuals directly or indirectly involved in war crimes and crimes against humanity can be issued.

If the court rejects the charge, what does that mean for international law and conventions? What would be the message the court would be sending to the rest of the world? And what would that mean for the more than 30,000 killed or missing, more than 60,000 injured and more than 1.8 million people displaced with no home to go back to?

This case is a watershed for the world as we know it and the future of international laws and conventions. Why? Because the West, led by the US, has for decades allowed Israel to be above the law and enabled it to carry out its crimes against the Palestinians with impunity. This policy would have continued if Israel had chosen a low-intensity response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. But Netanyahu and his far-right coalition, as well as a humiliated Israeli army, decided to decimate Gaza instead. This time, the crime was too big to cover up.

The reality is that Israel has long been a liability for the West, in particular the US, which has crowned itself as the world’s sole superpower and the defender of democracy and universal values since the 1990s. And while it took it upon itself to unilaterally dictate an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Israel-Palestine question, it looked the other way as Israel drifted to the far right under Netanyahu, destroying the two-state solution as it expanded illegal settlements, blockaded Gaza while appeasing Hamas at the expense of a weak and dysfunctional Palestinian Authority, armed and supported extremist Jewish settlers and carved up the West Bank.

Even before Israel launched its war on Gaza, its army and settlers had been attacking Palestinians in the West Bank on a daily basis, killing hundreds and arresting thousands. Washington and its allies ignored Israeli actions, even though each extrajudicial killing, each attack by the settlers and each home demolition was a breach of international law and the Geneva Conventions. Israeli war crimes, both in Gaza and in the West Bank, have been going on for decades. Western governments, using empty rhetoric, became apologists, then enablers and finally accessories to these crimes.

The West must make a choice, a hard but necessary one, in the wake of the unforgiving Gaza genocide. It can continue its collusion with the likes of Netanyahu, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich in the biggest crime against humanity this century, or it can tell Israel that it must become a normal state, one that abides by international laws and conventions, end its occupation, allow the Palestinians to have self-determination and pay for its crimes.

Otherwise, Israel will become a pariah state subject to global sanctions and liability. Allowing Israel’s impunity for so long has damaged the West’s credibility and is threatening the world order. Israel’s exceptionalism must end and it is up to the West to carry out that mission.

One other defendant on trial at The Hague is the Western mainstream media, which has failed terribly in its responsibility to cover the truth impartially and objectively. Social media has beaten the likes of the BBC, CNN, The New York Times, The Times of London and others at their own game. By ignoring the horrific reality in Gaza and by subscribing to Zionist propaganda in an attempt to mislead the public, they have done irreparable damage to themselves. They, too, stand as complicit in covering up war crimes and the catastrophic humanitarian conditions in Gaza. They stand discredited forever.

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Osama Al-Sharif is a veteran journalist and political commentator based in Amman. X: @plato010

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Ukraine’s mobilization problems are increasingly clear. The country no longer has enough young citizens to continue fighting, which is why it is calling on the older population. Currently, according to local officials, the average age of Kiev’s fighters is over 40 years old, which shows how the country is weakened and unable to continue fighting in the long term.

In a recent interview with Espresso TV, Aleksey Tarasenko, commander of the 5th Kiev Assault Brigade, admitted the critical data about the average age of Ukrainian soldiers. He stated that it is urgent to carry out new mobilization campaigns in order to enlist younger people, as there are a series of “problems” in recruiting old men.

“The military is eagerly awaiting fresh reinforcements because the situation in many units is critical in terms of personnel (…) Even those who do come often leave much to be desired. Mostly, these are men of a much older age with a multitude of problems that typically arise”, he told journalists.

According to Tarasenko, most of the previously recruited young Ukrainians are already “gone.” His arguments and data endorse the wing of the Ukrainian parliament that wants not only to call for a new total mobilization, but also to harden punishment for those who avoid conscription. The objective is to expand the number of young soldiers in order to refresh troops weakened after two years of intense frictions.

In December, President Vladimir Zelensky revealed a plan to call up 500,000 new troops. However, according to the governor of Nikolaev, Valery Kim, this number would also be insufficient, and there would be a need to recruit at least 2 million new soldiers for there to be any real change in favor of Ukraine on the battlefield.

In fact, the numbers seem unrealistic. Ukraine is unable to carry out new major mobilization campaigns because it has already lost more than 500,000 troops on the front lines. The Ukrainians who have not yet been mobilized are basically what is left in the country to occupy all the non-military roles – if they are called up, there will be a crisis in several sectors of Ukrainian civil society.

There is an effort by the country to resolve this problem through the repatriation of Ukrainians who fled abroad, but this is a complicated task. People fleeing wars are considered refugees, not mere migrants, according to international law, which makes it illegal for host countries to return these citizens to their homeland. Ukraine is unlikely to reach an agreement with Western countries on the topic, hoping only that the allied states will advise Ukrainians to voluntarily return to their nation.

All these facts create a kind of impasse for Kiev. The country is unable to continue fighting. What remains to send to the front lines are virtually only old men, women, teenagers and people with serious health issues. The majority of the young male population has already been decimated or fled the country, with a serious demographic problem caused by Kiev’s decision to take the war to its ultimate consequences.

The Ukrainian government, however, is not truly responsible for deciding whether to continue fighting or not. The regime’s sponsors have made it clear from the beginning that the war must continue until the last Ukrainian. Even now, when aid is beginning to decline due to increasing US attention to Israel, there does not appear to be an “authorization” for Kiev to stop fighting. Indeed, the neo-Nazi regime has agreed to work as a proxy for an alliance that is not concerned with the well-being and future of the Ukrainian people – and that does not have objections about annihilating the Ukrainian population just to try to “wear down” Russia.

Furthermore, it is necessary to remember that even if Ukraine manages to improve its recruiting numbers and send more troops to the battlefield, this will certainly not have any real impact on the final outcome of the conflict. The Russians continue to fight with only a small percentage of their real military capacity, with Moscow having abundant mobilization capacity. If Kiev increases the number of troops on the ground, Moscow will be able to call up more reservists and will have enough troops to carry out as many mobilizations as necessary – while Ukraine is more and more demographically incapable of carrying out new enlistments.

So, in the end, Ukraine only has two options left: continue on its suicidal path and cause even more irreversible damage to its own population, or act sovereignly, break with the West and accept Russian peace terms.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Lucas Leiroz is a journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant. You can follow Lucas on X (former Twitter) and Telegram. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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The Hamilton Coalition to Stop The War (HCSW) is planning to hold a rally in Hamilton demanding that Prime Minister Trudeau withdraw Canada from the US-led, Red Sea, naval coalition called Operation Prosperity Guardian and work instead to end the bombing of Yemen, Lebanon, and Gaza. This action is part of a growing movement among Canadians, alarmed at the prospect of a wider West Asian war, to achieve an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

Ken Stone, Treasurer of the HCSW, noted [in his letter to the editor published in the Hamilton Spectator on January 16^th, 2024] that

“The Houthi blockade of vessels in the Red Sea going to Israel was intended to put pressure on Israel to declare a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. In over two months, it didn’t take a single human life. Instead of bombing Yemen, a simple solution would have been for the USA to curtail arms and funding to Israel. Within days, Israel would have to agree to a ceasefire and negotiations towards the just, lasting, and comprehensive deal for Israel/Palestine that the UN has called for, for decades.”

Doug Brown, Coalition co-chair, added:

“Canada needs an independent foreign policy. We should get out of NATO, the aggressive US-led military alliance that drags us into every conflict of the US empire, including the wars in Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Ukraine, and the occupation of Haiti.”

He also pointed out that Operation Prosperity Guardian is illegal under international law as it lacks the approval of the United Nations Security Council and that neither PM Trudeau or US President Biden consulted their respective legislative bodies (the US Congress and the Canadian Parliament) before launching attacks on Yemen last week that took the lives of 5 Yemenis.

Picketers will gather outside the Federal Building in Hamilton at 55 Bay Street North on Saturday, January 20^th, at noon. In the event of inclement weather, the rally will take place at the same venue on Sunday, January 21^st, also at noon.

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Evidence Relating to NASA Moon Landings, Unexplained Flaws: What Is Reality? What Is Illusion?

By Mark Keenan, January 16, 2024

The NASA missions to the moon reportedly cost the US government, and thus the American tax payer, in the region of $2400 billion, yet all NASA have to show for it apparently is some moon dust and a few small rocks that they claim came from the moon.

“War Guilt” and the Complex History of Modern Warfare. The Renunciation of War in International Law. Dr. T. P. Wilkinson

By Dr. T. P. Wilkinson, January 16, 2024

At regular intervals the high representatives of the Allied Powers (West) congregate to commemorate the “kick-off” that led we are told to victory in Europe ending part of the hostilities in the Second World War.

What’s the Magic Number of Vaccines Needed for COVID?

By Dr. Joseph Mercola, January 16, 2024

As the number of people injured by COVID-19 shots rises, U.S. health officials continue to advise Americans to get more doses. Neither the U.K. nor Australia recommend repeated COVID-19 jabs for those who are under 65 and low risk. But in the U.S., official guidance suggests virtually everyone should get multiple COVID-19 shots, beginning at just 6 months of age.

South Africa’s ICJ Case: Israel’s Genocidal Intent Against the People of Palestine. The Political Arrogance and Indifference of Western Politicians

By Irwin Jerome, January 16, 2024

By day’s end of the opening salvos of South Africa’s serious charge of genocide being heard before the 15 senior chief justices of the International Court of Justice it would seem, at this initial opening point, to this writer at least, as an all but airtight case against the criminal genocidal intent of Zionist Israel’s government, and its racist settler-colonial project.

RFK Jr.’s ‘Unconditional’ Support for Israel Is Costing His Campaign for President

By Scott Horton, January 16, 2024

Many antiwar Americans were thrilled when Kennedy announced last spring that he’d be running against Joe Biden in this year’s primaries and that he’d hired former Democratic congressman Dennis Kucinich to be his campaign manager. But Kucinich quit in the middle of October.

Could Exclusive Evidence of Biden Crime Family’s Corruption Lead to Incumbent’s Impeachment?

By Drago Bosnic, January 16, 2024

The deepening political crisis in the United States is getting yet another plot twist. As per usual at this point, it’s not good news for the incumbent. Namely, his family’s long-running history of corruption and illicit activities keeps catching up to Joe Biden and his entourage.

Washington and London Make Mockery of International Law

By Abayomi Azikiwe, January 16, 2024

People in South Africa were subjected to more than three centuries of white minority destabilization, theft, domination and economic exploitation. During the course of the colonization of the territory by the British and the Boers from the 17th through the late 20th century, the African people organized themselves to remove the yoke of national oppression.

UK Quietly Expands Secret Spy Base Near Iran

By Phil Miller, January 16, 2024

A base for British spies near Iran has undergone major construction work over the last two years, Declassified has found. Satellite imagery shows a flurry of building work took place at a GCHQ site in Oman, a pro-British autocracy located between Iran and Yemen.

‘I Don’t Recall’: Fauci Unable to Answer Key Questions in Pandemic Probe

By Michael Nevradakis, January 16, 2024

On the first day of a two-day closed-door interview before the U.S. House of Representatives Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Monday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID), frequently evaded questions about gain-of-function research and the government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

China Repeatedly Tried to Block Taiwan from Giving Toxic COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines to Its Population

By Dr. William Makis, January 16, 2024

It is clear to me that China worked very hard to block Taiwan’s government from poisoning its own population (that China sees as its own) with COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines. They blocked the initial two doses for months while offering Taiwan freely donated SINOVAC COVID-19 Vaccines (whole inactivated virus vaccines).

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This interview was recorded on January 5, 2024. A  week prior to the ICJ Hearings (January 11, 12, 2024) 

 
Video: Interview of Michel Chossudovsky with Caroline Mailloux 

 

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South Africa has demanded that the ICJ  “issue an interim order for Israel to immediately suspend its military operations in Gaza.”

The issue of provisional measures under Article 41 is crucial. It is unlikely that meaningful provisional measures including the immediate suspension of Israeli military operations will be granted. And if it is granted by the ICJ, Israel will refuse to implement it.

What this suggests is that resulting from possible “pressures” (including bribes) on the 15 Judges of the ICJ, Israel (with the support of the US) will one able reach its goal of “Wiping Gaza off the Map” and excluding Palestinians from their homeland. 

The ICJ is under Washington’s Spotlight

South Africa’s initiative —which has a direct bearing on the planning of US-NATO military operations in the Middle East– will no doubt be the object of carefully designed (behind the scenes) acts of sabotage.

Let us be under no illusions, the U.S has firmly endorsed Israel’s criminal undertaking. It is a Israeli-US operation. 

The President of the World Court Was First Nominated by Hillary Clinton 

The President of the ICJ Joan E. Donoghue (who is currently chairing the Hearings) was a legal advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton under the Obama administration. 

She is a U.S. appointee. Hillary was involved in the nomination of Joan E. Donohue to the World Court in 2010.  

Joan Donague takes her instructions from Washington. The conduct of the genocide is a joint Israel-US endeavour. Nobody in the media has underscored the fact that the President of the ICJ is de facto  in “conflict of interest”: 

Video. Interview. The Criminalization of International Justice. Michel Chossudovsky

YouTube Version

Rumble Version 

 

Below:

Video of the closing Argument of South Africa (January 11, 2023), 

Followed by

The complete ICJ Hearings on January 11-12, 2024.

Israel’s presentation, Hearings on January 12, 2024

 

Michel Chossudovsky, January 12, 2024. Feature Interview, January 17, 2023

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Video: South Africa’s Closing Argument against Israel

Video: ICJ Hearings in The Hague. Opening Session. Presentation by South Africa

(Complete 3h.04min)

Click Screen to View the ICJ Hearings, January 11, 2024

 

January 12, 2023. ICJ Hearings. Presentation by Israel

Complete 4h.28 min

Click Screen to View the ICJ Hearings, January 12, 2024

 

 

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Introduction

At regular intervals the high representatives of the Allied Powers (West) congregate to commemorate the “kick-off” that led we are told to victory in Europe ending part of the hostilities in the Second World War.

They meet on the often-cold beaches of Normandy, the western coastal region of France from which William the Conqueror led his hordes to decimate what became Great Britain and establish the monarchy and aristocracy, which until the end of 1947 comprised rulers of the most extended imperial state in history.

There the successors to the temporary autocrats of the US, Britain and France, engage in ritual self-congratulation and insincere piety. The D-Day amphibious landing of some 150,000 troops of the combined British and American Empires on those windy shores provides their alibi. Since the end of the war against the Soviet Union in 1989, the former adversaries are no longer the targets of self-righteous rebuke. The total forces of on-going occupation have wholly reconstructed Germany and Italy in the image of the victors. Moreover the Eastern ally, if not shunned, has been repeatedly insulted on these occasions—at least since Vladimir Putin became head of the Russian Federation.

On or about 6 June 2024 will be the 80^th anniversary of what Western schoolbooks and Hollywood propaganda films tell us was the decisive blow against the NSDAP regime in the German Reich. The continuing war through Ukraine is beyond irony. Meanwhile the expected continuation of slaughter in Palestine will surely enhance the cynicism on those hallowed beaches. 

However the purpose of D-Day, the better late than never concession to the Soviet Union of a “second front” against Germany, has always been presented as evidence of the West’s magnificent contributions to defeating Germany for the second time in the 20^th century.

Subsequent Anglo-American occupation of first the rump Federal Republic and then the annexed Democratic Republic have assured that the Anglo-American history of the Second World War prevails in the culture of the vanquished. Even today to challenge that history in any public fashion can bring dire consequences. 

Critical historians have repeatedly called attention to discrepancies in the official history as well as the on-going revisionism with its denials.[1] While even the suggestion that this official history may be inaccurate or incomplete can incriminate the critic as a so-called “holocaust denier”, attempts by the Russian Federation to punish the glorification of the fascist era have been opposed with scorn by those who ostensibly fought on the same side. The revisionary process reiterates or elaborates the view that the Soviet Union and the NS regime in Germany were essentially the same.

The implication is that the Red Army defence of what was still the Soviet Union against German invasion was a crime while the collaboration of ultra-right wing Western Ukrainians with the German invasion—including formation of dedicated Waffen SS divisions like the Galizia—were heroic acts of national self-defence[2]. No later than 2014 this implication has been adopted as canonical history in the West, at least at governmental level.

The bureaucratic authoritarian bodies of the European Union have fostered this process with attempts to equate the Soviet Union with the NS regime or at least to attribute the war to the acts or omissions of the Soviet leadership under Joseph Stalin.

However if blatant distortions directed at the defunct Soviet Union and is successor, the Russian Federation, are relatively well known and openly controversial, there are numerous matters regarding the Second World War which still deserve some scrutiny.

Such scrutiny is not merely of academic relevance. The Second World War—along with its precursor the Great War—is the great sacramental myth upon which the Anglo-American Empire relies for its legitimacy, even among those who are either reluctant or embarrassed to accept it.

Then as now a central issue is the concept of “war guilt”. It may be argued that this moral or religious concept derives from that most formative of eras in Western history—the Crusades.

The Latin papacy, both for political and financial reasons, established the Christian doctrine of war for salvation of souls. The political reasons were obvious.

Expanding the Latin empire required more than mendicant preachers it needed “boots on the ground”. Rome’s coup against Constantinople could only be sustained by military means. Moreover the control over the trade routes that passed through Asia Minor required armed occupation. Hence the relatively under-populated peasant provinces had to be reaped for able bodies.

Preaching the Crusades—recruiting foot soldiers and raising money—was complementary to the papal derivatives market aka the trade in relics and indulgences. For all the cant about Islam and its holy wars, the Latin papacy established salvation through organized mass murder as a firm institution in Western culture, a curse with us even today. A salvation model needs sin and guilt from which one is to be saved in the first place. Hence it was probably a natural development that empires built on the exploitation of the salvation model of militarism would need a moral template by which to judge their victories and defeats. If the Great War was the culmination of Western imperial competition then it is hardly surprising that morality would reach a critical mass, leading to the infamous “war guilt” provisions of the Versailles treaties. 

Wherein could the “War Guilt” Actually be Found?

The diplomatic record, some of which has actually made its way into history books, shows that the French acted covertly to undermine German efforts to negotiate with the members of what became the Entente. The Wilhelmstrasse had successfully persuaded the Russian Empire to withdraw its general mobilization order and negotiate differences with Germany[3]. Thus the Schlieffen Plan for the invasion of France via neutral Belgium became an imperative for the German high command. The French government would have been forced to negotiate to avoid a war with an industrially and militarily superior German Reich. Even if this French subterfuge is conceded, German militarism is claimed as unimpeachable evidence for German war guilt. A disingenuous Australian historian reasserted the naïve claim that the war was no one’s fault but the result of “sleepwalking” in Europe’s foreign offices. This attempt to sidestep the “war guilt” issue is self-serving. Rather than openly confronting the chain of culpability and the exculpatory evidence in favour of the German Reich, the “sleepwalkers” thesis removes the culpability issue from the table under the pretext of dismissing the “war guilt” question entirely[4]. This question of war guilt cannot be properly addressed without first considering the fundamental change that occurred between the “long 19^th century” and the “short 20^th century”.

Political economist Michael Hudson summarized the “long 19^th century” in a very different way than its most noted proponent, British historian Eric Hobsbawm. While Professor Hobsbawm describes the “long 19^th century” as the evolution of liberal-enlightenment (somewhat democratic) values, Professor Hudson also following Marx describes it as the evolution of industrial capitalism toward socialism[5].

By that Professor Hudson described the direction of classical economics (also identified with the Enlightenment) as the struggle to eliminate the rentier or landlord class and its parasitic role in society[6].

Industrial adventurers would take capital and organize it in new ways together with labour to modernize society and provide goods and services appropriate to that modernization. Part of the surplus value would accrue to entrepreneurs but those resources which were natural, like land, water, air, minerals etc. would be developed as state monopolies so that the forces of production would drive society rather than the forces of extraction. This socialisation was in fact occurring despite the most vicious resistance by the landlord class and its ally the Church. According to Hudson, 1914 did not end liberal democracy but the drive toward socialism necessary for any kind of democracy, whether liberal or mass-based.

The Great War (1914-1918) and Its Aftermath

The Great War was not accidentally a war against Germany. It was a war launched against an increasingly efficient social-economic model that was out-producing the leading manufacturing country of the day and moreover delivering a higher quality of life to its citizens.

This war started however before 1914 through economic and cultural war against both the German Empire and Austria-Hungary. German militarism was fed by the successful efforts by those who controlled British and French finance to obstruct the Berlin-Baghdad Railway. Not unlike measures presently taken to impede the Belt and Road Initiative, every effort was taken to block a land route from Central Europe to East Asia that would bypass the British merchant marine and Anglo-French ownership of Suez—with all that control implied for international trade[7].

In 1914, like in 2024, free trade and freedom of navigation were reserved to the Anglo-American Empire and no one else. Absent realistic commercial or diplomatic channels to establish Germany’s access to the world economy, the intensification of military preparation could have been no surprise. However objectionable armed force is, Germany’s application of it was neither unique nor without justification. Guilt, termed liability in civil law, not only presumes intent but also the capacity to act otherwise.

The doctrine of force majeure or acts of God rebuts liability for acts performed under conditions the actor could neither foresee nor prevent. Hence official historians, as dedicated attorneys for the Establishment, must conceal or obscure evidence that an adversary was compelled to act or was denied any alternative to the act condemned.

The Second World War was a continuation of the British Empire—meanwhile all but formally amalgamated with the American Empire—to assure British domination of world trade and Britain’s exceptional status among nations. Rightly those summoned to Versailles to submit to further economic and social strangulation were to suffer the wrath of nationalists at home. Then as now, nationalists are evil if they are not one’s own. In the aftermath of this until then greatest known gratuitous mass slaughter of youth and manhood, the efforts to restrain competition and obstruct economic development led to the overthrow of the Romanov dynasty in the impoverished peasant empire of Russia.

The Communist Party under Vladimir Lenin began a massive socio-economic transformation. This revolution was necessarily built upon the wholly inadequate and failed tsarist infrastructure and bureaucracy; a fact Lenin admitted would be a major obstacle to the country’s modernization. However this revolution threatened the permanent debtor status, which the Romanov’s century-long pawning of Russia’s wealth and economic capacity had created. Thus there was every incentive for the same bankers and cartels to support the counter-revolution with the help of the US, Great Britain, the Czech Legion and Japan. The withdrawal from the Great War had aggravated the Anglo-French front. To prevent the default on the battlefield and in debt service, the international community (the banking community that is) induced the US to intervene on the side of the British and French just enough to save impending bad debts and to prevent a negotiated peace among equals.

Germany and the Interwar Period

Economic warfare against Germany continued under the various extortion treaties designed for the public imagination to “punish Germany” for its war guilt. Thus an attempt to overthrow the servile Weimar regime was defeated by Allied support to the German military and the assassination of critical leaders.

Not only were Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg murdered by forces friendly to the Allies. Officially, Walter Rathenau, son of the family that ran Germany’s AEG electricity group, was assassinated by a right-wing anti-Semite. Most probably he was murdered for his negotiation of the Rapallo agreement between Germany and the Soviet Union by which the former would supply industrial equipment in return for raw materials[8]. Even the circumstances of Rathenau’s murder bear an uncanny resemblance to another conspiracy, the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Franz-Ferdinand in Sarajevo[9]. The more one examines story of economic warfare, assassination and ethno-nationalist conspiracy, the more obvious it becomes that the Open Society Foundations, NED and Otpor merely modernized established British covert foreign policy toolbox. Historians, or those who pretend to this function, as well as journalists have long been key performers in the mass deception that perpetuates “good war” mythology and its dramatic climax, war guilt.

However prior to the Great War “war guilt” was not an essential part of the law of nations.

In fact, one of the consequences of the treaties signed in Westphalia ending the first Thirty Years’ War was to de-moralize it. By recognizing the authority of rulers to define the religious regime of their respective states, a significant step was taken away from the salvation model of warfare. By the 19^th century this could be captured in the dictum attributed to Carl von Clauswitz that “war is the continuation of policy with other means”. The realpolitik expounded in his classic Vom Kriege (1832) was a general’s assessment of the professional soldier’s role in his country’s public life. While it is understandable that a professional army officer would write about the relevance of armed combat in statecraft, this is not the same as preferring it to diplomacy or negotiated problem-solving. By withdrawing the religious or moralizing component war itself, von Clausewitz did not legitimate war as an amoral endeavour. Instead he placed the responsibility for morals and ethics on those who make state policy and hence decide whether it is to be pursued by force of arms. Thus the soldier is a servant of a moral or political order and not the one to define it. Any question of guilt or innocence has to be answered in the policy and those who make it not in the army per se. 

General Treaty for Renunciation of War

On 27 August 1928, in Paris, the representatives of the high contracting parties, including the United States of America, the United Kingdom (and its dominions), France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Belgium and Ireland, signed the General Treaty for Renunciation of War as an Instrument of National Policy, aka the Kellogg-Briand Pact. This much-ridiculed treaty, still an element of international law in force, ratified by the US and hence integrated into its national law, was remarkably simple.

Its main text comprised only two articles.

“Article I

The high contracting parties solemnly declare in the names of their respective peoples that they condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies and renounce it as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one another.

Article II

The high contracting parties agree that the settlement or solution of all disputes or conflicts of whatever nature or of whatever origin they may be, which may arise among them, shall never be sought except by pacific means.”

This treaty was signed, adopted, and ratified independent of other inter-governmental institutions such as the then extant League of Nations. Hence it became international law independent of any inter-governmental or supranational body. Its provisions were absorbed by the United Nations Charter but not superseded by it. By 1929 all the countries that were later to constitute the belligerents during the Second World War had ratified the treaty.

The Kellogg-Briand Pact transcended the realpolitik with which von Clausewitz and a century of militarism had been associated. Von Clausewitz removed the morality from the profession of arms and submitted it to the authority of the State rather than the generals. The 1928 treaty renounced that particular continuation of policy and created an obligation to negotiate and apply peaceful measures.

It is unnecessary to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of the treaty in preventing war. Even when the treaty was signed and ratified contemporaries saw it is empty idealism. There were neither enforcement nor penalty provisions. However such objections lead to the absurdities of the current UN system by which the dominant founding member arrogates the sole right to punish “breaches of the peace” by waging war against those accused. It did not take long for this to occur. The US abused not only its veto power but also every other diplomatic and economic measures to obtain Security Council approval of its 1951 invasion of the Korean peninsula. 

However before such blatant bullying and deceit were applied to protect the US coup d’etat in Seoul and plans for “rollback” in China, there was an even more insidious deceit.

“The Good War”

The “good war” has meanwhile been shown to be far less good than Hollywood or schoolbooks have told us for the past eighty years. The unambiguous battle by the “good” against the “evil”, while necessary to preserve the crusading spirit of the Anglo-American Empire, is full of inconsistencies beginning with the funding of the NSDAP paramilitary forces needed to suppress political opposition before the elections in which Hitler’s party established a minority government with the help of the Latin pontiff.

The formal abolition of the Zentrum ordered by Pope Pius XI eliminated the largest party in the German Reichstag and the only formal obstacle to Hitler’s appointment as chancellor. This detail is often omitted to support the erroneous assertion that the Germans elected Hitler.

Once the government had been formed and the Enabling Act adopted to eliminate constitutional limitations on the government’s power, there was no shortage of support from American and British cartels.

Well before the orders for Operation Barbarossa were given, Hitler’s government and rearmed military was being used as a cut-out for Britain’s war against the Spanish Republic. The minutes of Hitler’s meeting with Franco in Hendaye indicate that Franco appreciated Britain’s role in his victory while Hitler did not. 

Carroll Quigley credibly argued that there was no “appeasement” on the part of Neville Chamberlain in Munich. Quite the contrary, Chamberlain in his capacity as a member of the so-called Round Table group, was intent on delaying any confrontation with the German Empire that would direct its attentions to the West. Moreover the strategic negotiations that led to the absorption of the Sudetenland, the occupation of Czechoslovakia and the annexation of Austria were generally accepted as legitimate remedies to the wholesale territorial seizures resulting from Germany’s defeat in 1918. There can be no doubt that negotiating the amalgamation of German-speaking territories from the defunct Austro-Hungarian Empire was entirely consistent with the stated policy of the famous Wilsonian “Fourteen Points”.

These principles had until Munich never been applied to Germany or Germans. The subsequent portrayal of the Munich accords as surrender to an insatiable German dictator obscures Britain’s constant duplicity. At the same time it was conceding the legitimacy of German demands it was secretly encouraging the Czechs and Poles to oppose them, promising diplomatic and military support which never came. These features along the road to world war, while perhaps unfamiliar, are sufficiently incriminating to debunk British claims to innocence. Nonetheless claims to Germany’s “evil” role persist.

After years of suppression, testimony is emerging that supports the accusations that Franklin Roosevelt at least could have known that the Empire of Japan had planned and was undertaking an attack on America’s Hawaiian colony. Although Roosevelt was accused of deceit at the time of the attack, the story of the surprise and unprovoked Japanese aggression has remained the cornerstone of US history, not only of the Second World War but also for all its subsequent wars.

Pearl Harbor itself became a metonym for fiendish surprise by which any adversary of the US is denounced as evil—and popularly accepted as such. Despite the suspicions harboured for decades, official history has maintained the ex post facto argument that even if the POTUS had known about the pending attack on the Pearl Harbor naval station, the evil of the Anti-Comintern Pact regimes, usually known as the Axis, is self-evident[10]. Feigning surprise was “a good lie” for “a good war”. However that is doubly dishonest. First of all, the horrors of the Second World War were only acknowledged in their magnitude after the Axis had been defeated. Defenders of the “so what” thesis must attribute clairvoyance to the POTUS not merely good intentions. 

The “good lie” for the “good war” defence relies on two assumptions: one, the Anglo-American Empire was innocent of the cause of the war and two, it was genuinely surprised by the attacks that led to its participation in the hostilities. If the Anglo-American Empire was culpable in the start of the war, the element of surprise attack is deemed mitigating. In other words, the culpability accepted only extends to the part in real conflicts and controversies, not to the aggressive acts committed by Germany and Japan.

There is a technical issue, in itself minor, but if given due weight may also rebut the claims to innocence in causing the war. Here the much-maligned Kellogg-Briand Pact is quite relevant. The terms of the General Treaty oblige the parties to resolve problems by peaceful means and to renounce war. By alleging that one or more of the Axis powers committed surprise attacks the argument is made that it was the Germany or Japan which had breached its obligations under the treaty by failing to pursue negotiations in lieu of using armed force.

Here the actions of the Soviet Union take an entirely different colour than the one in which they are commonly depicted. The Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, has been denounced by the official histories and by many who considered themselves members of the Left, or even a communist party. This treaty has been almost universally condemned in the West. The Establishment points to it as proof for its “Hitler equals Stalin” equation. The Left beyond the orthodox Communist Party followers of the time, saw it as Stalin willing to appease Hitler at the expense of the international workers’ struggle against fascism—however defined. Yet US Ambassador Joseph Davies (from 1936-1938) was quite clear when he said that the Soviet government pursued negotiations with Germany while France and Britain were essentially arming Hitler to attack the Soviet Union[11]. Davies, who had no reason to defend either Stalin or the CPSU, was assessing the diplomatic cesspool of British and French foreign policy. 

War in the Pacific 

Meanwhile in the Pacific, where the US had expanded its empire in 1901 to include practically every island that was neither French nor British between San Francisco and Manila, the US consistently supported Japanese expansion into the Asian mainland. For his contributions to this feat Theodore Roosevelt was even awarded a Nobel Peace Prize—proof that the award had been debased long before it was given to Henry Kissinger. Later US Secretary of State Dean Acheson would even admit that one of his principal assignments in Foggy Bottom prior to 7 December 1941 was to direct economic warfare against Japan. The US within the context of its established geopolitical doctrine of Manifest Destiny, under the pretext of the Open Door, was determined to succeed all European powers as the dominant imperial force in East Asia[12].  The United States was pursuing a covert policy, which could have no other effect than to provoke hostilities with Japan. The US supported the transfer of German settlements in China to the Japanese Empire at the end of the Great War. This further eased Japanese conquest of Manchuria, a logical move after the US had brokered Japanese annexation of Korea.

The second phase of the Chinese Revolution had pitted the right wing of the Kuomintang (KMT) against its enforced partners the Chinese Communist Party. Chiang Kai-shek clearly understood that he had the backing of the US against the Communist Party in the same way that the British backed Franco.

Japanese invasion was barely opposed because Chiang saw the Japanese not unlike Hitler’s Legion Condor. Superior Japanese military force would help him to crush the Communists and reach an agreement with Japan for the benefit of his own party.

Both Mao and Chiang were aware of this role that the US and Japan were playing in China’s internal revolution.

US foreign policy and even war plans throughout the 19^th century anticipated the possibility of war with the British Empire, its only natural enemy. Nonetheless British tradition and education has long been the source of American foreign policy, diplomacy and duplicity. The New England elite, whether from Business or the Ivy League colleges, barely concealed their admiration for the British model of indirect rule and duplicitous, espionage-laden diplomacy. Using Japan as a wedge with which to dominate China risked the emergence of Japan’s own capabilities and interests. The Second World War would determine which country’s power would define the Asia-Pacific half of the world, for a while at least.

Already on the eve of the attack on Pearl Harbor there was at least one general officer on MacArthur’s staff who attempted to raise the alarm of a coming Japanese attack only to find that this was no surprise. Moreover, he apparently concluded that there was foreknowledge of which he was not privy. After the war, including three years in a Japanese POW camp, Edward P. King, Jr. wrote a memoir no one would publish in which he related his experience leading up to the attack. In Day of Deceit[13], Robert Stinnet documents what others have claimed but been unable to make heard.

The circumstances before, during and after the attack were so irregular they even deviated from the routines of peacetime naval duty. Leaving aside the suspicious circumstantial evidence that no efforts were made to prepare or execute adequate defence of the naval station, the key to the surprise myth relies on a technical issue which when discussed is minimized or obscured. The British and Hollywood have paraded the story of their cryptographic coup against the German Reich so that everyone has probably heard of Turing and ENIGMA. Less trumpeted is the fact that US Navy signals intelligence and the ONI had successfully broken Japanese ciphers and thus the US was able to monitor most of the imperial fleet’s cable traffic.

Even today we only know a fraction of the capacity of signals intelligence work since “national security” would be jeopardized were the extent of surveillance actually known. One need only ask Mr Snowden or consider the fate of Mr Assange to recognize how little we actually know about the cryptographic work of the Anglo-American Empire and its government agencies and privatized surveillance system.

However it is worth considering that both Germany and Japan were heavily exposed in what they apparently believed were coded communications. Since as has already been shown the Anglo-American Empire had targeted Germany and Japan long before the outbreak of hostilities they had worked very hard to incite, it is not far-fetched to imagine that the deciphering of Japanese and German communications was an on-going operation before 1939 or 1941. If the Anglo-American Empire was in full possession of meaningful, decrypted communications of its two primary adversaries, then it was also in a position to face those potential belligerents with diplomatic arguments for resolving the disputes at hand. Germany and Japan were both led by governments well aware of their relative weaknesses and material deficiencies in the event of war. They also knew that protracted war would exhaust their resources while their adversaries could rely on sources of supply practically immune from attack. There is no reason to believe that confronted with the exposure of their intentions and preparations they would have launched attacks that could not be surprises.

This leads to the question that remains relevant today. If the Anglo-American Empire was not surprised by attacks but merely feigned surprise then they knowingly provoked a massive world war that not only could have been averted by negotiation but which they were obliged by international law to avert. By inciting Germany and Japan to wage war against them and concealing the knowledge that would have forced all parties to aver armed conflict, they actively inhibited negotiations before the outbreak of hostilities.

Unlike the Soviet Union which demonstrably negotiated to the very end, not only with the regime in Berlin but with Berlin’s sponsors and promoters in the Anglo-American Empire, the Anglo-American Empire was in grave breach of its treaty obligations. As more honest historians and journalists have come to argue, the International Military Tribunal—only convened because the Soviet Union insisted on trials—should have included the British Empire and the United States of America in the dock, unindicted co-conspirators, for the breach of the peace and crimes against humanity they wilfully incited, in addition to those they perpetrated on their own account. Instead the crimes of “breach of the peace” derived from the Kellogg-Briand Pact were perverted, one might even say “encrypted” such that they continue to disguise the violations of the substance and the spirit of that noble act of modern diplomacy.

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Dr. T.P. Wilkinson writes, teaches History and English, directs theatre and coaches cricket between the cradles of Heine and Saramago. He is also the author of Church Clothes, Land, Mission and the End of Apartheid in South Africa.

Notes

[1] Among others Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States (1990), Jacques Pauwels, The Myth of the Good War and The Great Class War, reviewed by this author “’Romanticism and War’: Contextualizing a Theory of Interpretation”, Dissident Voice (15 September 2015). Although Zinn debunks much of the official World War 2 history in the US he completely omits – like many others- the Yalta agreements and the background they set for the Soviet Union in the post-war order. This is no doubt in part because Harry Truman repudiated the Yalta accords at the Potsdam Conference, a time when most people had no idea what had been agreed.

[2] Such was the “heroism” that the remainder of the Galizia division was packed from Italian POW camps and sent to Britain en masse at the end of the war from whence they spread throughout the Empire it seems.

[3] Metonyms for the various governments and foreign ministries: Wilhelmstrasse (Berlin), Quai d’Orsay (Paris), Foggy Bottom (Washington), Whitehall (London)

[4] See “Peculiar Admission in Award Winning Book” Dissident Voice (21 July 2014)

[5] Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes: The Short 20th Century 1914-1991 (1994)

[6] For articles, interviews, and bibliography of Professor Hudson’s political economic analyses see www.michael-hudson.com 

[7] Summarized in F. William Engdahl, A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order (2012)

[8] This story is told in Time Forward!, (Vremya, vperyod!), Valentin Kataev (1932) in English (1995)

[9] Markus Osterriede, Welt im Umbruch: Nationalitätenfrage, Ordnungspläne und Rudolf Steiners Haltung im Ersten Weltkrieg (2014)

[10] The term “axis” for the Anti-Comintern Pact, initially concluded between Germany and Italy and later including Japan, actually conceals the purpose of the Axis, one in which the Allies with the exception of the Soviet Union were entirely agreed. The Axis powers were explicitly agreed to combat the supposed expansion of the Soviet Union by means of the Communist International (Comintern).

[11] An important element of the treaty was the restoration of territory to each country that the Entente had allocated to the new Polish republic. Claims that this was conquest ignore the way in which the Entente imposed border and territorial realignments on Germany and the Russia (which was in the midst of civil war during most of the negotiations).

[12] For a thorough discussion of US imperial policy in the Asia-Pacific region see Bruce Cumings, Dominion from Sea to Sea: Pacific Ascendancy and American Power (2010)

[13] Robert B. Stinnet, Day of Deceit The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor (2001)

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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With shockingly little data, questionable benefits and a high likelihood of adverse events, the continuing campaign for COVID-19 shots raises many red flags

The documentary “The Unseen Crisis,” detailed by investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson, scratches the surface of the many lives ruined by COVID-19 shots

For every 1 million shots, an estimated 1,010 to 1,510 serious adverse reactions, such as death, life-threatening conditions, hospitalization or significant disability may occur — but only about 75 hospitalizations would be prevented among those aged 18 to 49

Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo has called for an end to the use of COVID-19 mRNA shots, citing concerns about DNA fragments in the products

The FDA provided no evidence that appropriate DNA integration assessments have been conducted on mRNA COVID-19 shots; in a statement, Ladapo says, “DNA integration poses a unique and elevated risk to human health and to the integrity of the human genome”

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Click here to view the video.

As the number of people injured by COVID-19 shots rises, U.S. health officials continue to advise Americans to get more doses. Neither the U.K. nor Australia recommend repeated COVID-19 jabs for those who are under 65 and low risk.¹ But in the U.S., official guidance suggests virtually everyone should get multiple COVID-19 shots, beginning at just 6 months of age.²

With shockingly little data, questionable benefits and a high likelihood of adverse events, the continuing campaign for COVID-19 shots raises many red flags. “The only clear winners are Moderna and Pfizer … they have convinced the CDC and the FDA that perpetual COVID vaccination is necessary without robust data,” writes Dr. William Ward in Sensible Medicine.³

The documentary “The Unseen Crisis,” detailed by investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson in the video above, scratches the surface of the many lives ruined by COVID-19 shots — and the ongoing efforts to keep their stories quiet. Meanwhile, Americans are expected to keep rolling up their sleeves, no questions asked.

Benefits and Risks of COVID-19 Shots Don’t Measure Up

After pushing multiple doses of COVID-19 shots on the American public for years, in September 2023 the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced the rollout of the updated 2023-24 COVID-19 shot. “CDC recommends everyone 6 months and older get an updated COVID-19 vaccine … Vaccination remains the best protection against COVID-19-related hospitalization and death.”⁴

While the updated shot boosts antibody levels against new COVID variants, there’s no proof that this translates to a reduction in severe illness and death. Further, the CDC’s estimated benefits from the updated shots were paltry at best. According to Ward, for every 1 million COVID-19 shots given in the following age groups, the following benefits were estimated:⁵

• 6 months to 4 years — Avoid 103 hospitalizations
• 5 to 11 years — Avoid 16 hospitalizations
• 12 to 17 years — Avoid 19 to 95 hospitalizations, five to 19 ICU admissions and “perhaps one death”
• 18 to 49 years — Avoid 75 hospitalizations

Meanwhile, randomized controlled trials estimate the risks of COVID-19 shots are much higher.⁶ For every 1 million shots, an estimated 1,010 to 1,510 serious adverse reactions, such as death, life-threatening conditions, hospitalization or significant disability, may occur.⁷ When compared to the flu shot, data from the European Medicines Agency Eurovigilance Database shows that COVID-19 shots cause more:^8,9

A real-world case-control study from Israel¹⁰ also revealed that the Pfizer COVID-19 jab is associated with a threefold increased risk of myocarditis,¹¹ leading to the condition at a rate of 1 to 5 events per 100,000 persons.¹²

As Ward points out, the CDC often states the risk of myocarditis is greater after COVID-19 infection than COVID-19 shots, but a JAMA Cardiology study refutes this. It found a higher rate of myocarditis in young men after a COVID-19 shot compared to COVID-19 infection.^13,14 But by ignoring the real risks while continuing to push ongoing shots, health officials are quickly losing the public’s trust. Ward notes:¹⁵

“A large randomized trial to simultaneously evaluate the ongoing harms and benefits of boosters should be enacted. This was not required by the FDA for the newest vaccine. Instead, the FDA only required Pfizer to study the new vaccine on 10 mice. Moderna only studied theirs on 50 humans. One person (2%) had a serious adverse reaction.

… As the only country pushing boosters to healthy 6-month-old infants, we better produce the best data in the world. Instead, we get antibody titers from 10 mice. The CDC and FDA are whittling away at public trust by forgoing their duty to protect and inform. Meanwhile, their recent actions are aligned with the financial interests of Pfizer and Moderna. Consent to perpetual COVID boosters is not informed, it is manufactured.” 

Past COVID Boosters Quickly Stopped Boosting

The updated COVID-19 shot targets the XBB.1.5 Omicron subvariant, which was the dominant strain in the U.S. for much of 2023. However, this strain “has since been overtaken as the virus continues to evolve,”¹⁶ raising questions about whether the “updated” shots are already out of date, which could render them ineffective, as we’ve seen many times in the past with flu shots and COVID-19 shots.

Even the CDC states, “When flu vaccines are not well matched to some viruses spreading in the community, vaccination may provide little or no protection against illness caused by those viruses.”¹⁷ SARS-CoV-2 is known to mutate rapidly, even faster than other human viruses like influenza.

Remember the last round of “updated” COVID-19 shots — the bivalent booster? They’re no longer available. “The 2022–2023 bivalent vaccines were designed to protect against the original virus that caused COVID-19 and the Omicron variants BA.4 and BA.5. These vaccines were replaced with the 2023-2024 updated vaccines that more closely target the XBB lineage of the Omicron variant,” according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.

At the time, there were questions about the bivalent boosters’ effectiveness. While Pfizer cited strong antibody responses from its retooled boosters, the booster shot studies did not reveal whether the shots prevented COVID-19 cases or how long they were effective.¹⁸ Even vaccination proponent Dr. Paul Offit, director of the vaccine education center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, was underwhelmed.

As a member of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC), Offit sat in on the June 28, 2022, presentation, when Pfizer and Moderna presented data on their bivalent shots:¹⁹

“The results were underwhelming. Bivalent boosters resulted in levels of neutralizing antibodies against BA.1 that were only 1.5 to 1.75 times as high as those achieved with monovalent boosters. Previous experience with the companies’ vaccines suggested that this difference was unlikely to be clinically significant.”

Soon, data rolled in showing the bivalent boosters did not offer better protection than the former COVID-19 booster shots,²⁰ which were already failing.²¹ Steve Kirsch, executive director of the Vaccine Safety Research Foundation, pointed out that the data is crystal clear that boosters aren’t working and are dangerous.

“Paul Offit is no dummy; he’s not getting any more boosters,” he says. “Neither should you.”²² Yet, here we are a year later, being sold another promise that another round of “updated” COVID-19 shots is necessary.

Florida Surgeon General Calls for Halt on COVID Shots

Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo has called for an end to the use of COVID-19 mRNA shots, citing concerns about DNA fragments in the products.²³ In a December 6, 2023, letter sent to the U.S. FDA and CDC, Ladapo outlined findings showing the presence of lipid nanoparticle complexes and simian virus 40 (SV40) promoter/enhancer DNA.

“Lipid nanoparticles are an efficient vehicle for delivery of the mRNA in the COVID-19 vaccines into human cells and may therefore be an equally efficient vehicle for delivering contaminant DNA into human cells. The presence of SV40 promoter/enhancer DNA may also pose a unique and heightened risk of DNA integration into human cells,” according to a news release from the Florida Department of Health (DOH).²⁴

In a 2023 preprint study, microbiologist Kevin McKernan — a former researcher and team leader for the MIT Human Genome project²⁵ — and colleagues assessed the nucleic acid composition of four expired vials of the Moderna and Pfizer mRNA shots. “DNA contamination that exceeds the European Medicines Agency (EMA) 330ng/mg requirement and the FDAs 10ng/dose requirements” was found.²⁶

So, in addition to the spike protein and mRNA in COVID-19 shots, McKernan’s team discovered SV40 promoters that, for decades, have been suspected of causing cancer in humans, including mesotheliomas, lymphomas and cancers of the brain and bone.²⁷ Fact checkers have called out the preprint study for using expired vials, but as McKernan tweeted:²⁸

“Factchokers keyboards will melt as they regurgitate the same fake taking [talking] points. 1) vials were old Wrong- newer studies used good vials. RNA integrity was measured and fine. Expired vials were used on people. Expiration doesn’t spontaneously generate DNA.”

Further, the FDA published guidance on DNA in vaccines in 2007, which outlines important points that must be considered. According to the Florida DOH, the FDA’s 2007 guidance states:²⁹

• “DNA integration could theoretically impact a human’s oncogenes — the genes which can transform a healthy cell into a cancerous cell.
• DNA integration may result in chromosomal instability.
• The Guidance for Industry discusses biodistribution of DNA vaccines and how such integration could affect unintended parts of the body including blood, heart, brain, liver, kidney, bone marrow, ovaries/testes, lung, draining lymph nodes, spleen, the site of administration and subcutis at injection site.”

FDA Didn’t Perform DNA Integration Assessments

The FDA responded to Ladapo’s letter on December 14, 2023, but provided no evidence that appropriate DNA integration assessments had been conducted on mRNA COVID-19 shots. In a statement, Ladapo calls for a halt in their use as a result:³⁰

“The FDA’s response does not provide data or evidence that the DNA integration assessments they recommended themselves have been performed. Instead, they pointed to genotoxicity studies — which are inadequate assessments for DNA integration risk. In addition, they obfuscated the difference between the SV40 promoter/enhancer and SV40 proteins, two elements that are distinct.

DNA integration poses a unique and elevated risk to human health and to the integrity of the human genome, including the risk that DNA integrated into sperm or egg gametes could be passed onto offspring of mRNA COVID-19 vaccine recipients. If the risks of DNA integration have not been assessed for mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, these vaccines are not appropriate for use in human beings.”

Ladapo, a graduate of Harvard Medical School, previously issued an alert about a “substantial increase” in reports of adverse events from COVID-19 mRNA shots in Florida. He also recommended against COVID-19 shots for healthy children in 2022 and, in 2023, suggested that those under age 65 should not get COVID-19 booster shots.³¹ Board-certified internist and cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough states:³²

“The Florida State Surgeon General’s announcement today is a milestone as more government officials join a chorus calling for recall of COVID-19 vaccines including myself (US Senate, multiple State Senates, EU Parliament, UK Parliament), 17,000 physicians representing the Global COVID-19 Summit, Australian scientists, the World Council for Health, and the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.”

In the meantime, considering their questionable effectiveness and significant health risks, it would be wise for most to “just say no” to further boosters. Should you develop symptoms of COVID-19 infection, remember there are safe and effective early treatment protocols, including I-MASK+³³ and I-MATH+,³⁴ which are available for download on the COVID Critical Care website in multiple languages.

*

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Notes

^{1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 13, 15} Sensible Medicine January 3, 2024

² U.S. CDC, Updated COVID-19 Vaccine

⁴ CDC September 12, 2023

⁶ Vaccine. 2022 Sep 22;40(40):5798-5805. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2022.08.036. Epub 2022 Aug 31

⁹ Front Public Health. 2021; 9: 756633

^10, 12 The New England Journal of Medicine August 25, 2021

¹¹ MedPage Today August 25, 2021

¹⁴ JAMA Cardiol. 2022;7(6):600-612. doi: 10.1001/jamacardio.2022.0583

¹⁶ Reuters October 12, 2023

¹⁷ U.S. CDC, Vaccine Effectiveness: How Well Do Flu Vaccines Work?

¹⁸ Drugs.com June 27, 2022

¹⁹ The New England Journal of Medicine January 11, 2023

²⁰ bioRxiv October 24, 2022

²¹ The New York Times February 11, 2022

²² Substack, Steve Kirsch’s newsletter, January 13, 2023

^{23, 24, 29, 30} Florida Health January 3, 2024

²⁵ The Healthcare Channel May 22, 2023

²⁶ OSF Preprints April 10, 2023

²⁷ Expert Rev Respir Med October 2011; 5(5): 683-697

²⁸ X (Twitter), Kevin McKernan January 3, 2024

³¹ Children’s Health Defense January 3, 2024

³² Courageous Discourse January 3, 2024

³³ FLCCC Alliance I-MASK+ Protocol

³⁴ FLCCC MATH+ Hospital Protocol

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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The government of South Africa’s legal team has now completed the first day of the damning serious of genocide against the Palestinian people that it has leveled against Israel’s Government. 

By the evidence so far presented, at this early stage in the proceedings, one could characterize the evidence of Israel’s actions in regard to its -ill-treatment of the Palestinians, as being those of a pack of mad dogs that continues to be waged by Zionist Israel’s Likud Party, its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and, collectively, Zionist Israel’s IDF military forces, and forever-expanding Zionist immigrants, from everywhere in the world, who, more and more, desire to become citizens of its bizarre settler-colonial national project. A project that only allows Jews to become citizens of Israel, while continuing, with impudence, to ruthlessly commit genocide against the human and civil rights of the Palestinian people’s right to continue to exist as a people and nation to remain in their ancient homelands. 

So far, this one’s views of the facts, thus presented by the proceedings of the ICJ court, reminds him of what such a similar court would have sounded like, and the facts would have shown, had it been convened to adjudicate, say, what the United States, Canada’s and Australia’s own original racist, genocidal settler-colonial projects would have sounded like in the 16th, 17^th, 18^th, 19^th  centuries, up to the 20^th, century’s, and even present-day 21^st century’s, brutal impact their own racist, genocidal, settler-colonial ‘projects’ would have had upon the indigenous peoples they came in contact with;

likewise desiring, as they did, to utterly destroy, murder, pillage, exterminate them and all their civilizations that they decided they, too, had to exclusively have for themselves, and so, once-and-for-all, likewise utterly killed, removed, eliminated them from getting in the way of their own lust for whatever more empire; as in this present case before the ICJ, of Ersatz Israel. One wonders if the ICJ can be, or will be, any more open and impartial towards the ultimate fate of the Palestinian peoples and nation of Palestine than were any other courts of previous centuries in other places?

The Composition of the International Court of Justice

On December 29, 2023, the Republic of South Africa instituted proceedings against the State of Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) concerning alleged violations by Israel of its obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in relation to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and requested the ICJ to indicate provisional measures.

The International Court of Justice, also called the World Court, is one of six principal organs of the United Nations. Located in The Hague in the Netherlands, the ICJ was established in 1945 following the dissolution of the Permanent Court of Intl Justice.

It settles disputes between states in accordance with international law and gives advisory opinions on international legal issues. The ICJ is the only international court that adjudicates general disputes between countries, with its rulings and opinions serving as primary sources of international law. All member states of the UN are party to the ICJ Statute and may initiate contentious legal cases; however, advisory proceedings may only be submitted by certain UN organs and agencies.

The ICJ consists of a panel of 15 judges elected by the UN General Assembly and Security Council for nine-year terms. The current members of the ICJ are:

• President – Judge Joan E. Donoghue from United States of America;
• Vice President – Judge Kirill Gevorgian from Russia;
• Judge Peter Tomka from Slovakia;
• Judge Ronny Abraham from France;
• Judge Mohamed Bennouna from Morocco;
• Judge Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf from Somalia;
• Judge Xue Hanqin from China;
• Judge Julia Sebutinde from Uganda;
• Judge Dalveer Bhandari from India;
• Judge Patrick Lipton Robinson from Jamaica;
• Judge Nawaf Salam from Lebanon;
• Judge Iwasawa Yuji from Japan;
• Judge Georg Nolte from Germany;
• Judge Hilary Charlesworth from Australia, and;
• Judge Leonardo Nemer Caldeira Brant from Brazil

Details of South Africa’s Case Being Put Before the ICJ

By day’s end of the opening salvos of South Africa’s serious charge of genocide being heard before the 15 senior chief justices of the International Court of Justice it would seem, at this initial opening point, to this writer at least, as an all but airtight case against the criminal genocidal intent of Zionist Israel’s government, and its racist settler-colonial project.

The damning evidence thus far presented to the ICJ about the basic bizarre nation-building nature of Israel’s settler-colonial project already suggests to this writer what could easily be referred to as a ‘mad dog’ Zionist genocidal project of Israel’s government against the Palestinian people and state of Palestine; who, clearly, appear intent upon removing the Palestinian people, in toto, from their native homelands.

The White Man Always Speaks with a Forked Tongue

This writer’s many life experiences with traditional indigenous peoples, wherever he has met up with them in the world, have taught him the same lesson, if no other, that have steadily come through their stories and accounts of their relations with non-indigenous, Caucasian societies who, by the time they had met them, they’d become divorced from many of the fundamental things of what it really means to remain close to one’s people and ancient lands they hold to be sacred, that the white people they’ve had to deal with don’t necessarily do. Namely, always stay close to the lands of your heritage and people and only ever try to tell the truth about all things. 

Which is why this one has often heard the expression used, universally, by indigenous peoples many times about their dealings with non-indigenous people with whom they’ve come in contact, They always say the phrase, with a rueful smile, “The White Man Always Speaks With A Forked Tongue.”

No sooner had the first day’s proceedings of South Africa’s case of genocide against Zionist Israel concluded when the newspaper’s hit the streets full of related commentary. So far, the results are an old indigenous reminder about snakes speaking with forked tongues, and birds of a feather always flocking together.

Canada, itself, currently is engaged in five cases at the ICJ, and purports to pay lip service to its support for the ICJ, yet the fact, as it’s already stated, after only the first day of the ICJ’s hearing of the facts in Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians, that it already has gone on record of not necessarily supporting the genocidal claims being leveled against Zionist Israel.

Where Does the US and Canada Stand on Zionist Israel’s Genocide?

“The charge of genocide are unfounded and meritless”, immediately intoned U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, from of all places, an Israeli government podium in Tel Aviv; while the U.S. Security Council spokesman, John Kirby, immediately fired back from the hip and quipped, “Meritless, Counter-productive and without any basis in fact, whatsoever.” 

Canada and the United States leaders and governments, since the beginning of their own racist, genocidal settler-colonial projects have, since their very inceptions, been opposed to anything similar to South Africa’s charges against Zionist Israel now before the attention of the ICJ. So, no doubt, would the governments of every Western nation that ever rushed into the New World to claim their piece of its lucrative pie that originally were the many indigenous peoples sacred homelands they sought to protect and care for, in perpetuity, before it was stolen from them as the Palestinians homelands have been stolen from them. 

The $64,000 question that South Africa now has put before the ICJ and asked it to deliberate upon is whether or not Israel’s brutal conquest and murderous actions it has taken, and continues to take, against Palestine and Palestinians, though it may in fact be genocidal, is just a reflection of the bestial, primitive make-up of Homo sapiens, that never will appreciably progress, or evolve beyond in any meaningful way?

Even a Blind Man Can See that the Facts Speak for Themselves

Even a blind man or woman, listening to the world’s nightly news since Oct 7, can see that what is happening to innocent Palestinian men, women, teenagers, young children, infants and new born babies is a disgusting, reprehensible insult to humanity; a travesty against the very sacredness of life itself that continues as these very words are being written or repeatedly spoken.

Yet, during the opening day of South Africa’s hearing before the ICF, the world heard Israel’s Likud leaders and Zionist Israel’s, themselves, refer to there being no such thing as any so-called innocents in Gaza, West Bank or the Gaza Strip, only the guilty who are deserving of their slaughter, because they are all equally guilty of their support for the Hamas government they democratically, in a UN-monitored, election voted for because they would be brave and strong enough to represent them and protect them in the face of all their Zionist aggressors who otherwise declared them to be nothing more than “human animals”, as guilty and deserving of slaughter as their Hamas protectors.

The bald-faced arrogance and cold indifference that now Canada and the United States leaders have shown towards the plight of the Palestinian peoples is despicable beyond what words can convey. In another, more perfect, honest, real world of truth and justice, they would immediately be recalled, made to stand down, and horse-whipped within an inch of their lives, by those who elected them to office.

What Will be the Ultimate Verdict of the ICJ’s 15 Judges

It should be patently-clear by the initial responses so far made to the press by Canada and the United States leaders, their elected House of Representatives and members of Parliament, that the vast majority of them already have been all but muzzled and told what to say or what not to say about the ICJ’s hearing of Israel’s genocide; while the vast majority of all the rest are already in the pockets of Israel’s Lobby, AIPAC, and its hydra-headed reach into every aspect of political-religious-ideological life in North America, if not the world.

The ICJ, in its history, has never yet so judged any country in the world to be responsible for genocide when, in fact, as every man, woman and child in Palestine, as well as their counterparts everywhere else in the world, if they’re not already dead, or as a dumb as a sack of hammers, that the likes of all the Trudeaus, Bidens, Blinkens and rest of the AIPAC’s puppets will do exactly as they’re told.

No matter how horrific and blatantly-obvious will be the facts revealed, monstrous statements heard or unequivocal proof given of genocide so cited to the ICJ, the result will be a forgo conclusion.

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The writer Jerome Irwin is a Canadian-American writer who originally was a Criminology student working in one of America’s local police departments. For decades, Irwin has sought to call world attention to problems of environmental degradation and unsustainability caused by a host of environmental-ecological-spiritual issues that exist between the conflicting world philosophies of indigenous and non-indigenous peoples.

Irwin is the author of the book, “The Wild Gentle Ones; A Turtle Island Odyssey” (www.turtle-island-odyssey.com), a spiritual odyssey among the native peoples of North America that has led to numerous articles pertaining to: Ireland’s Fenian Movement; native peoples Dakota Access Pipeline Resistance Movement; AIPAC, Israel & the U.S. Congress anti-BDS Movement; the historic Battle for Palestine & Siege of Gaza, as well as; the many violations constantly being waged by industrial-corporate-military-propaganda interests against the World’s Collective Soul. The author and his wife are long-time residents on the North Shore of British Columbia.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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This is the movie we wish we didn’t have to make. But this is a movie everyone needs to see. For the first time ever, hear the stories of Covid shot deaths as told by the parents who lost their children.

Hear from the families brave enough to speak up and admit that the shot killed their children.

Hear from the ones who have refused to keep quiet.

We all know that there are so many who have sold out to pharma, denying that their loved ones were hurt or killed by the shots.

But there is no amount of money or threats that can keep these parents from speaking truth in honor of their children…and so this doesn’t happen to one more child.

A We The Patriots USA Original Production, Produced and Directed by Teryn Gregson, Filmed and Edited by Jason and Avery Kabrich of Not Sheep Media

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***

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s staffers keep resigning.

Many antiwar Americans were thrilled when Kennedy announced last spring that he’d be running against Joe Biden in this year’s primaries and that he’d hired former Democratic congressman Dennis Kucinich to be his campaign manager. But Kucinich quit in the middle of October.

At the beginning of November, Kennedy’s field team, led by former California congressman Dana Rorabacher’s wife Rhonda, quit too.

Then in December, Kennedy’s foreign policy and veteran’s affairs adviser James R. Webb, Marine Corps veteran of Iraq War II and son of the former senator, also resigned. Webb said it was in disgust over Kennedy’s stance on Israel’s ethnic cleansing campaign against the Palestinians of the Gaza strip, and his preposterous justification: that U.S. troops in Iraq War II fought with similar rules of engagement as the IDF is currently fighting under in Gaza, using “collective punishment” against civilians. 

Webb noted to Kennedy in his resignation letter that:

“[F]ollowing Mr. Kucinich’s departure in mid-October, the campaign’s message on core issues, particularly national security and war, has changed. …

“I felt compelled to let you know that your positions on [the Gaza war] are costing you a large amount of support from voters and mine, as 70% of voters between the ages of 18–34 disapprove of Biden’s support for the conflict.”

Regarding Kennedy’s justifying the IDF’s rules of engagement by citing Iraq, Webb wrote that this, “is a historically inaccurate moral equivalency that no one who honorably served in Iraq will agree with you on, and none of whom will support you.”

Another marine veteran and supporter close to the campaign sent a private letter to Kennedy after hearing of Webb’s resignation, and furnished a copy to me, saying:

“[L]ike James Webb, your perceived absence of empathy for Palestinian civilians has profoundly affected my enthusiasm and willingness to work on your behalf. …

“I’m begging you to see this, Bobby, you can’t win without fully harnessing the energy of passionate volunteers like James and me.” 

Bobby Jr. could have been a contender, instead of a bum, which is what he is. 

The trouble started when Kennedy praised former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters who was being canceled in Germany at the time. Informed by Israeli partisans that Waters is on their enemies list due to his support for the Palestinians, Kennedy immediately threw the singer under the bus, cravenly deleted his praise, and through a surrogate declared Waters a “vicious anti-Semite” — which is preposterous. This was bad enough.

But then someone got footage of Kennedy speculating about whether COVID-19 was “ethnically targeted” to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Asians. So to make up for this massive, self-inflicted blunder and show he was not racist against Jews, Kennedy decided to prove it by showing how much he hates Palestinians instead.

Like Winston Smith’s humiliation at the end of George Orwell’s 1984 when regime torturer O’Brien fits a rat cage to the protagonist’s face, Kennedy cried,

Do it to the Palestinians! Not me! I don’t care what you do to them. Tear their faces off, strip them to the bones. Not me! The Palestinians! Not me!

He claimed, absurdly, that the Palestinian Authority will pay a bounty to Palestinians to “kill a Jew anywhere in the world.” That was bin Laden and al Qaeda, not Mahmoud Abbas, that asked people to kill Americans and Jews everywhere, and they weren’t paying per hit.

It was RFK Jr. himself who was putting innocent Jews at risk with this despicable lie he wielded in an attempt to protect himself.

Since then he has doubled down, claiming Palestinian children are all “being raised as serial killers.”

Kennedy has been reciting pollster Frank Luntz’s talking points line by line, justifying demolitions of Palestinians’ homes and claiming that in its post-October 7th war, “Israel is doing more right now to protect human life” and praising the IDF’s “unique moral approach” to war.

But the Wall Street Journal compares Gaza to Dresden and Tokyo in World War II while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has invoked those massive incendiary bombing raids against the Third Reich and Imperial Japan as precedent for his current rampage.

As Arnon Soffer, the architect of Israel’s “disengagement policy” said, there are too many Palestinians, so the Israelis “will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day.”

Kennedy picked the worst time to sell out to a foreign nation, as the IDF itself boasts they’ve built a “mass assassination factory,” deliberately bombing so-called “power targets,” including journalists, society leaders and their families. He dismisses all Palestinian civilian deaths — the supermajority of all deaths in the war, even according to Israeli officials — as simply being “human shields” whose lives are somehow then presumed to be forfeit.

Kennedy also ignores numerous statements by Israeli officials declaring their intent to cleanse the Gaza Strip of all or most Palestinian civilians, by killing or transferring them all to other countries. The Times of Israel says Netanyahu is negotiating to ship them all off to the Congo, presumably to toil in the cobalt mines — or maybe Rwanda or Chad will take them?

Just as more than 20,000 Gazans are being blown apart or buried alive in the ruins of their homes, as Israeli forces target highrises, schools, hospitals, mosques, churches and refugee camps, and torture detainees, RFK Jr. even claims that “The Palestinian people are arguably the most pampered people by international aid organizations in the history of the world.” He was referring to the aid they live on, when they can get it, because they have no national economysince they live under foreign military occupation.

Despite claiming to have been there, Kennedy clearly has no idea what he’s talking about, referring to “Palestinian settlements within Israel,” when describing Palestinians living in what is left of their territory under Israeli occupation and constant settlement expansion, as though they are the ones colonizing the Israelis. 

He claimed the Palestinians could have had independence in 1948 when Golda Meir actually made a secret side deal with the king of Jordan to prevent that state, and in 2001 — he meant 2000 — but that is still false as demonstrated by author Clayton Swisher and the admissions of Israeli diplomat Shlomo Ben Ami. Then we are to somehow conclude, even if Kennedy’s framing were correct, that 24 years ago was rightfully the Palestinians’ last chance and they can never again claim a right to self-determination.

Soon Kennedy is doing an event hosted by notorious Israeli partisan Rabbi Shmuley Boteach well as Miriam Adelson, widow of Sheldon Adelson, the major donor to Netanyahu and Donald Trump who bought Trump’s decisions to move the embassy to Jerusalem, recognize the seizure of the Golan Heights and hire John Bolton to be his national security adviser.

Kennedy’s most important supporters are turning away from him as he demonizes the worst-off people in the world while they’re being annihilated in a self-defeating attempt to fulfill his own ambitions.

And now he’s running as an independent, so who cares anyway?

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Scott Horton is director of the Libertarian Institute and author of Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism.

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***

Below is the carefully-researched analysis of Mark Keenan based on his book entitled Fake Moon Landings and the Lies of NASA.

In recent developments, A US Spacecraft was involved in the First American Attempt to Land on the Moon in More than 50 Years. 

“Doomed … on Collision Course with Earth”?

Reported by The Independent: 

“The private mission by Pittsburgh-based space company Astrobotic, dubbed Peregrine Mission One, set off from Earth last Monday [ January 8, 2024] and was scheduled to land on the lunar surface on 23 February.

But a fuel leak sealed its fate, and about 30 hours after launch the company admitted the spacecraft had “no chance” of achieving a soft landing on the Moon.

In its latest update on the spacecraft, the firm said it was “on a path towards Earth” and that it would “likely” burn up on re-entry.

Click here to read the full article on The Independent.

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Introduction

Actors are suspended on wires from the top of the corridor and the camera faces up – this stops the audience of seeing the trick of how this is done. The camera looks up at the actor and it looks like the actor is floating down the corridor in zero-gravity. The wires are then edited out of the video using CGI technology.

Note that video footage from inside the International Space Station (ISS) also has this corridor-like setting. The picture below is a screengrab of video footage from the ISS. The quality is not premium, but you can clearly see the corridor-like appearance of the setting in the picture below. Furthermore, in this case, it can be clearly seen that wires are connected to the ISS actor (AstroNOT) who is wearing a harness. As he stoops over, his clothes are seen protruding in two locations where two wires are suspending him. 

Click here to watch the video on Youtube.

It appears that this is one of the various mistakes NASA have made in their live video feeds from the ISS. You are unlikely to find such videos via searches on the mega-corporate-owned plaforms, such as google, Facebook, twitter etc., as all the major platforms utilse algorithms to decide what information will be presented to you, and what will not be presented.

However, over the decades many people have downloaded such videos. As the saying goes “the cat is out of the bag” – NASA has been lying to us. Such corporate media censorship has also been the rife in relation to the fake Covid-19 pandemic and the climate CO2 hoax. For more details see the books No Worries No Virus and Transcending the Climate Deception – Toward Real Sustainability.

Augmented Virtual Reality Technology – It Becomes Difficult to Discern What Is ‘Real’ and What Is Actual Computer-generated Image (CGI) Video

It also appears that virtual reality technology has advanced so much we have now entered a time in which space agencies, such as NASA, will be able to produce very realistic looking CGI, and few people will be able to tell the difference between ‘real video’ and ‘computer-generated imagery’ illusion. NASA, by the way, receives funding of over $60 million per day from the US Government/US taxpayer[10] and can certainly afford the latest virtual reality technologies. According to the research presentation[11]: 

“In 2012, NASA got tired of faking weightlessness by using the zero G plane and started soliciting companies that specialize in real-time augmented virtual reality… so they could fake weightlessness and floating objects in real-time… They found a company called Telemetrics… and our (US) Government has a contract with these people… in Telemetrics, basically what they do is they bring broadcasts together in real-time and they are able to create sets, cities, anything you want in a virtual reality world and make it look absolutely 100% real… here we see (on the Telemetrics website the news statement): “Telemetrics provides latest camera robotics technology to NASA’s government television at mission control”. Why do you need to fake virtual reality sets at mission control in Johnson Space Center? I think we know the answer to that when we saw Tim Peake on the grided blue screen.”

The Request for Information from the Johnson Space center displayed below, states “John Space Center (JSC) is hereby soliciting potential services for… advance human-computer interfaces… the services are currently provided under the Intelligent Automation Systems Services contract… in support of the Software, Robotics, and Simulation Division (SRSD) at JSC.”, and is listed on www.spaceref.com[12].

If you watch the video referenced in Endnote 11 through to the end you will see clear examples of the augmented virtual reality technology not working correctly, and the ISS actor is ‘seen’ in the livestream footage to be grabbing objects in the video that are not actually there. In this example, a virtual reality glove is used to grab objects that are seemingly floating in real space, but ‘in reality’ these objects are not real, they are virtual reality objects overlayed onto the actual video feed.

The resulting video presentation looks quite ridiculous and these type of glitches in the ISS presentations are a clear indication of the virtual reality hoax. Videos of these glitches and mistakes have become difficult to find via internet searches. However, it appears there is a time coming with this technology when most of us will not be able to tell the difference between what is real video and what is CGI fabricated illusion. 

Furthermore, there are documentary videos available online exposing NASA’s use of blue screen technology to fake the activities onboard the ISS[13]. Additionally, via television programmes we are regularly informed of various phenomena, such as images from the Martian surface, transmissions from a space probe as it travels the solar system, newly discovered planets, black holes, etc. Yet the only evidence we have for any of this is what NASA tells us.  

The Ancient Vedic Texts State It Is Impossible for Human Kind to Physically Travel to the Moon

Many people realize that NASA have been lying about landing on the moon and that it was just a TV show – after this realization, why would you believe a single-thing NASA tell us about space and the universe we live in? 

The ISRO’s 26 Kg moon rover is called Pragyaan (a Sanskrit word for wisdom). However, based on the dubious evidence ISRO have provided, I also do not think it is ‘wise’ to accept ISRO’s moon landing claims. Given the significant publicity the event received in the corporate-owned news networks, many people in India and worldwide, have been celebrating ISRO’s moon landing, yet, others are cognizant that the ancient Vedic texts (often associated with ancient India) describe that it is impossible for humankind to physically land on the moon.

I note below the writings of A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada, a famous spiritual leader and scholar who translated many of the Vedic texts from Sanskrit to English. Srila Prabhupada rejected reports of the NASA 1969 moon landings stating “they never went to the moon planet”, and in relation to the so-called moon rocks that “It is simply cheating. They found this in Arizona… and laboratory work.”. He also stated:

“The sputniks or the so-called man-made planets made of mechanical arrangements will never be able to carry human being in the inter-planetary outer space. Even they cannot go into the so much advertised moon.” – Srila Prabhupada

[Aside: Srila Prabhupada is regarded as a saint and acharya in the tradition of Vedic Vaishnavism in a line of disciplic succession from Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, who lived in the 15th-century. Vedic Vaishnavism is a process of devotion to God. Srila Prabhupada was born in Calcutta, India, and founded the modern-day Hare Krishna movement in 1966.]

Fake Moon Landings – Part of a Paradigm of Godless Fake Science

Furthermore, the ancient Vedic texts describe the current time in human history as ‘Kali-yuga’ – a time dominated by large-scale illusion, cheating, lying, and demonic pursuits.  In this current Kali-yuga society there is much fakery and deception. Yet, to challenge the mainstream narrative is almost unthinkable for the ‘connected’ masses hypnotized by the mainstream mega-corporate media and scientific orthodoxy peddling fake science.

For more information about the overall agenda and why such large-scale well-funded deception exists in current society please also see my books: Godless Fake Science and Fake Moon Landings and the Lies of NASA and CO2 Climate Hoax – How Bankers Hijacked the Real Environment Movement. In addition, the Covid-19 fake pandemic was another engineered deception in which mega-corporations sold billions of vaccines. As I described in my book No Worries No Virus, for people that have for decades placed their faith in mainstream corporate-media to realise and fully accept that Covid-19 was a fake pandemic is almost impossible. 

In the book Godless Fake Science I describe that much of the scientific narrative we have been taught from our school days onwards, is based on falsehood, and that the institution of ‘science’ itself has in many ways been hijacked by financial interests seeking to advance their own narrative and agenda.  For the past many decades, what many believe to be science is actually paid promotional narratives and ads by trillion-dollar industries that make up their own science. This includes many sectors such as climate science; the fake Covid-19 pandemic; the biopharmaceutical sector; and neo-Darwinian evolution. Modern science, like economics, banking, and corporate-owned mass media, has become part of a paradigm borne by deceit, and corporate greed; and which paints God out of the picture.  

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Mark Keenan is a former scientist at the UK Government Dept. of Energy and Climate Change, and at the United Nations Environment Division. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is author of the following books available on amazon.com:

• Transcending the Climate Change Deception Toward Real Sustainability
• CO2 Climate Hoax – How Bankers Hijacked the Real Environment Movement
• Godless Fake Science
• The Lies of Green Politics and How the Green Party Betrayed the People of Ireland
• No Worries No Virus
• Transcending the Covid-19 Deception
• Demonic Economics and the Tricks of the Bankers
• Fake Moon Landings and the Lies of NASA

Donate for Mark’s articles here via Paypal.

Notes

[1] Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11_missing_tapes

[2] For example, a video titled: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdQHKf48Mfw

[3] Sources:

https://krishna.org/proof-of-faked-apollo-footage/

http://krishnatube.com/video/1502/Make-Believe-NASA-Moon-Missions-Part-1

http://krishnatube.com/video/1505/Make-Believe-NASA-Moon-Missions-Part-2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pXW7rROu54

https://krishnatube.com/video/1502/make-believe-smoke-mirrors-part-1-apollo-moon-hoax-proof-vfx-analysis/

[4] Source: https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_2159.html

[5] Source: https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/Collections/Composites/

[6] Sources: https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/viirs-globe-east.html

https://sos.noaa.gov/catalog/datasets/polar-orbiting-aqua-satellite-and-modis-swath/

[7] Source: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/apollo-8-earthrise 

[8] Source: http://www.zephaniah.eu/index_htm_files/Hoax%20Earthrise%20Photos%20Released%20by%20NASA.pdf

[9] Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjQx9wI4y9w

[10] Source: https://www.space.com/biden-nasa-2022-budget-request-science-artemis

[11] Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPCP5n37JwE&feature=youtu.be

[12] Source: https://spaceref.com/status-report/nasa-jsc-software-robotics-and-space-systems-services-request-for-information/

[13] For example, a video titled NASA uses Virtual Reality technology to fake ISS crew on video

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The deepening political crisis in the United States is getting yet another plot twist. As per usual at this point, it’s not good news for the incumbent. Namely, his family’s long-running history of corruption and illicit activities keeps catching up to Joe Biden and his entourage. During his political career, spanning over half a century, the current US president never really had any solid ground or loyalty (ideological, political or otherwise), apart from the one to himself and his controversial family. Joe Biden’s rapidly deteriorating mental health has only exacerbated his continuous fall out of grace, despite his administration’s efforts to keep him on “political life support”. According to 2020 election statistics, Biden is the most popular president in US history, which is extremely difficult to believe when taking into account just how unpopular he’s been throughout his career, whether as a senator since the 1970s or vice president in the Obama administration.

His political career has indeed been a “Gordian knot”, but any attempt to “untie” it (let alone cut it as Alexander the Great did) has been an exceedingly dangerous endeavor. Namely, American federal institutions, ever so endearingly dubbed “The Swamp” by former president Donald Trump, are directly complicit with the Biden crime family, as the US is effectively an oligarchy in which political families such as the Obamas, Clintons and others effectively dominate in these institutions. The so-called “Big Business” (just like the “Big Tech”) has long-term interests in the American government and this class of people effectively owns most of the political elites in Washington DC. Thus, high-level corruption has essentially become an axiom there. What’s more, the entire lobbying system in the US can be described as a form of legalized (and even state-sponsored) corruption, but that would require an entirely separate analysis, so we won’t be digressing.

In this particular case, we will be dealing with the Biden crime family’s illicit activities in Ukraine, a country that has been hijacked precisely by the likes of Obamas, Clintons and Bidens back in 2014. It should be noted that the scale of corruption scandals involving top-ranking American officials goes back years, with Joe Biden himself even bragging about getting Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin fired for investigating his son’s criminal activities in Ukraine.

However, this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the sheer magnitude of the Biden crime family’s illicit activities in Ukraine. The latest and probably most exclusive set of revelations about this came in an interview that the reputable Italian American journalist Simona Mangiante Papadopoulos had with Andrii Derkach, a former Ukrainian parliamentarian known for exposing the Bidens. The so-called “independent fact-checkers” usually try to discredit him as a “pro-Russian figure”.

In a relatively similar manner to Viktor Shokin (who was even a favorite of the infamous neocon warmonger Victoria Nuland), Derkach “stirred up the hornet’s nest” by revealing Joe Biden’s criminal activities from 2014 to 2017.

At the time, Biden was one of the top-ranking officials in the Obama administration. Ever since he “dared” to reveal his findings to the public, Derkach has essentially disappeared from the media and political life. He even had to leave Ukraine, as the US pushed for his persecution, with the Neo-Nazi junta even stripping him of his citizenship. Mrs. Mangiante Papadopoulos managed to get an interview with him in Minsk, during which he revealed exclusive information about the threats to his life and those of other key witnesses, court documents, political persecution, FBI undercover agents, etc. Derkach’s investigation also incriminated the Clintons, another infamous Washington DC oligarchic family.

Back in 2021, in the middle of an investigation into the Biden family’s criminal activities, Derkach and the main prosecutor investigating the Burisma case, Konstantin Kulik, were targeted for assassination. The Ukrainian police identified an Albanian hitman who was sent to the Transcarpathia region, from where he was supposed to get to Kiev and eliminate Derkach and Kulik. Information about these individuals was leaked, leading to their escape from Ukraine. What’s more, Derkach even mentioned a meeting Zelensky had with US State Secretary Antony Blinken, where the latter directly demanded that Derkach should be “dealt with” or else Washington DC and its partners would do so themselves. In order to leave Ukraine for his own safety, Derkach was forced to move around the country for six months before finally departing. He also stated that his long-time friends and political connections are the only reason he’s alive and well.

Derkach also went into greater detail regarding the money laundering in Burisma, directly implicating the Biden crime family. In order to cover up these cases, Derkach and his associates were formally charged, so the Kiev regime could imprison them and “deal with the issue”, as Blinken demanded. Derkach also stated that the previously mentioned Shokin (the one Biden got fired) is effectively a hostage of the SBU, used as a bargaining chip between the Neo-Nazi junta and the Biden administration. According to Derkach’s revelations, Shokin’s elimination is currently under consideration, as he could be a key witness in an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden. Interestingly, Derkach also claims that Zelensky and his associates directly contributed to the distribution of the Biden-Poroshenko tapes that reveal key information about the Burisma case. He posits that this was done for political reasons, giving Zelensky a crucial headstart in his rivalry with Poroshenko.

What’s more, half a dozen high-ranking SBU officers were instructed to provide assistance in uncovering Poroshenko’s corruption. It’s important to note that Zelensky’s motivation to investigate this matter was purely political, driven by his desire to take power in Kiev. Considering the political climate in Ukraine, Derkach himself said that the people of Ukraine are essentially hostages of the Neo-Nazi junta that views them as nothing more than mere serfs who are to be exploited. According to Derkach, the only way for Ukraine to survive is to “release the hostages” (in other words, to liberate Ukraine from those who highjacked it) and then deal with terrorists/highjackers. He also touched upon the fact that Ukraine has effectively been turned into a concentration camp where people (including both men and women) are forced to stay in and then be used as cannon fodder in NATO’s decades-long crawling aggression against Russia.

Interestingly, Derkach even named the people directly responsible for the bloodbath and the demographic collapse of Ukraine, directly accusing Biden, Blinken, Nuland, Zelensky, Poroshenko and “the rest of the organized crime group“, as he (rightfully) called the individuals who effectively created the post-Maidan Ukraine. He then goes on to reveal exclusive information about the Burisma dealings and the involvement of state courts under the Kiev regime’s control, as well as their involvement with the US/NATO terrorist attack on the Nord Stream pipelines. Derkach also drew attention to the escalation of assassinations and assassination attempts on a number of public figures in Russia, insisting that this is being done by the people closely associated with the Biden crime family and others directly involved in their power structure in Ukraine. Despite the ongoing persecution, Derkach still seems determined to continue his anticorruption work.

Namely, he mentioned that the Biden administration and its stooges in Ukraine are engaged in terrorist activities that also spill over to other countries, including Russia, a nuclear-armed superpower whose intelligence services are certainly aware of the US/NATO-backed terrorist activities on its territory. This also includes the covert undermining of Belarus, where George Kent, current US Ambassador to Estonia (previously deeply involved in the Burisma case while he was an employee of the US Embassy in Kiev), is instructing Washington DC’s puppet Svetlana Tikhanovskaya. Derkach directly accused Kent of being crucial to the destruction of his country. Derkach also mentioned his own work with Rudy Giuliani and the fact that the FBI even sent its Ukrainian assets to spy on him over this cooperation in order to prevent additional revelations about the Biden crime family’s corruption. As a result, Giuliani was targeted by the FBI and the Deep State to ensure he was discredited.

Expectedly, the mainstream propaganda machine spearheaded this smear campaign, both as a way to protect Biden and hurt Trump. Derkach and Giuliani were soon accused of being “Kremlin agents”, which is effectively a political death sentence in the US, as well as a direct one in the case of Derkach who was targeted for assassination.

The US government even imposed sanctions on Derkach for investigating the Biden family’s criminal activities, meaning that federal institutions are not only controlled by the Washington DC oligarchy, but are also breaking American laws in doing so. However, as Derkach himself said, given the state of the rule of law in the US, it’s simply impossible to expect a fair and lawful trial there. He even admitted that he was naive to believe he could achieve justice by working with Washington DC and that the US would actually uphold the law. As Derkach said, democracy (in the US) is not the power of the people, but the Democratic Party.

When asked what was his motivation regarding these revelations, Derkach said that his goal was not to get Biden impeached, but to do his job – fight corruption in Ukraine. He mentioned that he and his associates are essentially being persecuted precisely for this purpose, as the truths they uncovered are extremely uncomfortable for the Biden administration and the Deep State. Derkach also explained how the GUR (Kiev regime’s military intelligence) and its US handlers are working on covering up America’s terrorist attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines by using Roman Chervinsky as a scapegoat. He also explained that the Neo-Nazi junta frontman Volodymyr Zelensky broke the Ukrainian Constitution by destroying the Supreme Court, meaning that he illegally took away the basic human rights of all Ukrainians and that he should be prosecuted for war crimes and crimes against the people and the state.

Derkach then went on to explain that this “concentration camp called Ukraine, formed under the guise of democratic values” is being used as a blueprint for the future power structure organization in the European Union.

He also called the Kiev regime a “fascist dictatorship that’s destroying its own people”. In his concluding remarks, Derkach called the Russians, Belarussians and Ukrainians one people, which is an “unforgivable crime” for the Neo-Nazi junta and its US/NATO overlords whose only goal is to use Ukraine as a springboard against Russia, while its people’s role in all this is that of a cannon fodder and a resource for absolute exploitation. He also condemned the persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the unpunished crimes against the faithful in the country. When asked what are his hopes for ending the Ukrainian conflict, he explained that this corrupt symbiotic relationship between the Biden administration and the Kiev regime is making it impossible to accomplish peace.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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In oral arguments before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague on January 11, the Republic of South Africa presented evidence aimed at halting the genocidal policy of the State of Israel against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.

The following day Tel Aviv presented its rebuttal to the accusations brought before the Court by the African National Congress (ANC) government.

A lawyer for the State of Israel, who was a British national, claimed that the lawsuit brought by South Africa was flawed and that there was no evidence of genocide carried out against the people of Gaza. However, it is highly unlikely that a ruling party such as the ANC of South Africa would not understand the important issues embodied within the legal claim against the settler-colonial State of Israel.

People in South Africa were subjected to more than three centuries of white minority destabilization, theft, domination and economic exploitation. During the course of the colonization of the territory by the British and the Boers from the 17th through the late 20th century, the African people organized themselves to remove the yoke of national oppression.

It was under the tutelage of British imperialism that the colonization of Palestine took place during the 19th and 20th centuries. The British played a critical role as well in the advent of white minority rule in what became known as the Union of South Africa. This settler-colonial model was not confined to the continental regions of Africa and Asia, the indigenous peoples of North and South America, the Pacific Islands, the Caribbean and Central America were severely impacted by the imperatives of imperialism to dominate the resources and labor of the majority of the world’s population.

The Balfour Declaration issued by a British Foreign Secretary in 1917 in the midst of World War I was utilized partially to justify the creation of the Zionist state in 1948. This entity could not have been established or sustained without the support of the leading imperialist states including the United Kingdom and the U.S. Over the last 75 years the West Asia region has been marked by social turmoil, dislocation and continuing warfare as a result of the machinations of imperialism.

Since 1948, the Zionist state and its backers in Washington and on Wall Street have encouraged and facilitated the expansion of settler-colonialism in the region. This foreign policy is implemented through the generous financing of the military and security apparatuses of the State of Israel. Not only does the government in Tel Aviv occupy Palestinian territories the Zionist state has occupied the Golan Heights in Syria since 1967 and remains on lands in Southern Lebanon known as the Shebaa Farms, which Washington recognizes the authority of Tel Aviv over these stolen areas.

South Africa Challenges Supremacy of Zionist Impunity

In its opening salvos against Tel Aviv the legal team of South Africa focused on the statistics accumulated by the Palestinian Health Ministry, the World Health Organization (WHO) and other humanitarian agencies illustrating clearly the negative impact of the bombing and land invasion by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) on the indigenous people in Gaza. Since October 7, at the time of the opening arguments in the Hague, more than 23,000 people had been killed in Gaza.

In addition to the deaths and injuries, public institutions, hospitals, schools, universities, mosques, churches and neighborhoods have been destroyed as a direct result of IDF military actions. The administration of President Joe Biden has continued to send thousands of tons of weapons to the IDF so they can intensify the genocidal onslaught in Gaza. Therefore, the entire population of the Gaza Strip, approximately 3.2 million, remains imperiled.

In the complaint advanced by lawyers for the South African government, Al Mayadeen emphasized:

“Advocate Adila Hassim who opened the arguments said, ’South Africa contends that Israel has transgressed Article II of the (Geneva) Convention, by committing actions that fall within the definition of acts of genocide. The actions show a systematic pattern of conduct from which genocide can be inferred. Hassim outlined the extent of death and destruction inflicted by the Israeli army upon the Palestinian population. ‘For the past 96 days, Israel has subjected Gaza to what has been described as one of the heaviest conventional bombing campaigns in the history of modern warfare. Palestinians in Gaza are being killed by Israeli weaponry and bombs from air, land and sea, Hassim said.” 

These are facts which cannot be justified under the guise of self-defense. Israel can in no way claim that it is defending itself when its action has been aggressive not just since October 7, the settler-colonial state has remained racist entity since its founding in 1948. Leading figures in the Palestinian national liberation struggle are still being assassinated by the security forces in Israel and its ally in the U.S.

Moreover, the occupiers and aggressors cannot be placed morally or politically on the same level as the oppressed suffering from forced removals, detentions and high rates of injuries and deaths. The siege under way will only worsen the situation prevailing among people living in Gaza, already considered the largest open-air prison in the world.

Al Mayadeen points out in the same previously quoted report that:

“Vusi Madonsela, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of South Africa to the Kingdom of the Netherlands, concluded South Africa’s submission by saying that: ‘In our application, South Africa has recognized the ongoing Nakba of the Palestinian people through Israel’s colonization since 1948, which has systematically and forcibly dispossessed, displaced, and fragmented the Palestinian people, deliberately denying them their internationally recognized, inalienable right to self-determination, and their internationally recognized right of return as refugees to their towns and villages, in what is now the State of Israel.’” 

Not only does the South African complaint at the ICJ against the State of Israel lay out an indictment of the settler-colonialists based upon the actual history of Palestine. The lawsuit makes a series of demands designed to provide immediate relief to the plight of the people negatively impacted by the settler-colonial system.

Like South Africa under the apartheid regime up until 1994 when the ANC under former President Nelson Mandela came to power, the entire system of governance is based upon racism, national oppression and institutional racism. The similarity in the historical trajectory between apartheid and modern-day Zionism provides a clear understanding of why a democratic South Africa has taken the plight of the Palestinians to the World Court.

Al Mayadeen goes on to note as it relates to the claim filed against Israel:

“He went on to list the measures requested by South Africa, which included, inter alia:

• the immediate suspension of Israel’s military operations in and against Gaza;
• that any military or irregular armed units take no steps in furthering the military operations referred to before;
• both South Africa and Israel to take reasonable measures within their power to prevent genocide;
• as well as Israel being requested to submit a report to the Court on all measures taken to give effect “to this Order within one week, as from date of this Order, and thereafter at such regular intervals as the Court shall order, until a final decision on the case is rendered by the Court, and that such reports shall be published by the Court.

They are also at immediate risk of death by starvation, dehydration and disease as a result of the ongoing siege by Israel, the destruction of Palestinian towns, the insufficient aid being allowed through to the Palestinian population, and the impossibility of distributing this limited aid while bombs fall. This conduct renders essentials to life unobtainable.

Hassim referred to Israel’s first evacuation order on October13, which required the evacuation of over 1 million people including children, elderly, wounded and infirm.

She said, ‘Entire hospitals were required to evacuate, even newborn babies in intensive care. The order required them to evacuate the north to the south within 24 hours. The order itself was genocidal. It required immediate movement, taking only what could be carried while no humanitarian assistance was permitted… It was clearly calculated to bring about the deliberate destruction of the population.’”

Yemen Bombing Unjustified Under International Law

Russia and China, two permanent members of the UN Security Council, have condemned the bombing of Yemen by Washington and London. The rationale for this military assault by imperialism is to suggest that the U.S. and UK are attempting to keep trade routes open for international participation.

Nonetheless, the horrors of genocide supersede the flow of global commerce. The Yemen Ansar Allah Movement is justified in taking actions in response to the slaughter of Palestinians on a daily basis in the Gaza Strip.

Rather than join the governments of South Africa and Yemen by expressing solidarity with the Palestinians, the U.S. and Britain are in fact enabling the mass dislocation, injury, underdevelopment and murder of an oppressed people. This is the reasoning behind the attacks on Yemen. As imperialist states both countries want to maintain the status quo by ensuring the continuing containment, expulsion and eventual elimination of the Palestinians.

The legal action taken by South Africa is a reflection of the sentiments of the millions of people around the world who have rallied and marched in solidarity with Palestine since October 7. It will be these social forces which will undoubtedly determine the actual outcome of the struggle for justice and independence in Palestine.

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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of the Pan-African News Wire. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from the author

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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A US spacecraft involved in the first American attempt to land on the Moon in more than 50 years is headed back down to Earth, its maker said.

The private mission by Pittsburgh-based space company Astrobotic, dubbed Peregrine Mission One, set off from Earth last Monday and was schedueld to land on the lunar surface on 23 February.

But a fuel leak sealed its fate, and about 30 hours after launch the company admitted the spacecraft had “no chance” of achieving a soft landing on the Moon.

In its latest update on the spacecraft, the firm said it was “on a path towards Earth” and that it would “likely” burn up on re-entry.

“Our latest assessment now shows the spacecraft is on a path towards Earth, where it will likely burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere,” Astrobotic posted on X, without sharing much information on when the re-entry is expected to happen.

“We have been evaluating how best to safely end the spacecraft’s mission to protect satellites in Earth orbit as well as ensure we do not create debris in cislunar space,” the company said in a blog post on Monday.

Click here to read the full article on The Independent.

See also Mark Kennan‘s detailed and carefully documented article entitled:  

Evidence Relating to NASA Moon Landings, Unexplained Flaws: What Is Reality? What Is Illusion? Global Research, January 16, 2024

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Featured image: Peregrine being rolled out to Space Launch Complex 41 atop a Vulcan Centaur on January 5, 2024 (From the Public Domain)

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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A base for British spies near Iran has undergone major construction work over the last two years, Declassified has found. Satellite imagery shows a flurry of building work took place at a GCHQ site in Oman, a pro-British autocracy located between Iran and Yemen.

The site is likely to be playing a key role in a region where Britain seeks to counter Yemen’s Houthi movement and Iranian authorities. Both are opposed to Western support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Houthi leaders have vowed to blockade Israeli-linked shipping in the Red Sea until Benjamin Netanyahu stops attacking Palestinians. On Tuesday night, the Royal Navy shot down Houthi drones in the Red Sea with UK defence secretary Grant Shapps saying yesterday to “watch this space” for possible strikes in Yemen.

Britain has 1,000 troops stationed across Oman where GCHQ operates three surveillance sites. These include one on the south coast near the city of Salalah, 75 miles from Yemen. Codenamed Clarinet, it was revealed in the Snowden leaks of 2014. 

Declassified published the first photos of Clarinet in 2020, showing its golf ball-style radome, similar in size to some seen at other GCHQ sites. More recent satellite imagery shows extensive construction work within the site’s 1.4km perimeter. 

Two new buildings have been constructed, with foundations laid for another pair. The largest of the new builds has a footprint the size of six tennis courts and appears to be multi-storied. A GCHQ spokesperson said in response to our findings: “We’re not able to comment on operational matters”.

Click here to drag button left to see new buildings

Undersea Cables

Nautical charts confirm Clarinet is located at one of the few points in Oman where submarine cables come ashore. These must be marked on charts to prevent ships fouling them with anchors. They carry fibre optic internet cables between continents, allowing GCHQ to hack into online traffic from around the globe.

A new 10,000km communication pipeline, the Oman Australia Cable, is being laid between Perth and Salalah. Initially billed as a commercial project led by an Australian firm, Subco, it has since emerged that the cable goes via the US/UK military base on the Indian Ocean atoll of Diego Garcia.

The US military paid $300m for the cable to be diverted via Diego Garcia, in an operation codenamed Big Wave. Diego Garcia is part of the Chagos Islands, whose indigenous community was evicted by Britain in the 1960s to make way for the US base, in exchange for a discount on nuclear submarines.

The base was a key staging ground for American forces attacking Iraq and Afghanistan, with the Pentagon expected to use it in the event of war with Iran. Installing the fibre optic cable means the base will no longer rely on satellite connections to communicate with the shore.

Perth, a city in western Australia which hosts the other end of the cable, has also become increasingly geostrategic. Last year Britain acquired permission to base some of its nuclear-powered submarines at the port, as part of the controversial AUKUS pact. It will allow the Royal Navy to stage more frequent underwater patrols near China.

Click here to drag button left to see new buildings

GCHQ in Oman

Driving east out of Oman’s third largest city, the highway from Salalah is flanked with palm trees. Traffic turns right at Maamoura roundabout, funnelling cars between a sprawling royal palace and the vast Razat army base. A mile down the tarmac road is an entrance to a dirt path, guarded by concrete blocks and a police checkpoint. 

Most drivers will ignore it and carry on along the coastal carriageway, perhaps stopping at Hawana aqua park or Rotana beach resort. But the select few that turn off here will arrive at an unmarked facility, distinguished by its towering radio masts and giant white golf ball. 

Recently labelled on Google Maps as 94 Omantel, it is more than just part of Oman’s state-owned phone company, which is known to be used as cover for spies. According to US intelligence files leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden, a facility matching this description is Clarinet – where British spooks are harvesting data from millions of internet users across the Persian Gulf.

Although Snowden shared the leak with the Guardian, it did not publish details of GCHQ facilities in Oman. GCHQ went into the media outlet’s London office to supervise the destruction of the files. The information was only later revealed by investigative journalist Duncan Campbell, on an IT news website, The Register.

For Omanis, it confirmed what many already suspected: Britain’s intelligence services are enmeshed in their country’s security apparatus, a tool that often turns its gaze inwards on them as much as it monitors adversaries. 

Repression is the norm in Oman, where all political parties are banned and independent media is muzzled. Oman is ranked 155th out of 180 countries on the latest world press freedom index published by campaign group Reporters Without Borders. 

Oman is effectively Britain’s best vassal state in the region. Its own intelligence agency was created by British officers, staffed with GCHQ veterans and run by someone on loan from MI6 until 1993. Originally called the Oman Research Department and later renamed the Internal Security Service, it is commanded by the Royal Office.

That’s run by General Sultan bin Mohammed al-Naamani. He has done well for a civil servant, buying a £16m mansion in Surrey from former England football captain John Terry. In 2021, protests against corruption swept the country, secretly organised amid a state-sanctioned march for Palestine.

Solidarity with Palestine

Support for Gaza remains high, making the Sultan’s alliance with Britain increasingly risky.

Omanis have begun to confront British troops at their aircraft carrier base in the port of Duqm. In a video filmed at their Renaissance Village canteen, an Omani man told five British soldiers seated at a table:

“This country [Britain] is f**king pro-Israel, you should get out from here. Piece of s**t. It’s time for you to leave from here.” 

As a British captain tried to walk away, the Omani man criticised Rishi Sunak for sending two naval ships to support Israel after October 7th. Defence minister James Heappey told parliament:

“We are aware of Service personnel being approached in Oman. The safety of our Armed Forces is of upmost importance and the security of our personnel is constantly kept under review.”

Mohammed al-Fazari, an exiled Omani journalist and editor of Muwatin, told Declassified:

“If a declaration of war against the Houthi rebels were to occur, undoubtedly the British would employ Oman as a launchpad. Oman has consistently served as a base from which British forces…have been deployed in numerous regional conflicts.”

Al-Fazari believes Omanis are “unequivocally aligned with the Palestinian cause” and their opposition to Britain’s presence in the country “would intensify if it were to be revealed that these military bases were supporting the occupying settler entity” of Israel.

Nabhan Alhanashi, an exiled activist who runs the Omani Centre for Human Rights, said he had concerns about the “potential utilisation of the [GCHQ] site for activities inconsistent with the interests of ordinary Omanis, especially those with a pro-Palestine stance”.

He added:

“There is a genuine apprehension that the UK, in support of Israel’s efforts against Hamas, could establish Oman as a partner and ally of Israel, contrary to public declarations.” 

Omantel, Subco and the US Navy were asked to comment.

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Phil Miller is Declassified UK’s chief reporter. He is the author of Keenie Meenie: The British Mercenaries Who Got Away With War Crimes. Follow him on Twitter at @pmillerinfo

Featured image: GCHQ’s spy station in Salalah, Oman. (Photo: Google Earth)

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New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

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The Escambia County School District, located in the Florida panhandle, has removed several dictionaries from its library shelves over concerns that making the dictionaries available to students would violate Florida law. The American Heritage Children’s Dictionary, Webster’s Dictionary for Students, and Merriam-Webster’s Elementary Dictionary are among more than 2800 books that have been pulled from Escambia County school libraries and placed into storage. The Escambia County School District says these texts may violate HB 1069, a bill signed into law by Governor Ron DeSantis (R) in May 2023. 

HB 1069 gives residents the right to demand the removal of any library book that “depicts or describes sexual conduct,” as defined under Florida law, whether or not the book is pornographic. Rather than considering complaints, the Escambia County School Board adopted an emergency rule last June that required the district’s librarians to conduct a review of all library books and remove titles that may violate HB 1069. 

Each school in Escambia County has thousands of titles. As a result, many school libraries were closed at the beginning of the school year pending the completion of the review. 

At the completion of that process, more than 2800 books were removed from libraries. (This includes, in some cases, multiple copies of the same book.) These books are being reviewed again by the school district. But that process is proceeding extremely slowly. According to a list maintained by the Escambia County School District, fewer than 100 texts have gone through the final review process. Many of these books remain unavailable to students absent a parental “opt-in.” 

The dictionaries, according to the school district’s data, remain locked away. Their exclusion demonstrates the preposterously broad language of HB 1069. Dictionaries do contain descriptions of “sexual conduct.” Merriam-Webster, for example, defines sex as a “sexual union involving penetration of the vagina by the penis” or “intercourse (such as anal or oral intercourse) that does not involve penetration of the vagina by the penis.” But the idea that we need to exclude dictionaries from schools to protect children defies all logic. 

District staff responsible for the review at each school were given a checklist to determine whether a book should be withheld from students. The checklist suggests reviewers consult “Book Looks,” a right-wing website relied on by Moms for Liberty and other groups to justify the banning of books from school libraries. It was created by “Moms For Liberty member Emily Maikisch,” according to public records reviewed by Book Riot.

The Florida Freedom to Read Project (FFRP) obtained a copy of the checklist from the school district, which FFRP provided to Popular Information.

Along with dictionaries, the books removed from Escambia County school libraries as a result of this process include eight different encyclopedias, two thesauruses, and five editions of The Guinness Book of World Records. Biographies of Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Oprah Winfrey, Nicki Minaj, and Thurgood Marshall are also locked in storage.

Classic texts like Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl, The Adventures and the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, and Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile are no longer available to Escambia County students. Twenty-three novels by Stephen King have been removed. The dragnet has also swept up books popular with the political right including Atlas Shrugged and two books by conservative pundit Bill O’Reilly. 

The reality in Escambia County serves as a rejoinder to DeSantis, who has described concerns about book removals as a “leftist activist hoax” and a “false political narrative.” 

At the same event, Florida Department of Education Commissioner Manny Diaz argued “[r]emoving clear instances of pornography and sexually explicit materials, often within arms reach of our youngest kids, is not book banning.” How would Diaz describe removing the dictionary?

DeSantis justified his statements by claiming that no school district in Florida had removed more than 19 books. At the time, 148 books had been removed in Escambia County as part of the challenge process. Now, in part due to DeSantis signing HB 1069, more than ten times that many books have been taken off the shelves in Escambia County. And Escambia County is not an anomaly. Orange County, Florida, which includes Orlando, has removed at least 678 books from library shelves.  

Authors and Parents Fight Back

Penguin Random House, five authors, two parents of Escambia County students, and the non-profit group PEN America sued the Escambia County School Board last May, alleging that the board’s actions violate the First Amendment. The lawsuit relates to decisions by the school board, prior to the passage of HB 1069, to permanently ban several books from Escambia schools. 

The Escambia County School Board banned most of these books at the request of Vicki Baggett, a high school English teacher in the county. Baggett is responsible for hundreds of challenges in Escambia County and neighboring counties. She also appeared at the June 2023 board meeting and spoke in favor of the emergency rule. 

Baggett has challenged books like And Tango Makes Three, the true story of two male penguins, Roy and Silo, who lived in the Central Park Zoo and raised an adopted chick. In an interview with Popular Information, Baggett said she objected to And Tango Makes Three because it exposes students to “alternate sexual ideologies.” Baggett said she was concerned “a second grader would read this book, and that idea would pop into the second grader’s mind… that these are two people of the same sex that love each other.”

Last year, Popular Information reported that former and current students accused Baggett of being openly homophobic in class. For example, Baggett allegedly told a tenth-grade student that her sister, who had a girlfriend, was “faking being a lesbian for attention” because “nobody’s born that way.” 

More recently, Baggett was involved in a scheme that involved reporting a librarian in a neighboring county to law enforcement for failing to remove a popular young adult novel from the school library. 

Although a material review committee in Escambia County voted 5-0 to reject Baggett’s challenge of And Tango Makes Three, the decision was overruled by the school board, which sided with Baggett. “The fascination is still on those two male penguins,” school board member David Williams said. “So I’ll be voting to remove the book from our libraries.”

The lawsuit alleges that the school board banned and restricted books “based on their disagreement with the ideas expressed in those books.” In so doing, the school board has “prescribed an orthodoxy of opinion that violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments.”

Today, there is an important hearing in the case. A federal judge will consider Escambia County’s motion to dismiss the complaint. In a brief submitted by the State of Florida in support of Escambia, Attorney General Ashley Moody argued that the school board could ban books for any reason because the purpose of public school libraries is to “convey the government’s message,” and that can be accomplished through “the removal of speech that the government disapproves.” This is a novel argument about the purpose of school libraries.

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More evidence of the rise of dictatorship in the Anglo-American world of “liberty and freedom” is the failure of both the US president and the UK prime minister to notify Congress and Parliament that the executive branches in the US and UK were committing the US and UK to war with Yemen without consulting the legislative branches, a requirement in the US and a historical convention in the UK.

Two people acting as dictators committed their countries to war.

The Biden Regime has the War Powers Act or the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) for its justification for attacking Yemen territory. If memory serves, the power Congress gave the executive branch only applies to the use of force against those who attack US forces. It seems that the Biden Regime has expanded the definition to include anything the US executive branch can claim is an attack on America.

The Houthi  had not attacked US Navy ships, only commercial ships supplying Israel. The recent Houthi attempted attack on a US Navy ship came after the US attack on Yemen, not before.

The Zionist neoconservatives who control US foreign policy consider any alleged, potential, or real attack on Israel to be an attack on the United States. Thus narratives can be constructed that justify every warmongering action Washington undertakes in Israel’s interest.

England’s Prime Minister simply gave Parliament the finger claiming that “the government”, which apparently does not include Parliament, has no responsibility to inform the legislature when it intends to take the country to war.

We now have the situation where the two countries who gave the world government accountable to the people are acting totally independent of the people  

You can see what will develop from this.

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Paul Craig Roberts is a renowned author and academic, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy where this article was originally published. Dr. Roberts was previously associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan Administration. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: US and UK military forces have ‘successfully’ completed targeted strikes in Yemen used by Houthi to attack ships in the Red Sea (Source: Sky News)

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On the first day of a two-day closed-door interview before the U.S. House of Representatives Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Monday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID), frequently evaded questions about gain-of-function research and the government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), in a statement following Monday’s interview, said,

“Dr. Fauci’s testimony today uncovered drastic and systemic failures in America’s public health systems” and that Fauci “had no idea what was happening under his own jurisdiction at NIAID.”

According to The Hill, Fauci offered “his expertise on preparing for potential outbreaks in the future.” But according to The Washington Times, he “couldn’t remember many details about his advocacy of lockdowns, his flip-flopping on mask mandates and his decision to allow government funding of gain-of-function research in China that might have led to the pandemic.”

Fauci “claimed he ‘did not recall’ pertinent COVID-19 information or conversations more than 100 times,” and “profusely defended his previous congressional testimony where he stated the National Institutes of Health (NIH) did not fund gain-of-function research in Wuhan,” according to the subcommittee statement.

Fauci also “repeatedly played semantics with the definition of gain-of-function in an attempt to avoid conceding that NIH funded potentially dangerous research in China,” the subcommittee stated.

Responding to Monday’s testimony, Rutgers University molecular biologist Richard Ebright, Ph.D., a frequent critic of gain-of-function research, told The Defender:

“Fauci repeatedly and flagrantly violated U.S. government policies implemented to protect the public from lab-generated pandemics. He lied — brazenly — to Congress about his policy violations in three Senate hearings in 2021-2022. He lied — brazenly — to Congress about his policy violations again yesterday.”

Investigative journalist Paul D. Thacker, who has documented attempts by Fauci and other government officials, federal agencies and leading scientists to cover up the U.S. government’s role in funding gain-of-function research in China, told The Defender he was not surprised by Fauci’s stance.

“As I documented over two years ago, Anthony Fauci has lied about funding gain-of-function research in Wuhan. That’s fine. People in Washington lie all the time,” Thacker said.

“But when he lied during a congressional hearing, wagging his finger at Senator [Rand] Paul … I knew immediately he had broken the law. His lies about this pandemic have been documented in multiple media outlets and I hope he is eventually prosecuted,” he added.

Francis Boyle, J.D., Ph.D., professor of international law at the University of Illinois and a bioweapons expert who drafted the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, told The Defender Fauci should be prosecuted.

“Fauci knew exactly what was going on at the Wuhan BSL4 [biosafety level 4] and the University of North Carolina BSL3 — he was paying for it,” Boyle said. “He has repeatedly perjured himself in testimony before Congress. This is just more of the same.”

Boyle said Wenstrup should follow Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) example and refer Fauci to the U.S. Department of Justice for prosecution for perjury.

“Maybe we will get some action there now that the Wuhan cover-up is unfolding, as detailed in Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s book, ‘The Wuhan Cover-Up,’” he added.

The seven-hour meeting was Fauci’s first appearance in the House since retiring from public office in December 2022. He was accompanied by two of his attorneys and two government attorneys, according to The Hill.

The closed-door testimony was first announced by Wenstrup on Nov. 30, 2023. In the same announcement, Wenstrup revealed that Fauci will sit before the subcommittee as part of a public hearing later in 2024. That meeting has not yet been scheduled.

In his statement about Moday’s interview, Wenstrup said it was “concerning that the face of our nation’s response to the world’s worst public health crisis ‘does not recall’ key details about COVID-19 origins and pandemic-era policies. Nearly 1.2 million Americans lost their lives to a potentially preventable pandemic,” he added.

Fauci ‘Repeatedly and Flagrantly Violated’ Gain-of-function Research Definitions

According to The Washington Times, lawmakers prepared 200 pages of questions for Fauci. In remarks quoted by The New York Post, Wenstrup said Fauci’s testimony “will shed light on topics that no Committee member, nor news outlet has ever inquired about before.”

Fauci took several breaks during the interview, but the meeting had a “respectful” and “cooperative” tone. Fauci did not take questions from reporters.

Yet, despite the reported tone, Fauci was evasive on key issues, such as gain-of-function research.

Regarding Fauci’s apparently poor recall, Wenstrup said, “That just means that maybe we have to find the people that do recall.”

In a Jan. 4 op-ed published in The New York Post, James Bovard, author of “Last Rights: The Death of American Liberty,” wrote that “The subcommittee announced Fauci’s ‘honesty is non-negotiable.’”

“But will his memory stage another boycott?” Bovard asked, noting that when Fauci was deposed in 2022 for the Missouri v. Biden lawsuit on government censorship of COVID-19 counternarratives, he answered “I don’t recall” 174 times, “including about damning and quite memorable emails he sent.”

Much of this evasiveness appears to have come in response to questions about gain-of-function research.

Wenstrup remarked on Fauci’s “new … operational definition” of gain-of-function. “I don’t know that every scientist that deals with this type of viral research understands his definition.”

According to Ebright:

“Fauci’s attempt to deny he violated U.S. government policies by claiming he uses different definitions of ‘gain-of-function research’ and enhanced potential pandemic pathogen research is equivalent — exactly equivalent — to a terrorist attempting to deny he violated federal laws by claiming he uses different definitions of ‘terrorism.’

“Fauci was not empowered to replace definitions in U.S. government policies with his own personal definitions.”

Ebright told The Defender the only definitions of “gain-of-function research” and “enhanced potential pandemic pathogen research” that matter are the definitions in the U.S. government policies in effect in 2014-2017 and from 2018 to the present.

Based on those definitions, Ebright said Fauci “repeatedly and fragrantly violated” the guidelines for both types of research.

According to Newsweek, “Fauci has previously denied in testimony to Congress that the National Institutes of Health, of which he was a member between 1984 and 2022, had funded risky ‘gain-of-function’ research.”

A Jan. 6 report by U.S. Right to Know said that “scientists at the center of the ‘lab leak’ controversy” visited Fauci’s NIAID in 2017 to discuss their research — “just months before NIH lifted a pause on high-risk virology, and two years before a novel coronavirus emerged near their lab in Wuhan.”

Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.) defended Fauci after Monday’s interview:

“A lot of our GOP colleagues have failed to recognize the operative, regulatory definition [of] gain-of-function that was instituted in 2017 was operative at the time the COVID pandemic came along. And the concern over EcoHealth Alliance … Dr. Fauci was able to clarify that today.”

Wenstrup said the subcommittee planned to question Fauci further regarding gain-of-function research today.

Fauci Unable to Confirm NIAID Had Any Oversight of U.S.-funded Foreign Labs

Monday’s interview also addressed government grants for gain-of-function research and foreign laboratories, such as the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China.

According to the subcommittee, Fauci “testified that he signed off on every foreign and domestic NIAID grant without reviewing the proposals” but “was unable to confirm if NIAID has ANY mechanisms to conduct oversight of the foreign laboratories they fund.”

“A 2020 email, previously released by the Select Subcommittee, proved Dr. Fauci was aware of dangerous gain-of-function research occurring in Wuhan, China. Today, he backtracked by arguing he should not have stated that as ‘fact,’” the subcommittee added.

🚨BREAKING🚨

New emails reveal that Dr. Fauci was aware of risky gain-of-function research occurring in Wuhan, China prior to the emergence of COVID-19.

Why didn’t he tell the American people?@COVIDSelect is demanding answers👇 pic.twitter.com/pvxtaCRB5s

— Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic (@COVIDSelect) July 13, 2023

In its Nov. 30, 2023 statement, the subcommittee said it had previously “revealed evidence that Dr. Fauci prompted the drafting of the now infamous ‘Proximal Origin’ publication to disprove the lab-leak theory. Fauci then cited the paper from the White House podium without disclosing his involvement in prompting the publication.

“Further, the Select Subcommittee revealed that Dr. Fauci was aware of dangerous gain-of-function research occurring in Wuhan, China prior to the emergence of COVID-19, but remained curiously silent to the public,” the statement read.

Following Monday’s interview, Wenstrup said that Fauci’s responses indicated there were “some tremendous flaws in our system” concerning issuing grants.

“Dr. Fauci signed off on all domestic and foreign research grants without reviewing the proposals and admitted that he was unaware if NIAID conducted oversight of the laboratories they fund,” Wenstrup said in the subcommittee statement.

“Clearly, the American people and the United States government are operating with completely different expectations about the responsibilities of our public health leaders and the accountability of our public health agencies,” he added.

But Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) defended Fauci’s responses on this issue, saying

“I think it’s probably pretty political that we’re here to begin with. But I think they’re asking questions and he is being very specific in answering.”

She added that the closed-door nature of the interview afforded Fauci the opportunity to “clarify a lot of political points people have tried to make,” without “playing to the cameras.”

Fauci’s testimony was scheduled to continue today, with further questions about the “Proximal Origin” paper and COVID-19 countermeasures.

“I look forward to asking Dr. Fauci further questions about mandates, his role in prompting the ‘Proximal Origin’ publication, and his policy positions related to masks and lockdowns,” Wenstrup said in Monday’s statement.

“Tomorrow’s testimony will continue the Select Subcommittee’s effort to deliver the answers Americans demand and deserve.”

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Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., based in Athens, Greece, is a senior reporter for The Defender and part of the rotation of hosts for CHD.TV’s “Good Morning CHD.”

Featured image is from CHD

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Jan. 2024 – Echocardiographic function evaluation in adolescents following BNT162b2 Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccination: A preliminary prospective study.

This article starts with fraudulent Pfizer mRNA Vaccine safety research paper funded by the Taiwanese government, just published (Jan. 2024).

• Study prospectively studied 25 teenagers, mean age 14 years, 14 males, 11 females
• “this prospective study assessed clinical conditions and myocardial function using serial echocardiography before and after the second dose of the BNT (Pfizer) vaccine in adolescents aged 12 to 15 years
• Conclusion: serial echocardiographic examinations did not find significant deterioration during the 28-day post-vaccination period
• “maintained consistent contact with the adolescents and their families. During the subsequent 1-year follow-up, all adolescents reported no events.”
• Study was funded by grant from the “National Science and Technology Council of Taiwan”

My Assessment of this new research paper on myocarditis after 2 Pfizer mRNA jabs:

• This study is hot garbage. It is pure trash.
• A prospective study is a high level of evidence (Level 2 where level 1 is highest = randomized control trial) – however that’s misleading in this case.
• they only tested 25 teenagers, 11 of whom were girls.
• even the prospective 2022 Thailand study done by Mansanguan tested 301 teenagers of whom 202 were male.
  • 54 had abnormal ECGs
  • 7 had abnormal bloodwork
  • 100% of them had NORMAL echocardiograms
  • “Conventional echocardiography may not be the ideal diagnostic tool in suspected vaccine-induced myocarditis because of its mild clinical symptoms; conventional echocardiography appeared normal in these patients.”
• So we already have a 2022 published study that looked at 301 teenagers post 2nd Pfizer mRNA jab and determined that echocardiography was useless.
• This Taiwan study looked at 25 teenagers post two Pfizer mRNA jabs and found that echocardiography was normal.
• There was no need to do a much worse study than the Thailand study and come to a conclusion about echocardiography that was known 2 years ago – it’s a test that is USELESS in the diagnosis of post Pfizer mRNA jab myocarditis in teenagers.
• In fact, 2020 study by Thunnemann-Tarr et al showed that only a very specialized echocardiogram called “Speckle tracking echocardiography” can diagnose a viral myocarditis in young people whose regular echocardiogram was NORMAL
• Why did the National Science and Technology Council of Taiwan, a “statutory agency of Executive Yuan of the Republic of China (Taiwan)”, also known as the Taiwanese Government, fund such utterly fraudulent research?
• Why is the Taiwanese government misleading the rest of the world on the “safety” of Pfizer COVID-19 mRNA vaccines?

• And why was it published in the Chinese Journal of Medicine?

What is going on with China and Taiwan and Pfizer mRNA Vaccines? 

• Most would agree that China does not have our best interests at heart.
• United States may even go to war with China over Taiwan.
• But here are some fascinating stories most people have missed.

May 28, 2021 – Taiwan’s president said China interfered in and delayed its COVID-19 vaccine deal with Pfizer-BioNTech

• “We almost completed signing the contract with the German manufacturer (BioNTech), but it was delayed because China interfered,” Tsai said.
• Insider reported this week that Tsai is also facing pressure to purchase China-made Sinovac vaccines from the mainland. 
  • Sinovac is a whole inactivated virus COVID-19 vaccine developed by the Chinese company Sinovac Biotech
• Zhu Fenglian, the spokeswoman for Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said China was not stopping Taiwan from procuring vaccines and was instead offering to donate COVID shots to the Taiwanese, according to a report from Chinese news portal Sina News.
• Tsai said Taiwan has signed deals with the UK-based manufacturers of the AstraZeneca vaccine and with the US suppliers of the Moderna jab.

April 18, 2022 – TAIPEI (Reuters) – Talks on Taiwan buying the child version of the Pfizer (PFE.N)/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine have stalled as Pfizer does not have the right to sell it and BioNTech and its Chinese partner do not make it, a Taiwanese minister said on Monday.

• A deal for the main version of the vaccine ran aground last year after Taiwan accused China of political interference, which Beijing denied.
• “The vaccines were later purchased after Taiwan’s government allowed chip-maker TSMC (2330.TW), a Buddhist charity and Terry Gou, the billionaire founder of Apple Inc (AAPL.O) supplier Foxconn (2317.TW), to buy them on the government’s behalf.”
• “Taiwan Health Minister Chen Shih-chung said the problem now was that only Pfizer makes the version of the shot for children, but it does not have the right to sell it to Taiwan, which lies with BioNTech and Fosun.”
• “Pfizer does not have the sales rights for China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. So that has complicated the contract.“
• More than half the population of 23 million have received three vaccine doses

April 11, 2022 – Taiwan orders Pfizer’s COVID-19 pill as infections rise

• Health Minister Chen Shih-chung said the pills ordered would be enough to cover 3% of Taiwan’s population, with half of them due to arrive in the second quarter this year.
• Taiwan has maintained mandatory mask wearing and almost 80% of the population have had two vaccine shots while more than 50% have had three.

Nov. 4, 2022 – Scholz’s China visit secures BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine access for expats – German chancellor says this would be a ‘first step’ toward wider use of the vaccine.

• People in China will soon be offered the BioNTech/Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine — but only if they are not Chinese (read that a few times)
• German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced the deal today during a visit to China accompanied by a group of business leaders from his country, including BioNTech chief Uğur Şahin.
• one influential financial news outlet, Caixin, reported that the BioNTech vaccine would only be available to “German expats” in China. 
• Closer cooperation with the EU medicines agency [the European Medicines Agency] would pave the way here,” he added, suggesting that BioNTech’s marketing authorization application is still pending.
• BioNTech filed for a Chinese license for its COVID-19 vaccine last year. A spokesperson for the company declined to comment on the proceedings
• China has to date relied heavily on domestically produced vaccines, notably from Sinopharm and CanSino, in the fight against the coronavirus.These vaccines, which use an older technology based on an inactivated form of the virus, have been outperformed in numerous studies by the new mRNA vaccines from BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna.

Dec. 4, 2022 – China’s Xi unwilling to accept western vaccines, U.S. official says 

• Chinese leader Xi Jinping is unwilling to accept western vaccines despite the challenges China is facing with Covid-19
• “despite the social and economic impact of the virus, Xi “is unwilling to take a better vaccine from the West, and is instead relying on a vaccine in China that’s just not nearly as effective against Omicron”
• “It’s, again, not something we see as being a threat to stability at this moment, or regime change or anything like that,” she said, while adding: “How it develops will be important to Xi’s standing.”
• “China has not approved any foreign Covid vaccines, opting for those produced domestically, which some studies have suggested are not as effective as some foreign ones. That means easing virus prevention measures could come with big risks, according to experts.”
• “The White House said earlier in the week that China had not asked the United States for vaccines.”
• “One US official told Reuters there was “no expectation at present” that China would approve western vaccines.”
• “It seems fairly far-fetched that China would greenlight western vaccines at this point. It’s a matter of national pride”

Nov. 27, 2023 – Moderna invests in mRNA vaccines in China 

• US pharma and biotech company began construction on its facility this month
• China has had a prickly relationship with mRNA.
• Throughout the pandemic, the Chinese government said no to mRNA vaccines.
• In May this year, Chinese CSPC Pharmaceutical Group produced China’s first mRNA vaccine for Covid-19.
• Shortly after, in July, US pharma and biotech company Moderna announced an investment to “manufacture mRNA medicines in China for the Chinese people”. Construction on the facility began in November. According to Chinese-language publication Yicai, the investment is understood to be worth roughly $1bn
• In July this year, China’s minister of commerce Wang Wentao hosted a roundtable with foreign pharmaceutical companies, reassuring them of China’s business environment
• “The Chinese government places great importance on attracting foreign investment and continues to optimise the business environment,” Mr Wang said.
• In June, China’s CSPC Pharmaceutical Group also signed a strategic partnership with Pfizer to produce a local brand of Covid-19 drug Paxlovid.
• In Moderna’s case, the Chinese government has been “very smart”, as the topic is no longer on the radar and they can now reap the benefits from mRNA medicines, while foreign companies, like Moderna, producing mRNA vaccines don’t have the demand anymore, at least not the Covid demand, she says.
• “The jury’s still out as to whether [companies like Moderna] will make money in China,” she adds.

My Take…

It is clear to me that China worked very hard to block Taiwan’s government from poisoning its own population (that China sees as its own) with COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines.

They blocked the initial two doses for months while offering Taiwan freely donated SINOVAC COVID-19 Vaccines (whole inactivated virus vaccines)

Then there were delays in Taiwan’s procurement of Pfizer’s mRNA jabs for children which involved China as well.

Look at the elaborate lengths the Taiwanese government went to, to get their hands on mRNA jabs, so they could poison their population:

• “The vaccines were later purchased after Taiwan’s government allowed chip-maker TSMC, a Buddhist charity and Terry Gou, the billionaire founder of Apple Inc supplier Foxconn, to buy them on the government’s behalf.”

The Dec.4, 2022 Reuters article brings up “regime change” if Chinese leader Xi Jinping doesn’t warm up to mRNA vaccines.

Interestingly, in July 2023, China gave Moderna the go-ahead to build an mRNA Vaccine factory which I see as nothing more than just further stalling and delaying as the factory didn’t even start building until November 2023.

Why didn’t China just buy a billion mRNA doses for its population from Pfizer or Moderna (Japan bought 400 million mRNA doses and poisoned its own population).

That doesn’t mean the Chinese Commnist government is benevolent, but it does show that it’s protecting it’s own people from being injected with mRNA Vaccines.

Even when the German Chancellor visited China in November 2022, China granted the use of mRNA vaccines but only for German nationals and not its own people.

As I wrote in my substack yesterday, China is pumping out fraudulent research on next generation mRNA vaccines (self-amplifying vaccines and mRNA cancer vaccines), parroting “safe and effective” propaganda while refusing to mRNA jab its own people.

Taiwanese government is pumping out fraudulent research on COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine injuries, namely myocarditis in double Pfizer mRNA Vaccinated teenagers, pretending the jabs are safe for children.

Clearly, the Taiwanese government is acting as an enemy nation intent on seeing our youth destroyed, and is willing to commit scientific fraud to assist in the process.

Imagine going to war to protect Taiwan – run by a government that wants to see our children dead or disabled.

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Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.

Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense

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The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity

by Michel Chossudovsky

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Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) is once again calling on the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) to publicly denounce the potentially genocidal remarks of their Israeli Office Director, David M. Weinberg. As Israel attempts to defend itself against genocide charges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), CJPME is appalled by Weinberg’s public commentary which advocates for the Israeli military to reduce Gaza to rubble and calls into question whether there are any innocent civilians in Gaza. CJPME insists that CIJA clarify that they reject and condemn these positions.

“CIJA must condemn their senior director’s heinous advocacy for Israel to conduct its war unrestrained by international law or concern for civilian casualties,” said Michael Bueckert, Vice President of CJPME. “CIJA’s director is advocating for blatantly illegal actions in Gaza which reflect the genocide charges that Israel faces today at the ICJ,” added Bueckert.

To a Canadian audience, CIJA has falsely claimed that “Israel’s efforts to minimize civilian casualties while eliminating Hamas go well beyond those required by international law.” On the contrary, South Africa’s ICJ case demonstrates that Israel’s actions on the ground and statements from Israeli leaders are indicative of genocidal intent. Moreover, CIJA’s claims about Israeli conduct are contradicted by its director who in writing for an Israeli audience has repeatedly advocated for the opposite positions.

CIJA’s Israel Office Director Mr. Weinberg is a regular op-ed contributor to the Israeli press, where he has repeatedly advocated for Israel to commit war crimes as part of its war of elimination in Gaza. For example, CIJA’s director:

• Argues that Israel’s actions should not be constrained by “international humanitarian law” and “laws of war,” writing: “shattered is the notion that these much ballyhooed but tendentious frameworks can any longer be allowed to tie Israel’s hands behind its back when the IDF goes on the offensive.”
• Argues that Israel’s actions should not be restrained to minimize damage, writing “no more sporadic tiptoeing through the tulips with insanely meticulous surgical strikes.” Among Israel’s “legitimate” goals, he writes, is “to reduce Gaza neighborhoods from which Hamas operated to rubble (as a matter of principleand not just for military advantage – and no, this is not a war crime).”
• Argues for abandoning humanitarian concerns and international law: “humanitarian concerns, both for the one hundred or so Israeli civilians still held hostage by Hamas and for the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians held hostage by Hamas, must be relegated to the sidelines. It is not easy or nice to say so, but concern for the hostages (– and yes, Palestinians in Gaza are brutally kept captive by Hamas in every way) cannot dominate Israeli decision-making.” He explains that this “means that Israel cannot tie itself into knots trying to satisfy every unfair, outrageous, so-called international humanitarian law regulation that was made-up especially for, and is applied only to, Israel – precisely, maliciously to neuter Israel’s military.
• Questions the idea that there are innocent Palestinian civilians (in a war in which 70% of the casualties in Gaza are said to be women and children), writing: “Gaza’s ‘civilian’ population actively abetted Hamas in plotting against Israel, and thousands of ‘everyday’ Palestinians … carried-out the worst atrocities of the [October 7] assault […] The ‘uninvolved’ danced like dervishes around the trucks that hauled away the abducted men, women, and children of Kibbutz Beeri, crying ‘death to the Jews’ and helping Hamas hide them.‘Uninvolved’ mothers proclaim they are proud to send their children into battle to turn them into shahids (martyrs). And ‘uninvolved’ teachers teach the children of Gaza that it’s a religious obligation and heroic task to kill Jews. The ‘uninvolved’ have helped Hamas hide its rocket launchers and other weaponry too. This does not mean that Israel can or should target every Palestinian household in Gaza. Not at all. But it does mean that the soft sentiments meant to prettify a lot of nasty Palestinians; to completely tie Israel’s hands behind its back in wartime; and to weaken Western resolve in backing Israel – are out of whack.”
• Writes that Israel’s approach should not be proportionate (a key aspect of international law) but that Israel “must and will apply disproportionate force to eliminate the enemy. Iran, Hamas, and their sycophants in Europe will throw the International Criminal Court at Israel, but so be it. Damn those biased, hypocritical international lawyers and judges who know only to criminalize Israel.”
• Argues against any restrictions on Israel’s use of force in Gaza, writing: “Israel cannot tolerate ceasefires along the way – no truces, no armistices, no fallbacks, no restrictions on its use of (overwhelming and simultaneously precise) force – until total victory is achieved.” He further writes that Israel’s military objective “means and requires application of maximum, maximum, maximum military force against Hamas in every hideaway corner and under every school, mosque, and UNRWA facility in which Hamas terrorists are rottenly taking sanctuary. Without letup, without forbearance. With cold, calculated, crushing military force. With all tools at Israel’s disposal, as swiftly as possible, and without unnecessarily exposing Israeli troops to death and injury.”
• Argues against future hostage release deals until Gaza is on the brink of “oblivion”: “At this point, the only additional hostage release deal that Israel should consider is a deal for the release of all Israeli hostages in one fell swoop, a deal that can and will come about only when Hamas is under the fiercest and most crushing weight of IDF attack. Only when Sinwar and his henchmen are truly on the brink of elimination and Gaza is about to be pulverized into oblivion for eternity – only when Israel truly threatens real “humanitarian disaster” in Gaza – might Hamas be willing to make a grand deal.”
• Supports Israel in cutting off water, fuel, and humanitarian goods to Gaza, writing that Israel must “terminate any responsibility for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip until Hamas is eliminated.”

“These horrifying statements do not point to a concern for minimizing civilian casualties or a respect for international law, but the exact opposite: CIJA’s director in Israel is advocating for the total abandonment of these concepts in support of unrestrained war of elimination in Gaza,” said Bueckert.

CIJA’s website lists Weinberg as a media spokesperson and states that he “maintains CIJA’s extensive set of contacts in Israeli decision-making circles.” CJPME previously called on CIJA to denounce his remarks in April of last year, pointing to a series of op-eds in which Weinberg called on Israel’s far-right government to “retake control” of Al-Aqsa/Temple Mount, expel the family members of Palestinian “terrorists,” and compared the bombing of Gaza to “mowing your front lawn” while likening Palestinians to “weeds” and “snakes.” CJPME expresses serious concern that CIJA has failed to condemn their director’s extremist positions, while giving a platform to a conference speaker who has shared images depicting Palestinians as cockroaches.

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Featured image: At least 90 Palestinians were killed in Sunday’s attack on the Maghazi refugee camp [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]

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A UK-based advocacy group has filed a criminal complaint against senior UK politicians, including ministers, alleging their complicity in war crimes committed in the Gaza Strip.

The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) said on Tuesday it handed over hard drives and evidence dossiers to the Metropolitan Police’s War Crimes Unit last week.

“This is just the first tranche of our evidence and the first list of suspects… we will add further offences and further categories of suspects including commentators who continue to support war crimes,” Tayab Ali, director of the ICJP and head of international law at Bindmans LLP, told a press conference.

“Each account not only serves as evidence but also as a solemn reminder of the human cost of this conflict. We will accept nothing less than a thorough and impartial investigation into these allegations.”

The complaint, shared after a public request from the police for evidence of war crimes in Israel and Gaza, also implicates Israeli politicians and private British citizens, including some who travelled abroad to fight for the Israeli army.

The Met has come under criticism from Conservative voices, including former prime minister Boris Johnson, who have suggested their call for evidence is a politicisation of the force.

Ali said on Tuesday that Johnson’s comments themselves amounted to unwelcome “political interference” in the work of the police.

The police have defended their efforts saying its war crimes team is obliged, under the Rome Statute, to support any investigations opened by the International Criminal Court that could involve British subjects.

The 78-page ICJP complaint features photographic evidence as well as harrowing eyewitness accounts, including from British citizens who were either present in Gaza after 7 October or have family members there who have provided them with information and evidence. The ICJP said it has kept the names of the politicians and individuals confidential for legal reasons and as the police investigation proceeds.

One witness gave an account of his former primary school teacher who was killed alongside 20 relatives in their family home in northern Gaza, leaving no survivors.

Another reported that his friend’s brother, who is a doctor at Al Shifa Hospital, only learned that his wife and three children had died when he found their bodies in the hospital’s corridors.

A third told of his 91-year-old grandmother, suffering from dementia and largely bed-ridden, who was allegedly shot and killed by Israeli soldiers when they occupied the home where she was sheltering in Jabalia refugee camp.

The dossier also includes evidence supporting allegations that the Israeli army used white phosphorous against civilians in Gaza, contrary to international law.

Since the beginning of the war on 7 October – when Hamas killed around 1,140 people in an operation in southern Israel – at least 24,100 Palestinians have been killed, with at least 7,000 missing and more than 60,000 injured.

The complaint argues that the named British ministers are responsible for aiding and abetting war crimes through their continued military support of Israel and their moral encouragement.

Given evidence that UK weapons and intelligence are used in operations that “fail to respect the principles of distinction and proportionality and target civilians”, the complaint says the police should further investigate the culpability of listed UK lawmakers.

The majority of those named in the complaint live in Israel, but ICJP says many are officials who travel frequently and has requested that the police monitor their entry into the UK.

The filing of the complaint in the UK alleging complicity by British officials in Israeli war crimes comes after the International Court of Justice in The Hague began hearing a complaint brought by South Africa last week, accusing Israel of “genocidal conduct” in Gaza.

At Tuesday’s press conference, Haydee Dijkstal, head of international law at 33 Beford Row Chambers – who has been working on ICJP’s submission of evidence to Scotland Yard – said its complaint did not assert the crime of genocide but covered a wide range of alleged war crimes.

Dijkstal said: “The complaint that was submitted, there are different legal principles from what’s being addressed at the ICJ. A ruling from the ICJ wouldn’t impact it but we’d certainly analyse it.”

Speaking to Middle East Eye, she said that the ICJP would be continuing “conversations” with the police as they worked through the evidence submitted.

“There isn’t a particular timeframe that is required, but I believe the ICJP hopes to continue the conversations with the police to provide more information as the ICJP investigation continues, and to answer any questions that the police might have as well as they’re beginning that investigation and analysis of all the information submitted,” she explained.

British Support for Israel

The UK government has been a staunch supporter of Israel throughout the conflict and has resisted pressure to call for a ceasefire in the war.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in October he was “proud to stand with you in Israel’s darkest hour as your friend, we will stand with you in solidarity, we will stand with your people, and we want you to win”.

Similarly, then-Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said he wanted to make it “clear to our Israeli friends that we stand shoulder to shoulder with them in their self-defence” and has stated that “calls for a ceasefire in the abstract aren’t going to help the situation”.

A Department for Business and Trade spokesperson told MEE that the UK “supports Israel’s legitimate right to defend itself and take action against terrorism, provided it is within the bounds of International Humanitarian Law”.

“All our export licences are kept under careful and continual review and we are able to amend, suspend or revoke extant licences, or refuse new licence applications, where they are inconsistent with the UK’s Strategic Export Licensing Criteria,” they said.

With its complaint, ICJP has requested that a referral is made to the Metropolitan Police’s war crimes team to conduct a scoping exercise. This will allow the unit to decide whether to proceed with an investigation.

Dijkstal said the individuals named in the complaint had not been pre-emptively singled out and that it was led by the evidence.

“The process of submitting evidence and submitting a complaint to the war crimes unit at Scotland Yard is one that’s been around for a while… I think often times it’s not known publicly, because many times these complaints are submitted on a confidential basis,” she explained.

“But I do know that it is has been utilised in regards to other conflicts… complaints have been submitted in regards to Yemen, to the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, so I do think it is a process that victims of war crimes look to and have historically engaged with in order to utilise [the] universal jurisdiction principle that’s available in the UK.”

A Metropolitan police spokesperson told Middle East Eye that specialist officers are currently assessing the information in such an exercise.

“At this time, there is no UK-based investigation into this matter, or any other matters relating to this particular conflict,” the spokesperson said. 

Commander Dominic Murphy, who leads the Counter Terrorism Command which hosts the war crimes team, told MEE:

“The ongoing conflict in the Middle East continues to impact communities in the UK and internationally, and we recognise the strength of feeling on all sides.”

“We remain focused on supporting victims and witnesses who report core international crimes, as well as supporting the UK families of those directly affected by the terrorist attacks in Israel on 7 October last year,” he said.  

“I also want to reassure the public that we have a very clear set of guidelines which we use when assessing all war crimes referrals made to us and we will ensure that these are followed here.”

The police also shared their website for members of the public who wish to report war crime-related matters.

MEE also contacted the Home Office, but had received no response at time of publication.

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Featured image: Tayab Ali said each account submitted by the ICJP served as ‘a solemn reminder of the human cost of this conflict’ (Alex MacDonald/MEE)

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How many FBI agents and hidden informants were present at the Capitol on January 6th?

Newly released tapes are shedding shocking new light on the truth of that day.

No wonder they didn’t want you to see these tapes.

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Featured image is from Future of Freedom Foundation

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The state of Saxony-Anhalt has said people who do not recognize Israel’s right to exist cannot become naturalized citizens. The eastern state’s interior minister said Germany’s other 15 states should take similar steps.

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The eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt will require individuals seeking to become naturalized citizens to confirm in writing, “that they recognize Israel’s right to exist and condemn any efforts directed against the existence of the State of Israel.”

Speaking on Wednesday, ahead of a meeting of state and federal interior ministers, Saxony-Anhalt Interior Minister Tamara Zieschang called on Germany’s 15 other states to adopt similar rules.

Zieschang previously said her ministry had sent a decree to all Saxony-Anhalt municipalities informing them of the policy in late November.

No Citizenship Without Supporting Israel’s Existence 

The decree instructs authorities to pay close attention to whether an applicant exhibits antisemitic attitudes and states that “obtaining German citizenship requires a commitment to Israel’s right to exist.”

In a letter to local authorities, the Saxony-Anhalt state Interior Ministry said naturalization is to be denied to foreigners who engage in activities directed at Germany’s liberal democratic order as outlined in the country’s Basic Law. The denial of Israel‘s right to exist and antisemitism are included among such activities.

Local authorities have been instructed to deny an applicant’s naturalization request if they refuse to sign the declaration. A refusal is also to be documented in the individual’s application filing for future reference.

Click here to read the full article on DW.

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Featured image is from Inga Kjer/photothek/imago Images