What comes after Rafah
By David Donovan | 22 February 2024, https://independentaustralia.net/life/life-display/what-comes-after-rafah,18353
What will happen after Israeli forces raze Rafah? Founder and director Dave Donovan discusses the ongoing genocide in Gaza and its likely aftershocks.
THIS IS a very important Independent Australia editorial because the world is at a crucial stepping point, a junction, a crisis, where whichever path is chosen will dictate the next 30, or maybe 50, years for global peace.
The crisis is Gaza. The choices are clear. A messy, indeterminate peace or a walk through the tombstones. On from which this world will be – for at least some, and maybe the rest of us – irrevocably altered. A world in which murder and death reign.
Currently, as these words are written, Israel stands on the brink of launching an offensive into the last desperate holdout of the Palestinian people: Rafah.
Israeli nationalists – let’s not dignify their objectives with their favoured demonym, Zionists – weaponise the extremely loaded term, anti-Semitism, to accuse any who object to their expansionary doctrine and indisputable war crimes.
And let us be clear: opposing war crimes is not anti-Semitism. It is not even anti-Zionist or anti-Israel. It is pro-humanity. Our position has been plain and consistent, ever since we began publication. We have indeed held all parties to account in this sphere. We are anti-violence and anti-war.
It is undeniable that not all Jewish people or Zionists are comfortable with the actions of the Israeli Armed Forces in this conflict; nor do all Palestinians endorse Hamas or its actions.
Racism and bigotry are evil but using past wrongs – admittedly horrifying, brutal and evil genocidal wrongs – does not excuse an ongoing mass slaughter, a genocide we have witnessed unfolding night after night on our TV screens, including images of burned and dismembered people, even most distressingly, of babies and small children. No past sin, no sense of self-righteousness, not even the horrific and evil October 7 actions by Hamas, no matter how callous and disgusting, can excuse wholesale slaughter.
But we are on the verge of exactly that.
Let’s make no bones about it, Israel is a rogue state. Netanyahu, Israel’s Far-Right Prime Minister, has repeatedly refused to recognise international law – most recently via the International Court of Justice, which has declared Israel’s current onslaught in Gaza an ongoing genocide – and plans to raze Rafah until the last Hamas fighter is killed.
No one is safe — not refugees, not journalists, not medical professionals, not aid workers.
And so the last of the Palestinians in Gaza will die, even the smallest children, just in case there is a Hamas fighter left among them.
That Australians may be okay with this ethnic cleansing beggars belief. Yet, at best we are complacent onlookers and sadly, more accurately, we are compliant cronies.
And what happens next?
WHAT SHOULD HAPPEN NEXT
The United States should intervene to halt the Israeli Defence Force’s invasion of Rafah. The U.S., the closest ally of Israel, is the only power that could turn it back from its murderous, genocidal intent.
WHAT WILL LIKELY HAPPEN NEXT
After Israel crushes Rafah and sends what remains of the Palestinian people fleeing to refugee camps, perhaps in Egypt, then Israel will, under the guise of eradicating the remaining Hamas terrorists, continue its grand campaign into the Middle East.
Probably first in Lebanon, which it has already begun bombing but wherever territory can be acquired. Then a massive international Islamic force will be mobilised to take on Israel. The U.S. and its allies, including Australia, will step in. World War III.
Total victory in Gaza might be the spark that ignites a global war which has been looming for decades. Russia appears to be spoiling for a war. Global outrage over Israel’s actions is such that the forces which are inclined to oppose America, including Russia and China, will likely use this confrontation to finally mobilise against Israel and the United States.
And if such a war were to occur, which seems likely given any pyrrhic Israeli victory, it would finally end the Zionist dream. One thing is quite certain, irrespective of how such a catastrophic conflagration might end, Israel would be no more.
Israel may win this “battle” against the Palestinians, but it will lose the war. That is what beckons.
Sadly for Australia, when our imperial masters dictate, we will be active participants.
And it would mean that we would once again be needlessly spilling the blood of our children over the “holy land”, as we have done over and over again in numerous conflicts for more than a century.
This is not just a crucial editorial, this is a wake-up call.
Chris Hedges: Julian Assange’s Day in Court
The defense must convince the two judges that the District Judge made serious legal errors to see an appeal granted.
They argued that espionage is, as a matter of law, a political offense and that the extradition treaty with the U.S. prohibits extradition for political offenses. They focused on the extensive UK law, common law and international law that defines espionage as a “pure political offense” because e it is directed against a state apparatus. For this reason, those charged with espionage should be protected from extradition.
The hearing was, after those in 2020 that focused on Julian’s mental and psychological health, refreshing in that it discussed the crimes committed by the U.S. and the importance of making them public.
Julian Assange’s lawyers — in a final bid on Tuesday to stop his extradition — fought valiantly to poke holes in the case of the prosecution to obtain an appeal.
By Chris Hedges https://scheerpost.com/2024/02/21/chris-hedges-julian-assanges-day-in-court/
LONDON — By the afternoon the video link, which would have allowed Julian Assange to follow his final U.K. appeal to prevent his extradition, had been turned off. Julian, his attorneys said, was too ill to attend, too ill even to follow the court proceedings on a link, although it was possible he was no longer interested in sitting through another judicial lynching. The rectangular screen, tucked under the black wrought iron bars that enclosed the upper left hand corner balcony of the courtroom where Julian would have been caged as a defendant, was perhaps a metaphor for the emptiness of this long and convoluted judicial pantomime.
he arcane procedural rules — the lawyers in their curled blonde wigs and robes, the spectral figure of the two judges looking down on the court from their raised dais in their gray wigs and forked white collars, the burnished walnut paneled walls, the rows of lancet windows, the shelves on either side filled with law books in brown, green, red, crimson, blue and beige leather bindings, the defense lawyers, Edward Fitzgerald KC and Mark Summers KC, addressing the two judges, Dame Victoria Sharp and Justice Johnson, as “your lady” and “my lord” — were all dusty Victorian props employed in a modern Anglo-American show trial. It was a harbinger of a decrepit justice system that, subservient to state and corporate power, is designed to strip us of our rights by judicial fiat.
The physical and psychological disintegration of Julian, seven years trapped in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and nearly five years held on remand in the high-security HM Prison Belmarsh, was always the point, what Nils Melzer the former U.N. Special Rapporteur on torture calls his “slow-motion execution.” Political leaders, and their echo chambers in the media, fall all over themselves to denounce the treatment of Alexei Navalny but say little when we do the same to Julian. The legal farce grinds forward like the interminable case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce in Charles Dickens’ novel Bleak House. It will probably grind on for a few more months — one can’t expect the Biden administration to add the extradition of Julian to all its other political woes. It may take months to issue a ruling, or grant one or two appeal requests, as Julian continues to waste away in HM Prison Belmarsh.
Julian’s nearly 15-year legal battle began in 2010 when WikiLeaks published classified military files from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — including footage showing a U.S. helicopter gunning down civilians, including two Reuters journalists in Baghdad. He took refuge in London’s Ecuadorian embassy, before being arrested by the Metropolitan Police in 2019 who were permitted by the Ecuadorian embassy to enter and seize him. He has been held for nearly five years in HM Prison Belmarsh.
Julian did not commit a crime. He is not a spy. He did not purloin classified documents. He did what we all do, although he did it in a far more important way. He published voluminous material, leaked to him by Chelsea Manning, which exposed U.S. war crimes, lies, corruption, torture and assassinations. He ripped back the veil to expose the murderous machinery of the U.S. empire.
The two-day hearing is Julian’s last chance to appeal the extradition decision made in 2022 by the then British home secretary, Priti Patel. On Wednesday the prosecution will make its arguments. If he is denied an appeal he can request the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) for a stay of execution under Rule 39, which is given in “exceptional circumstances” and “only where there is an imminent risk of irreparable harm.” But the British court may order Julian’s immediate extradition prior to a Rule 39 instruction or may decide to ignore a request from the ECtHR to allow Julian to have his case heard by the court.
District Judge Vanessa Baraitser in January 2021, at Westminster Magistrates’ Court, refused to authorize the extradition request. In her 132-page ruling, she found that there was a “substantial risk” Julian would commit suicide due to the severity of the conditions he would endure in the U.S. prison system. At the same time, she accepted all the charges leveled by the U.S. against Julian as being filed in good faith. She rejected the arguments that his case was politically motivated, that he would not get a fair trial in the U.S. and that his prosecution is an assault on the freedom of the press.
Baraitser’s decision was overturned after the U.S. government appealed to the High Court in London. Although the High Court accepted Baraitser’s conclusions about Julian’s “substantial risk” of suicide if he was subjected to certain conditions within a U.S. prison, it also accepted four assurances in U.S. Diplomatic Note no. 74, given to the court in February 2021, which promised Julian would be treated well. The “assurances” state that Julian will not be subject to Special Administrative Measure. They promise that Julian, an Australian citizen, can serve his sentence in Australia if the Australian government requests his extradition. They promise he will receive adequate clinical and psychological care. They promise that, pre-trial and post-trial, Julian will not be held in the Administrative Maximum Facility in Florence, Colorado.
Continue readingBiden Casts 3rd UN Veto Allowing Israeli Genocide in Gaza To Continue
by Walt Zlotow , https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2024/02/21/biden-casts-3rd-un-veto-allowing-israeli-genocide-in-gaza-to-continue/
No surprise President Biden cast his third veto in the UN Security Council to prevent a full, permanent ceasefire in Gaza. Biden’s depraved support of Israeli genocide in Gaza has no limits. Over 25,000 tons of US weapons have contributed to over 100,000 deaths and injuries, displacement of nearly 2,000,000 Palestinians and destruction of nearly all medical, educational and cultural institutions. The appropriate word for all that? Genocide.
President Biden ludicrously claims his veto was cast because it interfered with the US ceasefire plan and efforts to get aid to beleaguered Palestinians. Biden’s first reason is ghoulish. His plan calls for a temporary ceasefire to get all the hostages out, after which Israeli ethnic cleansing, with unlimited US aid, can resume till complete. His second reason is preposterous The UN accurately states Israel blocks virtually all aid from reaching sick, starving and wounded Palestinians.
President Biden may not be in mental and physical decline severe enough to prevent his functioning as president. But his enabling of Israel’s genocidal ethnic cleansing of Gaza for 5 months now, makes Biden’s moral decline a disqualifier for further serving as president.
Walt Zlotow became involved in antiwar activities upon entering University of Chicago in 1963. He is current president of the West Suburban Peace Coalition based in the Chicago western suburbs. He blogs daily on antiwar and other issues at www.heartlandprogressive.blogspot.com.
Julian Assange judge previously acted for MI6
The judge set to rule on the Assange extradition case was previously paid to represent the interests of MI6 and the Ministry of Defence – whose activities WikiLeaks has exposed.
MARK CURTIS AND JOHN MCEVOY, 19 FEBRUARY 2024
One of the two High Court judges who will rule on Julian Assange’s bid to stop his extradition to the US represented the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and the Ministry of Defence, Declassified has found.
Justice Jeremy Johnson has also been a specially vetted barrister, cleared by the UK authorities to access top secret information.
Johnson will sit with Dame Victoria Sharp, his senior judge, to decide the fate of the WikiLeaks co-founder. If extradited, Assange faces a maximum sentence of 175 years.
His persecution by the US authorities has been at the behest of Washington’s intelligence and security services, with whom the UK has deep relations.
His persecution by the US authorities has been at the behest of Washington’s intelligence and security services, with whom the UK has deep relations.
Assange’s journalistic career has been marked by exposing the dirty secrets of the US and UK national security establishments. He now faces a judge who has acted for, and received security clearance from, some of those same state agencies.
As with previous judges who have ruled on Assange’s case, this raises concerns about institutional conflicts of interest.
Exactly how much Johnson has been paid for his work for government departments is not clear. Records show he was paid twice by the Government Legal Department for his services in 2018. The sum was over £55,000.
Briefed by MI6
Justice Johnson became a deputy High Court judge in 2016 and a full judge in 2019. His biography states he has been “often acting in cases involving the police and government departments”.
As a barrister, in 2007 he represented MI6 as an observer during the inquests into the deaths of Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed.
Johnson worked alongside Robin Tam QC, previously described by legal directories as a barrister who “does an enormous amount of often sensitive work” for the UK government…………………………………………………….
Defending the ministry
Johnson has also represented the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) on at least two occasions.
In 2013, he acted for the department during the high-profile Al-Sweady inquiry, which looked into allegations that “British soldiers torture and unlawfully killed Iraqi prisoners” in 2004.
The MoD’s lawyers said the Iraqi allegations were a “product of lies” and that those making the claims “were guilty of a criminal conspiracy”.
Johnson argued there was “compelling and extensive and independent forensic evidence” to refute the case. The five-year inquiry, which cost around £25m, exonerated the British troops.
Johnson also acted for the MoD in 2011, in an appeal case against Shaun Wood, a Royal Air Force (RAF) serviceman. ………………………….
‘Highest security clearance’
Johnson was appointed by the Attorney General to be a “special advocate” in around 2007, Declassified understands. These are specially vetted barristers who act for the purpose of hearing secret evidence in a closed court.
Special advocates “must undergo and obtain Developed Vetting (the highest level of HM Government security clearance) prior to their appointment”, government guidance states.
Developed Vetting is required for individuals having “frequent and uncontrolled access to TOP SECRET assets or require any access to TOP SECRET codeword material”. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://www.declassifieduk.org/julian-assange-judge-previously-acted-for-mi6/
Antinuclear 