Were Australian weapons used in mass killings by Saudi Arabia?
A report by Human Rights Watch on the mass killing of hundreds, possibly thousands, of defenceless migrants and asylum seekers on the Saudi-Yemen border raises disturbing questions.
MICHELLE FAHY, Undue Influence, MAY 10, 2024. Joint report with Suzanne James (Green Left)
Yemen has been mired in a nine-year civil war between the Saudis and the Houthis which has left the country’s socioeconomic systems teetering on the edge of total collapse. Some 9.8 million children require humanitarian assistance, says Unicef.
The dominant reason for the war given in media reports is that Yemen risks becoming a satellite of Saudi Arabia’s rival, Iran. However, the conflict in Yemen is more complex.
The country is also important globally because of its proximity to the Gulf of Aden, a busy global shipping lane that carries an estimated US$1 trillion in goods annually.
Yemen has also been in the news recently because the Houthi government has launched drones and missiles against ships supplying Israel with weapons. The United States and Britain, with Australian government support, have conducted retaliatory attacks on Yemen.
Given these multi-layered conflicts, Yemen has proved to be an arms traders’ paradise, with the multitrillion-dollar global arms industry the biggest gunrunners of all. Australian arms exports to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) form a small part of this mix.
Australia’s Defence Department has approved 131 export permits to Saudi Arabia and 257 to the UAE in the 8½ years to January 29, according to Freedom of Information figures obtained by the author. No export applications for the UAE were denied in that period, while the five denied for Saudi Arabia were back in 2019–20 and 2020–21.
The ethics of Australian companies supplying arms to Saudi Arabia is again in the spotlight after Human Rights Watch (HRW) uncovered evidence that at least hundreds, possibly thousands, of unarmed migrants and asylum-seekers have been killed at the Yemen-Saudi border, allegedly by Saudi officers.
Human Rights Watch demands investigation…………………………………………………………
Have Australian weapons been used?
The report contains satellite images of a Saudi border guard post with what HRW says may be a Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle parked nearby. The vehicle was seen in satellite imagery from 10 October 2021 to 31 December 2022.
The report notes the vehicle ‘appeared to have a heavy machine gun mounted in a turret on its roof’. This description matches military equipment that Australia sold to Saudi Arabia a couple of years earlier.
Have Australian weapons been used?
The report contains satellite images of a Saudi border guard post with what HRW says may be a Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle parked nearby. The vehicle was seen in satellite imagery from 10 October 2021 to 31 December 2022.
The report notes the vehicle ‘appeared to have a heavy machine gun mounted in a turret on its roof’. This description matches military equipment that Australia sold to Saudi Arabia a couple of years earlier. ………………………………………………………………………………………………
EOS started exporting its weapons systems to Saudi Arabia in mid-2019. According to Dr Ben Greene, then chief executive of EOS, the equipment was being supplied for US programs to support the Saudi Ministry of Interior for its border operations (emphasis added).
…………………………………………………………….The delivery of 500 EOS weapons systems into this location at this time raises serious questions about whether any of this Australian-made equipment has been used in the atrocities documented by Human Rights Watch.
The Department of Defence did not respond to questions. Dr Andreas Schwer, chief executive of EOS, also failed to respond.
A spokesperson from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said:
The Australian Government is concerned by the reports of violence against Ethiopian migrants crossing the Saudi-Yemen border in a HRW report released in August 2023.
Australian officials raised this report directly with the Saudi Government and with the Saudi Human Rights Commission, emphasising Australia’s commitment to international humanitarian law.
Human Rights Watch has called for a UN investigation into the Yemen-Saudi borderland atrocities.
As concerns grow about Australia’s weapons exports, an urgent and transparent investigation would be appropriate, with results reported to parliament. https://undueinfluence.substack.com/p/were-australian-weapons-used-in-mass?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=297295&post_id=144491858&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Inside story: Will Iran’s supreme leader revise his ‘nuclear fatwa’?
https://amwaj.media/article/inside-story-will-iran-s-supreme-leader-revise-his-nuclear-fatwa 5 May 24
The direct confrontation between Iran and Israel has sparked speculation about a potential shift in the Islamic Republic’s nuclear policies under the leadership of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Following Iran’s Apr. 14 military action against Israel in response to the Apr. 1 bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus, a senior commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) explicitly suggested the possibility of a revision to Tehran’s objection to atomic weapons. The suggestion may only be a part of the war of words between Iran and Israel. However, the fact that such discourse is rapidly becoming mainstream in Iran raises questions of what may lie ahead—including whether a shift may take place under Khamenei, who has long opposed atomic weapons on a religious basis.
Rapidly changing discourse
Amid media speculations of a major Israeli attack in response to Iran’s Apr. 14 drone and missile strike on sites inside Israel, Gen. Ahmad Haqtalab—the commander of the Protection and Security Corps of Nuclear Centers—on Apr. 18 stated, “If the Zionist regime wants to use the threat of attacking our country’s nuclear centers as a tool to pressure Iran, it is possible to review the nuclear doctrine and policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran and deviate from the previous considerations.”
The warning was rare, and even as tensions eased between Tehran and Tel Aviv, Iranian officials continued to underscore the significance of the matter. Four days after Haqtalab’s intervention, former IRGC commander and current MP Javad Karimi Qoddousi tweeted, “If permission is issued, there will be [only a] week before the first [nuclear] test.” Qoddousi separately posited that the same amount of time was needed to test missiles with an increased range of 12,000 km (7,456 miles).
However, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani promptly interjected, dismissing the notion of any alteration to the country’s nuclear doctrine. Meanwhile, government-run Iran daily slammed Qoddousi, characterizing his statements as “untrue” and possibly being exploited by “enemies” to pursue further sanctions and fear mongering against Iran. Several other outlets, including conservative-run media, notably echoed such criticisms.
Yet, despite the blowback, Qoddousi went ahead and posted a video on Apr. 25 in which he said that Iran needs only half a day to produce the 90%-enriched uranium necessary to build nuclear bombs.
Khamenei and the ‘nuclear fatwa’
In Shiite Islam, a fatwa is a religious edict issued by a high-ranking Islamic jurist on the basis of interpretation of Islamic law. To followers of the jurist in question, fatwas are binding and the primary point of reference for everything from major life decisions to day-to-day matters. Fatwas can also be a part of state policies.
Ayatollah Khamenei has on multiple occasions over the past two decades reiterated his objection to the development, stockpiling, and usage of nuclear weapons as haram or religiously impermissible. Among believers, violating what is deemed haram would have serious consequences both in this life and the hereafter. In 2010, the supreme leader reiterated his objection to weapons of mass destruction in a message to an international conference on nuclear disarmament, stating they “pose a serious threat to humanity” and that “everyone must make efforts to secure humanity against this great calamity.”
Critics of what became known as the nuclear fatwa have over the years raised a variety of objections, from the modality of Khamenei’s religious edict to the manner in which it has been presented. Some even question whether the ruling really exists. What is indisputable, however, is that the religious edict has previously averted conflict by aiding diplomacy.
For instance, in connection with the 2013-15 nuclear negotiations that led to the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) between Iran and world powers—which saw Tehran agree to restrictions on its atomic program in exchange for sanctions relief—there were suggestions that the Islamic Republic should codify the fatwa.
Amid the nuclear negotiations with Iran, then-US secretary of state John Kerry in 2014 stated, “We take [Khamenei’s fatwa] very seriously….a fatwa issued by a cleric is an extremely powerful statement about intent. Our need is to codify it.” In another interview the same year, Kerry asserted that “the requirement here is to translate the fatwa into a legally binding, globally recognized, international understanding…that goes beyond an article of faith within a religious belief.”
Only days after the signing of the JCPOA in 2015, Khamenei said, “The Americans say they stopped Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. They know it is not true. We had a fatwa, declaring nuclear weapons to be religiously forbidden under Islamic law. It had nothing to do with the nuclear talks.”
Will Khamenei change his fatwa?
Khamenei is not the first Iranian Islamic jurist to issue a fateful religious edict on a highly politicized matter. Back in 1891, Mirza Mohammad Shirazi (1815-95), a leading Shiite religious authority at the time, issued a hokm or verdict against the usage of tobacco in what became known as the Tobacco Protest. The move came in protest against a concession granted by the Qajar monarch Naser Al-Din (1848-98) to the British Empire, granting control over the growth, sale, and export of tobacco to an Englishman. The hokm issued by Shirazi ultimately led to the repeal of the concession.
Neither a fatwa nor a hokm is set in stone and can be revised. The main distinction between the two types of rulings is that a hokm tends to have more conditions and requirements attached to it. Moreover, while a fatwa must be followed by the followers of the Islamic jurist who issued it, a hokm must be followed by all believers—including Shiites who are not followers of the jurist in question.
Explaining the intricacies of a hokm, a cleric and professor of Islamic law (fiqh) at the Qom Seminary told Amwaj.media, “There are primary hokm and secondary hokm. The former is like the necessity of the daily prayer that is mentioned in the Quran and the hadiths [traditions], or the prohibition on consuming alcohol. The secondary hokm is based on expediency and necessity that leads to the first ruling being changed. For example, if alcohol helps someone stay alive, then it is not haram [religiously impermissible] for him or her [to make use of it].” He added, “A fatwa can be changed too.”
Gaza Journalists Killed by Israel Honored on World Press Freedom Day
“To claim these deaths are accidental is not only incredulous, it is insulting to the memory of professionals who lived their lives in service of truth and accuracy,” said one expert.
Common dreams JESSICA CORBETT, May 03, 2024
As the international community marked World Press Freedom Day on Friday, journalists and advocates across the globe mourned and celebrated those killed in Israel’s ongoing assault on the Gaza Strip.
The U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has publicly identified at least 97 media workers killed since Israel launched its retaliatory war on October 7: 92 Palestinian, three Lebanese, and two Israeli reporters.
Since the Israel-Gaza war began, journalists have been paying the highest price—their lives—to defend our right to the truth. Each time a journalist dies or is injured, we lose a fragment of that truth,” said CPJ program director Carlos Martínez de la Serna in a Friday statement. “Journalists are civilians who are protected by international humanitarian law in times of conflict. Those responsible for their deaths face dual trials: one under international law and another before history’s unforgiving gaze.”
Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF)—or Reporters Without Borders—puts the journalist death toll in Gaza above 100. Middle East Monitorreports at least 144 members of the press are among the 34,622 Palestinians that Israeli forces have killed in less than seven months in what the International Court of Justice has called a plausibly genocidal campaign.
RSF on Friday released its annual Press Freedom Index. In its section on the Middle East, the group states:
Palestine (157th), the most dangerous country for reporters, is paying a high price. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have so far killed more than 100 journalists in Gaza, including at least 22 in the course of their work. Since the start of the war, Israel (101st) has been trying to suppress the reporting coming out of the besieged enclave while disinformation infiltrates its own media ecosystem……………………………………………………..
The Paris-based group nominated Palestinian journalists covering Gaza for an annual award from the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)—an honor they received during a ceremony on Thursday.
“Each year, the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano Prize pays tribute to the courage of journalists facing difficult and dangerous circumstances,” said Audrey Azoulay, the U.N. organization’s director-general. “Once again this year, the prize reminds us of the importance of collective action to ensure that journalists around the world can continue to carry out their essential work to inform and investigate.”…………………………………….
While Israel has repeatedly claimed—as it did to CNN on Friday—that “the IDF has never, and will never, deliberately target journalists,” members of the press and others have cast doubt on such comments.
“For far too long Israel has been able to operate with impunity in the occupied Palestinian territory, and this has included occasionally killing reporters, like the Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, in 2022,” Simon Adams, president of the Center for Victims of Torture, told the Inter Press Service.
Given the number of journalists killed in Gaza since October, he said, “to claim these deaths are accidental is not only incredulous, it is insulting to the memory of professionals who lived their lives in service of truth and accuracy.”…………………………… more https://www.commondreams.org/news/gaza-journalists
University Investments: Divesting from the Military-Industrial Complex
The salient warning that universities were at risk of being snared by government interests and, it followed, government objectives, was well noted by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in his heralded 1961 farewell address, one which publicly outed the “military-industrial complex” as a sinister threat.
The nature of this complex stretches into the extremities of the education process, including the grooming and encouragement of Stem (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) students.
Lockheed Martin Day, part of a sweeping national effort to establish defense industry recruitment pipelines in college STEM.”
May 1, 2024, by: Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.com/university-investments-divesting-from-the-military-industrial-complex/
The rage and protest against Israel’s campaign in Gaza, ongoing since the October 7 attacks by Hamas, has stirred student activity across a number of US university campuses and beyond. Echoes of the Vietnam anti-war protests are being cited. The docile consumers of education are being prodded and found interested. University administrators and managers are, as they always tend to, doing the bidding of their donors and funders in trying to restore order, punish the protesting students where necessary and restrict various forms of protest. Finally, those in the classrooms have something to talk about.
A key aspect of the protest centres on university divestment from US military companies linked and supplying the Israeli industrial war machine. (The pattern is also repeating itself in other countries, including Canada and Australia.) The response from university officialdom has been to formulate a more vigorous antisemitism policy – whatever that means – buttressed, as was the case in Columbia University, by the muscular use of police to remove protesting students for trespassing and disruption. On April 18, in what she described as a necessary if “extraordinary step”, Columbia President Minouche Shafik summoned officers from the New York Police Department, outfitted in riot gear, to remove 108 demonstrators occupying Columbia’s South Lawn. Charges have been issued; suspensions levelled.
Students from other institutions are also falling in, with similar results. An encampment was made at New York University, with the now predictable police response. At Yale, 45 protestors were arrested and charged with misdemeanour trespassing. Much was made of the fact that tents had been set up on Beinecke Plaza. A tent encampment was also set up at MIT’s Cambridge campus.
The US House Committee on Education and the Workforce has also been pressuring university heads to put the boot in, well illustrating the fact that freedom of speech is a mighty fine thing till it aggrieves, offends and upsets various factional groups who wish to reserve it for themselves. Paradoxically enough, one can burn the US flag one owns as a form of protest, exercise free speech rights as a Nazi, yet not occupy the president’s office of a US university if not unequivocal in condemning protest slogans that might be seen as antisemitic. It would have been a far more honest proposition to simply make the legislators show their credentials as card carrying members of the MIC.
The focus by students on the Israeli-US military corporate nexus and its role in the destruction of Gaza has been sharp and vocal. Given the instinctive support of the US political and military establishment for Israel, this is far from surprising. But it should not be singular or peculiar to one state’s warring machine, or one relationship. The military-industrial complex is protean, spectacular in spread, with those in its service promiscuous to patrons. Fidelity is subordinated to the profit motive.
The salient warning that universities were at risk of being snared by government interests and, it followed, government objectives, was well noted by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in his heralded 1961 farewell address, one which publicly outed the “military-industrial complex” as a sinister threat. Just as such a complex exercised “unwarranted influence” more broadly, “the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity.” The nation’s academics risked “domination … by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money.”
This has yielded what can only be seen as a ghastly result: the military-industrial-academic complex, heavy with what has been described as “social autism” and protected by almost impenetrable walls of secrecy.
The nature of this complex stretches into the extremities of the education process, including the grooming and encouragement of Stem (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) students. Focusing on Lockheed Martin’s recruitment process on US college campuses in his 2022 study for In These Times, Indigo Olivier found a vast, aggressive effort involving “TED-style talks, flight simulations, technology demos and on-the-spot interviews.” Much is on offer: scholarships, well-paid internships and a generous student repayment loan program. A dozen or so universities, at the very least, “participate in Lockheed Martin Day, part of a sweeping national effort to establish defense industry recruitment pipelines in college STEM.”
Before the Israel-Gaza War, some movements were already showing signs of alertness to the need to disentangle US learning institutions from the warring establishment they so readily fund. Dissenters, for instance, is a national movement of student organisers focused on “reclaiming our resources from the war industry, reinvest in life-giving services, and repair collaborative relationships with the earth and people around the world.”
Such aspirations seem pollyannaish in scope and vague in operation, but they can hardly be faulted for their intent. The Dissenters, for instance, took to the activist road, being part of a weeklong effort in October 2021 comprising students at 16 campuses promoting three central objects: that universities divest all holdings and sever ties with “the top five US war profiteers: Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and General Dynamics”; banish the police from campuses; and remove all recruiters from all campuses.
Demanding divestment from specific industries is a task complicated by the opacity of the university sector’s funding and investment arrangements. Money, far from talking, operates soundlessly, making its way into nominated accounts through the designated channels of research funding.
The university should, as part of its humane intellectual mission, divest from the military-industrial complex in totality. But it will help to see the books and investment returns, the unveiling, as it were, of the endowments of some of the richest universities on the planet. Follow the money; the picture is bound to be an ugly one.
The Israel-US game plan for Gaza is staring us in the face
The western media is pretending the West’s efforts to secure a ceasefire are serious. But a different script has clearly been written in advance
JONATHAN COOK, APR 30, 2024, https://jonathancook.substack.com/p/the-israel-us-game-plan-for-gaza
One does not need to be a fortune-teller to understand that the Israel-US game plan for Gaza runs something like this:
1. In public, Biden appears “tough” on Netanyahu, urging him not to “invade” Rafah and pressuring him to allow more “humanitarian aid” into Gaza.
2. But already the White House is preparing the ground to subvert its own messaging. It insists that Israel has offered an “extraordinarily generous” deal to Hamas – one that, Washington suggests, amounts to a ceasefire. It doesn’t. According to reports, the best Israel has offered is an undefined “period of sustained calm”. Even that promise can’t be trusted.
3. If Hamas accepts the “deal” and agrees to return some of the hostages, the bombing eases for a short while but the famine intensifies, justified by Israel’s determination for “total victory” against Hamas – something that is impossible to achieve. This will simply delay, for a matter of days or weeks, Israel’s move to step 5 below.
4. If, as seems more likely, Hamas rejects the “deal”, it will be painted as the intransigent party and blamed for seeking to continue the “war”. (Note: This was never a war. Only the West pretends either that you can be at war with a territory you’ve been occupying for decades, or that Hamas “started the war” with its October 7 attack when Israel has been blockading the enclave, creating despair and incremental malnutrition there, for 17 years.)
Last night US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken moved this script on by stating Hamas was “the only thing standing between the people of Gaza and a ceasefire… They have to decide and they have to decide quickly”.
5. The US will announce that Israel has devised a humanitarian plan that satisfies the conditions Biden laid down for an attack on Rafah to begin.
6. This will give the US, Europe and the region the pretext to stand back as Israel launches the long-awaited assault – an attack Biden has previously asserted would be a “red line”, leading to mass civilian casualties. All that will be forgotten.
7. As Middle East Eye reports, Israel is building a ring of checkpoints around Rafah. Netanyahu will suggest, falsely, that these guarantee its attack meets the conditions laid down in international humanitarian law. Women and children will be allowed out – if they can reach a checkpoint before Israel’s carpet bombing kills them along the way.
8. All men in Rafah, and any women and children who remain, will be treated as armed combatants. If they are not killed by the bombing or falling rubble, they will be either summarily executed or dragged off to Israel’s torture chambers. No one will mention that any Hamas fighters who were in Rafah were able to leave through the tunnels.
9. Rafah will be destroyed, leaving the entire strip in ruins, and the Israeli-induced famine will worsen. The West will throw up its hands, say Hamas brought this on Gaza, agonise over what to do, and press third countries – especially Arab countries – for a “humanitarian plan” that relocates the survivors out of Gaza.
10. The western media will continue describing Israel’s genocide in Gaza in purely humanitarian terms, as though this “disaster” was an act of God.
11. Under US pressure, the International Court of Justice, or World Court, will be in no hurry to issue a definitive ruling on whether South Africa’s case that Israel is committing a genocide – which it has already found “plausible” – is proved.
12. Whatever the World Court eventually decides, and it is almost impossible to imagine it won’t determine that Israel carried out a genocide, it will be too late. The western political and media class will have moved on, leaving it to the historians to decide what it all meant.
13. Meanwhile, Israel is already using the precedents it has created in Gaza, and its erosion of the long-established principles of international law, as the blueprint for the West Bank. Saying Hamas has not been completely routed in Gaza but is using this other Palestinian enclave as its base, Israel will gradually intensify the pressures on the West Bank with another blockade. Rinse and repeat.
That’s the likely plan. Our job is to do everything in our power to stop them making it a reality.
How Israel violates International Law in Gaza: expert report
https://mondoweiss.net/2024/04/how-israel-violates-international-law-in-gaza-expert-report/
The findings are illustrated by 17 specific, horrific “incidents” and 18 pages of additional incidents. This review of incidents is said to be “supported by both credible media and civil society reporting and statements by Government of Israel officials and IDF uniformed officers.” But the incidents identified are “just the most easily identifiable among a clear pattern of violations of international law, failures to apply civilian harm mitigation best practices, and restrictions on humanitarian assistance,” by Israel and the IDF, often using U.S.-provided arms.
An independent expert report lays out how Israel systematically violated U.S. and International Law in Gaza, concluding that Israel launched indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks on civilian areas due to “extremely relaxed rules of engagement.”
BY STEVE FRANCE
Just days after the Biden administration showered the Israeli military with billions of dollars more in lethal aid, still with no apparent effort to restrict its use on non-military populations and structures, Palestinian solidarity activists were gifted with powerful ammunition to challenge Israel’s genocidal disregard for the International and U.S. laws and norms that protect civilians in war situations.
In a sober but scathing 76-page report, publicly released on April 24, the Independent Task Force on the Application of National Security Memorandum-20 (NSM-20), details “multiple credible incidents constituting violations of international humanitarian law, military best practices, and [improper] restrictions on humanitarian assistance.”
The volunteer and unaffiliated task force of prominent experts — including two recently departed senior State Department officials, legal scholar Noura Erekat, and a former senior “joint terminal attack controller,” Wes Bryant — was rapidly formed after President Biden signed NSM-20 on February 8, 2024. The memorandum tasked the Departments of State and Defense to report to Congress by May 8 on the compliance of Israel (and, nominally, other U.S. allies) with International Humanitarian Law and military best practices, as well as on whether it has impeded humanitarian assistance to Gaza.
Co-chair Noura Erekat said at a briefing that the task force report has two main goals: first, to “inform” State and Defense officials’ review with a selection of well-documented and assessed incidents of misuse of aid, and second, to put pressure on the agencies and the White House to act vigorously to curb the abuses. The pressure will depend on the report’s ability to focus the understanding of the media, the relevant experts, and activists on specific illustrative cases and to clearly explain the legal framework and standards that are supposed to apply.
The panel reported that its
“aggregate analysis of credible reports involving U.S-provided weapons by Israeli forces indicates a context of systematic disregard for fundamental principles of international law, including recurrent attacks launched despite foreseeably disproportionate harm to civilians and civilian objects, wide area attacks without prior warnings in some of the most densely populated residential neighborhoods in the world, direct attacks on civilians…and attacks against civilian objects, including those indispensable for the survival of the civilian population.”
The experts further reported:
“Israeli intelligence sources cited by credible media reports indicate that these patterns of unlawful attacks reflect reliance on an unyielding and unconditioned supply of U.S. weapons, relaxed rules of engagement, application of collective punishment, and the use of artificial intelligence technology to generate thousands of targets (including civilian police and civil defense personnel), at maximum speed and with minimal human oversight.”
The findings are illustrated by 17 specific, horrific “incidents” and 18 pages of additional incidents. This review of incidents is said to be “supported by both credible media and civil society reporting and statements by Government of Israel officials and IDF uniformed officers.” But the incidents identified are “just the most easily identifiable among a clear pattern of violations of international law, failures to apply civilian harm mitigation best practices, and restrictions on humanitarian assistance,” by Israel and the IDF, often using U.S.-provided arms.
Just as important for non-experts is the report’s outline of exactly how the U.S. and international legal systems are supposed to protect civilians from harm — and how they are flouted. Thus, the experts point to three “fundamental rules [that] govern targeting decisions in armed conflict”:
1 Distinguish between civilians and combatants, and between civilian objects and military objectives, with a presumption that persons or objects are protected from attack unless the information available at the time indicates that they are military objectives.
2. Take all feasible “precautions” in planning and conducting attacks to avoid or at least minimize incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, and damage to civilian objects.
3. Respect “proportionality,” i.e., conduct no attacks that are excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated. The greater the foreseeable harm to civilians and civilian objects, the greater the foreseeable military advantage necessary to justify a particular attack. International humanitarian law (IHL) gives special protection to hospitals, clinics, and ambulances, as well as to humanitarian relief operations, and UN premises.
The report outlines the basics of “civilian harm mitigation practices,” including U.S. Defense Department practices. A key concept is “no-strike entities” (NSEs), which DOD says “may include, but are not limited to, medical, educational, diplomatic, cultural, religious, and historical sites, or other objects that do not, by their nature, location, purpose, or use, effectively contribute to the enemy’s war-fighting or war-sustaining capability.” The task force charges that Israel has “routinely and repeatedly” targeted six fundamental categories of NSEs, plus a broad array of slightly less protected entities.
Proportionality ‘rendered meaningless’
A common excuse the Israelis advance for the death and wounding of civilians is that they are being used by Hamas as “human shields.” The report notes that “taking advantage of the presence of civilians or other protected persons with intent to shield a military objective from attack constitutes a war crime.” However, U.S. military rules “affirm that an attacker shares responsibility for civilian harm with its enemies if it fails to take feasible precautions” to avoid killing shields.
NSM-20 itself spells out that its allies must “facilitate and not arbitrarily deny, restrict, or otherwise impede . . . the transport or delivery of [U.S.] humanitarian assistance and U.S. Government-supported international…humanitarian assistance.”
Outlining the “context” of Israel’s “systematic disregard for IHL,” the report cites “recurrent attacks launched despite foreseeably disproportionate harm to civilians and civilian objects, wide-area attacks without prior warnings in some of the most densely populated residential neighborhoods in the world, direct attacks on civilians or otherwise protected persons…and attacks against civilians objects, including those indispensable for the survival of the civilian population.” A high-ranking former IDF officer is quoted as condemning Israel’s “reckless conduct,” which he says “reflects an absolute assumption that the U.S. will continue to arm and finance it.”
“Extremely relaxed rules of engagement” inconsistent with IHL also explain much of the harm done to civilians. Thus, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Air Force, Omar Tishler, has stated that neighborhoods have been attacked “on a large scale and not in a surgical manner.”
Such attacks are facilitated by an expansion of the concept of “military advantage” in its proportionality assessments to weigh civilian harms against the advantages of “an operation as a whole,” rather than against each individual attack. That move “renders the proportionality rule meaningless,” the report says, as it’s impossible to compare the harms of a single specific attack with all the military advantages allegedly achieved or sought by the whole Gaza operation, which has lasted more than six months.
Similarly, former U.S. Air Force drone controller Bryant noted how Israel blurs the requirement of taking precautions to protect civilians “by employing precautions it knows are ineffective,” such as texting populations whose phones are not functional.
Also “relaxed” is Israel’s use of the term terrorist. Thus, a reserve officer told Ha’aretz, “In practice, a terrorist is anyone the IDF has killed in the areas in which its forces operate.” The extensive, open-ended imposition of “kill zones” is another way to disguise genocide, an Israeli intelligence officer has explained. With a “kill zone” lasting a month or two, “you could stick with an order that anyone approaching should be shot…But we’ve been there for six months, and people have to start coming out; they are trying to survive, and that leads to very serious incidents.”
Lastly, Israel asserts it can block humanitarian aid, if it has “serious reasons for fearing” that relief consignments “will be diverted from their civilian destination or otherwise provide a definite advantage to the enemy’s military efforts” — a position the task force says relies on a “defective rule” from 1949 that was modified in 1977 and superseded by a rule of customary international law. Recent UN Security Council and General Assembly resolutions confirm that Israel “must allow and facilitate rapid and unimpeded humanitarian relief and may not deny such relief based on fears that a small portion of aid may be seized by armed groups.”
In conclusion, the report warns that “the Task Force’s findings raise grave concerns regarding the Administration’s compliance with both U.S. and international law, particularly with respect to security assistance and arms transfers.” It then identifies the laws in question, as well as citing “obligations under customary international law to ensure respect for international humanitarian law and to cooperate to bring serious violations of peremptory norms of general international law to an end through lawful means.
UN report demolishes Israeli propaganda campaign against UNRWA
Israel has waged a multi-year campaign against the UN aid group for Palestinian refugees in hopes of eradicating the right of return
The Cradle, News Desk, APR 22, 2024
Israel has failed to provide any evidence of its claims that employees of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) are members of “terrorist organizations,” according to an independent review led by former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna.
In January, Israel claimed without evidence that some UNRWA staff – until then the primary conduit of humanitarian aid into the besieged and bombed Gaza Strip – were members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and had participated in the Hamas-led attack on Israeli military bases and settlements on 7 October, known as Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
The Israeli allegations promptly caused the US and other western nations to cut funding to UNRWA. This came amid reports from rights groups that Israel was using starvation as a weapon against the 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza.
The Guardian reported on 22 April that the “Colonna report,” which was commissioned by the UN in the wake of Israeli allegations, found that UNRWA had regularly supplied Israel with lists of its employees for vetting, and that “the Israeli government has not informed UNRWA of any concerns relating to any UNRWA staff based on these staff lists since 2011.”
The Guardian added that most donor nations have resumed their funding in recent weeks. However, UK ministers had said they would wait for the Colonna report to decide whether to resume funding. The US Congress has since banned any future financial support of UNRWA.
The Colonna review was drafted with the help of three Nordic research institutes and will be published later on Monday.
It confirms that Israel has yet to provide any evidence of its claims………………………………………………..
more https://thecradle.co/articles/un-report-demolishes-israeli-propaganda-campaign-against-unrwa
U.S. Senate Passes $95 Billion Foreign Military Aid Bill
The bill passed in a vote of 79-18
by Dave DeCamp April 23, 2024, AntiWar.com
On Tuesday night, the Senate passed a $95 billion spending bill that includes military aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan in a vote of 79-18. The bill has already passed through the House and now heads to President Biden’s desk for his signature.
Earlier in the day, the Senate rejected an effort by some senators to add amendments to the legislation in a vote of 48-50. The legislation, which also includes a provision that could ban TikTok, was passed through the House as four separate bills but was combined into one in the Senate.
The legislation includes $61 billion for the proxy war in Ukraine, much of which will go to US weapons makers to replenish US stockpiles. It includes over $9 billion in economic aid in the form of repayable loans, but Ukraine is not actually expected to pay it back. Another provision will authorize the US to sell off frozen Russian assets, which could be used to pay the loans. CNN previously reported that the Biden administration will also be able to cancel the debt.
The bill also includes $26 billion to support Israel. About $9 billion will go toward humanitarian aid in Gaza and other places, while the remaining $17 billion will go toward military aid to support the slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza and replenish Israeli air defenses. The aid is on top of the $3.8 billion in military assistance that Israel receives from the US each year.
Another $8 billion will go toward military aid for Taiwan and other spending in the Indo-Pacific region to prepare for a future war with China. It includes $1.9 billion to replenish weapons sent to Taiwan and regional countries and $2 billion in Foreign Military Financing, a State Department program that gives foreign governments money to purchase US weapons. Over $3.3 billion will go toward submarine infrastructure in the region.
The massive spending on foreign military aid was put forward by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), who previously killed a deal that would have included similar foreign aid spending and billions for border security and changes to migrant policies………….. more https://news.antiwar.com/2024/04/23/senate-passes-95-billion-foreign-military-aid-bill/
TODAY. Oh it’s a great time to be an American – with shares in “Defense” companies!
The USA Congress knows this. These worthy persons understand that their job is to enrich weapons companies and the people “wise” enough to have shares in them. After all, “defense” is the USA’s fastest growing and most successful industry. And of course, that’s the job of a patriotic American government – to promote American business.
Some think that the proper role of government is not solely protection of people from attack, but also to provide for the general well-being of the people. But that second purpose is not a goal of American government. And I would argue that even the first purpose is not a real goal – as the practices of diplomacy, negotiation, discussion and respect for other countries would be the best methods – rather than bullying and sabre-waving.
Anyway, the U.S. Senate just passed a $95Billion Bill for weapons for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. Law-makers of both stripes are keen to promote weapons. Probably the Congress will approve this.
The U.S. Congress has the power to pull back, to prevent wars. But once they’ve given the White House the money for weapons – then the President (advised by warmongers like Jake Sullivan and Antony Blinken) can go ahead and wage war – Congress will then have no say.
Once the Congress approves an appropriation the President as commander-in chief can use the money any way he likes. If the aim of warmongers is eventual war against Iran, providing money for weapons will be Congress’s role in following this aim. Think tanks and media enthusiastically go along with this.
There seems to be no awareness that USA’s endless strikes on distant countries – Iraq , Syria, backing Israel against Palestine, Iran – are arousing fierce anger among millions of people. In Ukraine whole generations of men are being wiped out.
Weapons get used. Then you make and sell more weapons. That means continuing, endless wars. That’s the business. It’s great when there’s no, or relatively few, American soldiers killed. Terrific – only “the others” are dying.
It’s great for business. Lockheed Martin’s shares are up. Investing advice enthuses “Where there’s war, there’s money to be made, and rising geopolitical tension in the Middle East, and the two-year-long war in Ukraine are leaving investors to shield their portfolios with defense stocks………….no better time than being in the business of defense contracting than right now“
But one day – the shit will hit the fan! Shock horror – it might even happen in the lifetime of those making $millions from weapons sales.
Bankers upgrade Lockheed stock after Iran strikes at Israel
defense contractors are actively shaping U.S. foreign policy through lobbying and campaign contributions, among other tactics.
The American company has played an outsized role in Tel Aviv’s bombing and invasion of Gaza since Oct. 7
NICK CLEVELAND-STOUT, APR 17, 2024 https://responsiblestatecraft.org/lockheed-martin-israel-war/
Over the weekend, Iran launched over 300 missiles at Nevatim Air Base, a base in southern Israel that houses U.S.-made F-35 fighter jets. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who oversaw a strike on an Iranian consulate in Syria just a few weeks ago, has already promised to retaliate. Observers viewed these brewing tensions with concern, ringing the alarm bells of the breakout of a wider war.
Not JP Morgan analyst Seth Seifman. On Monday morning, Seifman upgraded JPMorgan’s outlook from “hold” to “buy” for Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer of Israel’s F-35s, and set a higher price target for the stock.
Seifman says the change was pre-planned, but noted that these developments could be good for business. “What we can say is that it’s a dangerous world and while that is not a sufficient condition for defense stocks to outperform,” he said, “it is a potential source of support, especially when they are under-owned.” JP Morgan owns $355 million worth of Lockheed Martin stock, about a third of which was bought in the last quarter of 2023.
UK investment bank Liberum Capital was similarly bullish on defense stocks, so long as a wider war does not break out. “In our base case scenario of Israel retaliating but in a limited way that keeps the conflict from escalating further, this could lead to a 5-10% correction in the stock market together with further strength in the U.S. dollar,” Liberium told investors. “The obvious short-term winners will be oil & gas stocks as well as defense contractors.”
As finance journalist Jacob Wolisnky put it in a recent preview of defense stock picks, “Where there’s war, there’s money to be made.” At least one member of Congress agrees. Yesterday, Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.) disclosed that he bought Lockheed Martin stock on March 29.
Lockheed Martin has played a large role in Israel’s bombing and invasion of Gaza, manufacturing Hellfire missiles, providing transport planes, and supplying F-16 and F-35 fighter jets. A missile that hit journalists on November 9 of last year in Gaza City was reportedly manufactured by Lockheed Martin. “Their core business model has no respect for human rights,” said Jilianne Lyon, who leads shareholder advocacy campaigns at Investor Advocates for Social Justice.
While privately acknowledging conflict is good for business, the defense industry and its financiers publicly claim they are simply doing America’s bidding. As Lockheed Martin CEO James Taiclet once said, “It’s only up to us to step to what we’ve been asked to do and we’re just trying to do that in a more effective way, and that’s our role.” After all, it was the U.S. government — not Lockheed Martin — that came to Israel’s defense and intercepted the majority of Iran’s missiles.
But this “we just do what we’re told” defense doesn’t quite work given that defense contractors are actively shaping U.S. foreign policy through lobbying and campaign contributions, among other tactics. Aaron Acosta, program director at Investor Advocates for Social Justice, told Responsible Statecraft that defense contractors “are often the ones creating demand by lobbying the U.S. government and pushing for sales of these weapons.”
In 2023, Lockheed Martin spent over $14 million lobbying Congress. The three companies that lobbied the House’s version of the annual defense policy bill the most were RTX (formerly known as Raytheon), Lockheed Martin, and General Dynamics. During the 2022 election cycle, Lockheed Martin contributed nearly $4 million to political candidates. So far, 2024 promises similar results. In its 2023 annual report, Lockheed Martin wrote that, “Changes in the U.S. Government’s priorities, or delays or reductions in spending could have a material adverse effect on our business.”
Sure, 84% of voters might be concerned about the U.S. being drawn into conflict in the Middle East. But as far as defense companies and their shareholders are concerned, business is booming.
Under UN Charter, Iran’s Attack Was a Legal Response to Israel’s Illegal Attack
Iran’s attack on Israel was lawful self-defense carried out in compliance with international humanitarian law.
On April 13, Iran’s aircraft struck two air bases in the Negev desert, where the April 1 attack on Iran’s consulate had been launched. “Iran retaliated against those targets in Israel directly related to the Israeli attack on Iran,”
By Marjorie Cohn , TRUTHOUT, April 18, 2024
On April 1, Israel mounted an unprovoked military attack on a building that was part of the Iranian Embassy complex in Damascus, Syria, killing seven of Iran’s senior military advisers and five additional people. The victims included Gen. Mohamad Reza Zahedi, head of Iran’s covert military operations in Lebanon and Syria, and two other senior generals.
Although Israel’s attack violated the United Nations Charter, the UN Security Council refused to condemn it because the United States, the U.K. and France exercised their vetoes on April 4.
Iran considered this attack on its consulate “an act of war,” Trita Parsi wrote at Foreign Policy.
On April 11, the Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations stated: “Had the UN Security Council condemned the Zionist regime’s reprehensible act of aggression on our diplomatic premises in Damascus and subsequently brought to justice its perpetrators, the imperative for Iran to punish this rogue regime might have been obviated.”
Then, on April 13, in response to Israel’s attack, Iran fired more than 300 drones and missiles at the Israeli air base from which the April 1 attacks had emanated. Only two of them landed inside Israel and no one was killed; a Bedouin girl was injured. The U.S., U.K., France, Jordan and Israel intercepted the remaining Iranian missiles and drones. A senior U.S. military official said “there’s no significant damage within Israel itself.”
The Iranian mission to the UN wrote in an April 13 letter to the UN secretary-general that Iran’s action was conducted “in the exercise of Iran’s inherent right to self-defense” under Article 51 of the UN Charter “and in response to the Israeli recurring military aggressions, particularly its armed attack” on April 1 “against Iranian diplomatic premises, in the defiance of Article 2(4) of the Charter of the United Nations.”
The April 1 attack was not the first time Israel had attacked key Iranian personnel………………………………………………………………………….
Iran made clear that it seeks to avoid further escalation that could spark a widespread regional war. An April 13 social media post from Iran’s permanent mission to the UN stated, “The matter can be deemed concluded. However, should the Israeli regime make another mistake, Iran’s response will be considerably more severe. It is a conflict between Iran and the rogue Israeli regime, from which the U.S. MUST STAY AWAY!”
At a Security Council meeting on April 14, Iran’s UN Ambassador Saeid Iravani defended the lawfulness of the missile and drone attack on Israel. He noted the hypocrisy of the U.S. and its allies that claim Israel is acting in self-defense as it conducts its genocide of the Palestinian people:………………………………………..
Israel’s Attack on Iranian Consulate Violated the UN Charter and Vienna Conventions
Iran’s April 13 attack on Israel was a lawful exercise of self-defense in response to Israel’s unlawful April 1 attack on the Iranian consulate. The Israeli attack was an illegal act of aggression.
Article 2 (4) of the UN Charter states, “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.”
An act of aggression is inconsistent with the purposes of the UN. Article 39 of the Charter says, “The Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression.”
An “‘act of aggression’ means the use of armed force by a State against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of another State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Charter of the United Nations,” under the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court. Aggression includes “the invasion or attack by the armed forces of a State of the territory of another State.”
Moreover, “Consular premises shall be inviolable,” according to Article 31 of the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. Article 1 defines consular premises as “the buildings or parts of buildings and the land ancillary thereto, irrespective of ownership, used exclusively for the purposes of the consular post.”
The 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations likewise provides in Article 22.1 that, “The premises of the mission shall be inviolable. The agents of the receiving State may not enter them, except with the consent of the head of the mission.”
During Israel’s bombing of Iran’s consulate in Syria, it targeted and killed very senior Iranian officials. The attack constituted an act of aggression, which triggered Iran’s right to self-defense.
Iran’s April 13 Attack on Israel Constituted Lawful Self-Defense
Article 51 states, “Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.”
An armed attack includes not just an attack against the territory of a state, including its airspace and territorial sea, but also attacks directed against its armed forces or embassies abroad.
On April 13, Iran’s aircraft struck two air bases in the Negev desert, where the April 1 attack on Iran’s consulate had been launched. “Iran retaliated against those targets in Israel directly related to the Israeli attack on Iran,” former U.S. weapons inspector Scott Ritter wrote.
Nevertheless, the Security Council has failed to adopt a resolution condemning Israel’s attack on Iran’s consulate, as Iran pointed out in its April 13 letter to the UN secretary-general.
At an April 14 meeting of the Security Council, the Israeli representative declared that Iran is the number one global sponsor of terrorism and the world’s worst human rights violator. It is Israel, however, that has killed nearly 34,000 Palestinians — two-thirds of them women and children — during its campaign of genocide in Gaza that has now entered its seventh month.
Iran’s self-defense action was the natural outcome of Israel’s violations of international law — both on Syrian territory and elsewhere — the representative from the Syrian Arab Republic said at the April 14 council meeting. Israel is trying to cover up its genocide and military failures in Gaza, the Syrian representative added.
Iran’s Attack Satisfied the Principles of Proportionality, Distinction and Precautions……………………………………………………………….
Netanyahu Is Gunning for War With Iran
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would like nothing better than to start a war with Iran. Netanyahu considers Iran an “existential threat” to Israel. He persuaded former President Donald Trump to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal, which was working to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
As the world waits for Israel’s response to the Iranian attack, President Joe Biden said the U.S. would not assist Israel in an offensive military action against Iran but it would give Israel defensive support if Iran attacks Israel. “But the distinction between offensive or defensive support becomes meaningless the second a war breaks out,” wrote Trita Parsi.
Today, the U.S. and U.K. imposed additional punishing sanctions on Iran. Unilateral coercive measures, levied without the imprimatur of the Security Council, are illegal and generally harm only the general population…………………………………………………………………………………………… more https://truthout.org/articles/under-un-charter-irans-attack-was-a-legal-response-to-israels-illegal-attack/
Iran Israel: An audible sigh of relief in the Middle East
By Lyse Doucet,Chief international correspondent, 20 Apr 24, more https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68861607
The latest round in the region’s most dangerous rivalry appears to be over, for now.
Israel still has not officially acknowledged that the attack in Iran in the early hours of Friday morning was its doing.
Meanwhile, Iran’s military and political leaders have downplayed, dismissed and even mocked that anything of consequence happened at all.
The accounts over what kind of weaponry was deployed on Friday and how much damage was caused are still conflicting and incomplete.
American officials speak of a missile strike, but Iranian officials say the attacks, in the central province of Isfahan and in northwest Tabriz, were caused by small exploding drones.
“The downed micro air vehicles caused no damage and no casualties,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian insisted to the semi-official Tasnim News Agency.
But these simple quadcopters are Israel’s calling card – it has deployed them time and again in its years of covert operations inside Iran.
This time their main target was the storied central province of Isfahan, which is celebrated for its stunning Islamic heritage.
Of late, however, the province is more famous for the Natanz nuclear facility, the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Centre and a major air base, which was used during Iran’s 14 April attack on Israel.
It is also an industrial heartland housing factories which produce the drones and ballistic missiles that were fired by the hundreds in Israel’s direction last Sunday.
So a limited operation seems to have carried a powerful warning – that Israel has the intelligence and assets to strike at will at Iran’s beating heart.
It is a message so urgent that Israel made sure it was sent before, rather than after, the start of the Jewish Passover, as was widely predicted by Israel watchers.
US officials have also indicated that Israel targeted sites such as Iran’s air defence radar system, which protects Natanz. There is still no confirmed account of its success.
So this attack may also be just an opening salvo. But it was, for the moment, an unintended 85th birthday gift to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Israel’s official silence gave Iran’s ultimate decision-maker vital political space. Tehran did not have to invoke its new rule that whenever its arch-enemy strikes, Iran will hit back hard, with the risk of sparking a perilous escalatory spiral.
Hardline President Ebrahim Raisi did not even mention these most recent events in his Friday speeches.
For the Islamic Republic, it is all about what it dubs Operation True Promise – its unprecedented onslaught against Israel in the dead of night last Sunday. He hailed what he called his country’s “steely will”.
Iran has prided itself for years on its “strategic patience”, its policy of playing a long game rather than retaliating immediately and directly to any provocations.
Now, it is invoking “strategic deterrence”. This new doctrine was triggered by the 1 April attack on its diplomatic compound in Damascus, which destroyed its consular annex and killed seven Revolutionary Guards, including its most senior commander in the region.
Iran’s supreme leader was under mounting pressure to draw a line as Israel ramped up its targets during the last six months of the grievous Gaza war.
No longer just striking Tehran’s assets, including arms caches, buildings, bases and supply routes on battle grounds like Syria and Lebanon, Israel was also assassinating top-ranking officials.
A decades-long hostility, which had previously played out in shadow wars and covert operations, erupted in open confrontation.
Whatever the specifics of this latest tit for tat, there is a more fundamental priority for both sides: deterrence – a more solid certainty that strikes on its own soil will not happen again. If they do, there is a cost to pay, and it will hurt.
For the moment there is an audible sigh of relief in the region, and in capitals far and wide.
Israel’s latest move, under anxious urging from its allies to limit its retaliation, will have eased this tension, for now. Everyone wants to stop a catastrophic all-out war. But no one will be in any doubt that any lull may not last.
The region is still on fire.
The Gaza war grinds on, causing a staggering number of Palestinian casualties.
Under pressure from its staunchest allies, Israel has facilitated the delivery of greater quantities of desperately needed aid, but the blighted territory still teeters on the brink of famine.
Israeli hostages have still not come home, and ceasefire talks are stalled. Israel still warns of battles to come in Hamas’s last stronghold in Rafah – what aid chiefs and world leaders say would be yet another untold humanitarian disaster.
Iran’s network of proxies across the region, what it calls an “Axis of Resistance” stretching from Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon through Iran-aligned militias in Iraq and Syria, to the Houthis of Yemen, are at the ready, still attacking daily.
In the last few weeks, simultaneously everything and nothing has changed in the region’s darkest, most dangerous days.
Israeli Settlers, Soldiers ‘Wiping Palestinian Communities Off the Map’ in the West Bank
“While the attention of the world is focused on Gaza, abuses in the West Bank, fueled by decades of impunity and complacency among Israel’s allies, are soaring.”
Jake Johnson. 17 Apr 24, https://www.commondreams.org/news/west-bank-communities-israeli-settlers?utm_source=Common+Dreams&utm_campaign=4bdd8521e2-Top+News%3A+Wed.+4%2F17%2F24&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-37878a46b5-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D
Following the Hamas-led October 7 attack on southern Israel, the Israeli military drafted more than 5,000 settlers into “regional defense” units in the West Bank, Haaretzreported earlier this year. The Israeli newspaper noted that “alongside this large-scale mobilization, the [Israel Defense Forces] has distributed some 7,000 weapons to the battalions as well as to settlers who were not recruited into the army but received them as civilians whom the army considers eligible to carry military arms.”
HRW’s investigation found that “armed settlers, with the active participation of army units, repeatedly cut off road access and raided Palestinian communities, detained, assaulted, and tortured residents,
chased them out of their homes and off their lands at gunpoint or coerced them to leave with death threats, and blocked them from taking their belongings.”
“Israeli settlers and soldiers are literally wiping Palestinian communities off the map,” said Omar Shakir, HRW’s Israel and Palestine director.
“While the attention of the world is focused on Gaza, abuses in the West Bank, fueled by decades of impunity and complacency among Israel’s allies, are soaring.”
The new report comes days after Israeli settlers—escorted by IDF soldiers—went on their latest destructive and deadly rampage in the West Bank, killing at least two Palestinians, injuring dozens, and setting homes and vehicles ablaze. At least 20 households were displaced after Israeli settlers burned down their homes.
The wave of settler violence came after a missing 14-year-old Israeli boy was found dead in the area around the West Bank city of Ramallah. The Israeli military said the boy was killed in a “terrorist attack.”
Since October 7, according to the United Nations, Israeli settlers have launched more than 720 attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank, displacing at least 206 households comprised of 1,244 people—including 603 children. Israeli soldiers in uniform have been present at many of the attacks.
“Settlers and soldiers have displaced entire Palestinian communities, destroying every home, with the apparent backing of higher Israeli authorities,” Bill Van Esveld, associate children’s rights director at HRW, said in a statement Wednesday. “While the attention of the world is focused on Gaza, abuses in the West Bank, fueled by decades of impunity and complacency among Israel’s allies, are soaring.”
HRW’s new report examines five West Bank communities that have come under attack by Israeli settlers, including one in which uniformed Israeli men armed with assault rifles entered tents and destroyed or stole people’s belongings, abused residents, and threatened to kill them if they didn’t leave the area.
“One man in uniform kicked me in the back of my neck,” a Palestinian mother told HRW. “They said, ‘Go to the valley, and if you come back, we will kill you.'”
None of the families forcibly evicted from the five communities examined in the HRW report have been allowed to return home.
“Palestinian children have seen their families brutalized, and their homes and schools destroyed, and the Israeli authorities are ultimately to blame,” Van Esveld said Wednesday. “Senior state officials are fueling or failing to prevent these attacks, and Israel’s allies are not doing enough to stop that.”
Following the latest wave of settler violence in the West Bank this past weekend, a coalition of human rights organizations said in a joint statement Wednesday that “the international community must swiftly and decisively pressure the government of Israel to halt these attacks and urgently de-escalate the situation.”
“With international attention centered on Gaza, the government of Israel has not only allowed settler violence to spiral but also persisted in the expansion of Israeli settlements built on Palestinian land and unlawfully seized Palestinian territory by designating it as ‘state land,’ blatantly violating international law,” the groups noted. “Concerted efforts are needed to tackle the root cause of settler violence by permanently dismantling settlement outposts and ensuring the safe return of displaced Palestinians to their lands.”
Iran Closes Nuclear Sites Fearing Israeli Attack: IAEA Chief
Tuesday, 04/16/2024 Iran International Newsroom, https://www.iranintl.com/en/202404162504
Iran shut down its nuclear facilities last Sunday over “security considerations,” UN nuclear chief Rafael Grossi has said, expressing concern over the “possibility” of an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear sites.
Speaking to reporters in New York on Monday, IAEA Director General confirmed that the facilities had reopened within 24 hours, but with no IAEA supervision, as the agency has decided to keep its inspectors away until the situation is “completely calm.”
Grossi was referring to rising tensions between Israel and Iran, which many fear may lead to an all-out war between the two countries and potentially engulf the whole Middle East.
Israel bombed Iran’s consulate in Damascus on 1 April, killing seven members of the Islamic Revolution’s Guards Corpse (IRGC), including a high-ranking commander and his deputy. Iran retaliated on 13 April, launching more than 300 missiles and drones towards Israel –all but a few of which were intercepted by Israel and its allies.
On Monday, Israeli officials vowed to respond to the attack. When asked about the possibility of Israel hitting Iran’s nuclear sites, Grossi said, “We are always concerned about this possibility.” He urged both sides to show “extreme restraint”.
Grossi also reiterated the IAEA’s concerns about Iran’s nuclear program.
“A bit more than a year ago, I went to Tehran and signed a joint declaration with the Iranian government indicating a number of actions that we will be taking together with Iran,” Grossi said. “We started that process and that process was interrupted. And I have been insisting that we need to go back to that understanding that we had in March 2023.”
In September 2023, Iran withdrew the designation of several inspectors assigned to conduct verification activities in Iran under the Non-Proliferation Treaty Safeguards Agreement. Iran’s nuclear chief Mohammad Eslami later claimed that those expelled had had a history of “extremist political behavior”.
“We are always urging, asking and requiring Iran to cooperate with us in full,” Grossi told Iran International’s Maryam Rahmati. “It’s not that we are not there, but we are not there at the level that we consider we should be.”
The IAEA reported in February that Iran is enriching and stockpiling near-weapons-grade uranium, warning that such elevated purity cannot be explained by civilian applications.
When asked about Iran’s enrichment levels by Iran International, Grossi siad, “the fact that there is an accumulation of uranium enriched at very, very high levels does not automatically mean you’re having a weapon…but it raises questions in the international community.”
Iran has always denied seeking nuclear weapons, but no other state has enriched to that level without producing them.
A report published last month by the Institute for Science and International Security claimed that Iran is moving ahead with building a nuclear site deep underground near Natanz.
“This Iranian nuclear weapons-making facility could be impervious to Israeli and perhaps even American bombs,” Foundation for Defense of Democracies CEO Mark Dubowitz said at the time. “Time is quickly running out, as Iran moves into a zone of nuclear immunity, to deny the regime permanent use of this deadly site.”
Iran President Warns of ‘Massive’ Response if Israel Launches ‘Tiniest Invasion’
Rex Patrick has dug into how Pistol Pete Dutton reached his nuclear conclusions.
In September 2020, the Morrison Government released a Low Emissions Technology Statement that placed Small Modular Reactors (SMR) on a list of watching brief technologies. SMR developments were to be monitored to see if they might play a part in Australia’s energy future.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi warned on Wednesday that the “tiniest invasion” by Israel would bring a “massive and harsh” response, as the region braces for potential Israeli retaliation after Iran’s attack over the weekend.
Raisi spoke at an annual army parade that was relocated to a barracks north of the capital, Tehran, from its usual venue on a highway in the city’s southern outskirts. Iranian authorities gave no explanation for its relocation, and state TV did not broadcast it live, as it has in previous years.
Iran launched hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel over the weekend in response to an Israeli strike on Iran’s embassy compound in Syria on April 1 that killed 12 people, including two Iranian generals.
Israel successfully intercepted nearly all the missiles and drones.
It has vowed to respond, without saying when or how, while its allies have urged all sides to avoid further escalation.
Raisi said Saturday’s attack was a limited one, and that if Iran had wanted to carry out a bigger attack, “nothing would remain from the Zionist regime.” His remarks were carried by the official IRNA news agency.
1.This month.
14 May Industrial Decarbonisation Summit
Sydney Get involved at eec.org.au/summit-registration
15- 16 May Sydney – EEC National Conference Efficiency Electrification Decarbonisation more https://eec.my.canva.site/eecnc24
The video on Palestine that got Yanis Varoufakis BANNED from Germany
Keep U.S. military expansion out of Australia
Petition EN5543 – Call for termination of the US-Australia Force Posture Agreement
Antinuclear 