War Crimes & Genocide

In a moment of symbolic optimism it seems that Benjamin Netanyahu’s goose has been cooked. The latest is a warrant of arrest issued against him, and the 60-day ceasefire in Lebanon.

Anyway, the war was started by Israel with targeted pager attacks against civilians in Beirut and elsewhere, in which pagers subverted by Israeli intelligence would explode suddenly, blowing parts of the body — torso, genitals, limbs, face, eyes, fingers. Besides, around 4,000 Lebanese people have been killed by air strikes. Not able to get the underground fighters of the Hezbollah, the mass murder of civilians seems to be a deliberate military policy of the extreme Right-wing regime in Tel Aviv.

On November 21, 2024, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants against Netanyahu, his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas commander Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri (Deif). According to Israel, Deif has been killed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). This report has not been confirmed as yet.

The ICC stated that it had “reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant bear criminal responsibility for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare”. It is well known, that apart from the bombs, the snipers, the tanks, and the targeted assassination of mothers and children (including about 190 journalists), the blockade of food and medical aid has been used as a military strategy by Israel. All wars are brutal, but this regime seems to be unsurpassed in its execution of daily brutality.

Unofficial sources have reported that the death toll might be many times higher in Gaza, while the Western media now cites a figure of 44,000, a large number of them women and children who are especially slaughtered so that new generations of Palestinians are not allowed to be born.

The ICC has said that the compulsive blockade of food and aid seems to be the principal charges against Netanyahu and Gallant. As for Dief, he was declared as “responsible for the crimes against humanity, of murder; extermination; torture; and rape and other forms of sexual violence…”

In an opinion piece in Al Jazeera (November 28, 2024), the writer says: “On the positive side, in and of itself, the ICC decision is historic, as for the very first time, it issued warrants for nationals of – politically speaking – a Western country. Intense pressures and threats from Israel, its friends and its protector-in-chief, the United States, did not shield the two principal members of Israel’s war cabinet from becoming fugitives… Of course, the prospect of seeing Netanyahu and Gallant in the dock is quasi nil. For now, those seeking a modicum of justice would find solace in the symbolism the international warrants for the two Israeli leaders carry.”

Significantly, Justin Trudeau has said that he will “abide” by the ICC decision. “We stand up for international law, and we will abide by all the regulations and rulings of the international courts. This is just who we are as Canadians.”

He also said, “We need to see a ceasefire that protects civilians. We need to get back on track towards a two-state solution with a peaceful Israel living alongside a peaceful Palestinian state.”

Besides, the spokesman of British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer , said: “The UK will always comply with its legal obligations as set out by domestic law, and, indeed, international law.”

Other countries that are in agreement with the ICC are France, Belgium, Jordan, Iran, Turkey, Ireland, The Netherlands, South Africa, Sweden, Norway and the European Union. UK and Canada are members of the ‘Five Eyes’, an intelligence network along with New Zealand, Australia, and the US.

ALSO READ: Mindless Violence In Gaza And West Apathy

The US, not part of the ICC, has reacted in a predictable manner. Joe Biden called the ICC decision “outrageous”. He gave the usual spiel: “Whatever the ICC might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas. We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security.”

This is the line he and Kamala Harris have been taking since last year, all the while supplying Israel with billions of dollars, bombs, arms and ammunition, while backing the genocide in Gaza, even while thousands of students and citizens in America protested for months against the killings, calling for a ceasefire.

The ceasefire with Lebanon is more than a breakthrough, though Israel went on a bombing spree in southern Lebanon soon after citing “terrorist activity”. However, there has been no escalation. The point is that why did Israel go for a ceasefire at all?

There could be many reasons. While media reports are more or less absent from inside Israel, or, perhaps, censored, there are reports that since long big cities in the country are surviving in a state of siege. Thousands have gone underground in bunkers, and normal life has been disrupted. Clearly, the emotional and mental state of the people might be on a volatile edge. This especially triggered after Netanyahu opened up another front with Hezbollah and Iran — killing two top commanders of Hamas and Hezbollah in a high security area in Tehran. Iran vowed revenge.

No one knows what is the death toll of IDF soldiers in Gaza and Lebanon, or the damage inflicted by the missiles of Iran and Hezbollah, which have, effectively, broken through the once invincible Iron Dome, a gift by the US to its Nazi ally in the Middle East. Reservists were called in for the new war against Lebanon. Thousands of Israelis have reportedly escaped out of their country — looking for sanity and peace. A huge section is against Netanhayu, who is living on the edge with a serious corruption case hanging over him.

“It’s a whole new kind of world that we’re going into…And we’ll also have to wait and see if the ceasefire holds. I think the Israelis will do everything they can to provoke,” said Karim Makdisi, a professor of international politics at the American University in Beirut. “I think that as long as you have Netanyahu, something is going to happen.” He was quoted by independent media outfit, Drop Site.

In a speech on television, Netanyahu said he backed the ceasefire to rebuild arms and ammunition (now depleted), that he will shift his attention to Iran, and “to separate the fronts and isolate Hamas. From day two of the war, Hamas was counting on Hezbollah to fight by its side. With Hezbollah out of the picture, Hamas is left on its own.”

Meanwhile, Biden said on X: “Over the coming days, the United States will make another push with Turkey, Egypt, Qatar, Israel, and others to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza with the hostages released and an end to the war without Hamas in power.”

Will Gaza see peace in the coming days? It’s doubtful because Netanyahu’s best trump card is an endless genocide, and the liberation of the holy land, so that armed settlers can now occupy large parts of Gaza, as they have done in the West Bank — the two little strips of land left with the Palestinians of their original homeland.

He has shown no intention for the release of hostages, and, reportedly, has been the main obstacle as and when reached some form of reconciliation in Qatar. Indeed, he cares two hoots for the suffering of the hostages, or the suffering of their loved ones and families.

Besides, Hamas wants IDF to totally withdraw from Gaza. This seems highly improbable. And it wants thousands of Palestinian prisoners, including women and children, most of them innocent, now condemned in Israeli prisons, in exchange for the hostages. This too seems improbable, with Israel picking up several young boys and men recently from Gaza, taking them to unknown destinations.

As for Hamas getting isolated after the ceasefire with Lebanon (and Hezbollah), that too seems unlikely. The Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran are linked politically and militarily. And they will always operate strategically, in synthesis.

Hence, as a bitter and freezing winter takes over a ravaged Gaza, new stories of infinite tragedy will unfold. It’s just that there are no journalists or writers from across the world reporting and writing about it.

The West Is Blind To The Rest

The West Is Blind To The Rest

The global fault-lines, which have been ripped open after the ongoing genocide in Gaza, has been unparalleled in world history, especially in the recent past. For instance, western opinion and active participation consequent to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, including the order of the International Court of Justice in Hague on Russia, has had no impact on Vladimir Putin.

The mindless war continues with thousands dead across both sides, many of them with shared families, cultures and memories, who fought the Nazis together during and after the Holocaust, and made massive sacrifices. More than 20 million people of Soviet Russia died fighting the fascists. Also, after the Russian invasion, if the heart of America, Britain, France and Germany beats so hard for Ukraine, whatever happened in Gaza?

Remember the ethnic-cleansing and repeated massacres of one community during the civil war in Serbia-Bosnia-Herzegovnia — this too was happening right inside the heart of Europe. It took the entire West months of deadpan detachment to act, before NATO unleashed its jet aircraft and bombs. Slobodan Milosevic, the Butcher of Serbia — was he punished in his lifetime? Many of these butchers were, ironically, former communists in Yugoslavia.

Come to think of it, till the time Adolf Hitler attacked Poland in 1939, America and Europe acted totally blind to the long convoys of trains taking millions of Jews to the gas-death chambers, zigzagging through Europe. They simply chose to look the other way, even while France and Britain pretended to be helpless after the extermination of most of their young men in the first world war, another mindless war where the League of Nations was as impotent, as has been the role of the United Nations during the NATO wars unleashed in Iraq and Syria, the American invasion of tiny Vietnam earlier, while backing dictators of sundry banana republics in Latin America.

Did anyone ever say that George Bush was a war criminal for the tens of thousands of Iraqis dead whereby they did not find one weapon of mass destruction in this insatiable American quest of ‘blood for oil’? And that Bush too should have been hauled up in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in Hague like Ratko Miladic, for the mass murders he unleashed in what was former Yugoslavia? Or Hillary Clinton, for unleashing a relentless wave of destruction in Syria and the bestiality unleashed in the murder of Gaddafi in Libya?

Imagine the mass suffering, as a civil war erupted in Iraq, with the war splitting over to Syria unleashed by Clinton and Barack Obama, with entire communities of Yazidi women taken as sex slaves by the ISIS. Who were the patrons of ISIS and where did they get their arms? The American regimes and its allies have their best interests in keeping the pot boiling in the Middle-East till the time oil exists in its vast underground, and till the time Israel can be used as a strategic military force by the US.

ALSO READ: Gaza – Where Tears Have Run Dry

The ICJ did not order Israel to stop its armed assaults – it has asked it to stop its genocidal actions, thereby recognizing that it is a genocide and that the situation in Gaza is catastrophic. While it may take years to give a final judgement, it has largely followed the nine “provisional measures” demanded by South Africa. It is significant that South Africa which suffered an apartheid regime backed by the US and Britain, is now fighting another apartheid regime, backed by the US and Britain!

The 17 judges in Hague ordered that Israel should do everything in its power to avoid killing Palestinians, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, creating unlivable living conditions in, or intentionally preventing Palestinian births, which is a pointer to scores of children being killed due to the bombing of hospitals, the murder of doctors and nurses, and stark absence of medical facilities.

Pointing at the crass declarations by politicians, including Israel’s president and defence minister, calling for the elimination of all Palestinians, including children and women, branding the people of Gaza as animals, etc, the court said that Israel should do more to “prevent and punish” public incitement to genocide. The court ordered “immediate and effective measures” to look into the humanitarian catastrophe.

Isreal can disobey the order, but it is morally bound to obey it, even as it its government is totally isolated across the entire globe, while there have been huge protests in Tel Aviv asking Benjamin Netanyahu to quit. Indeed, the Hague ruling is unprecedented because it has created a huge public perception against Israel across the globe, and serious moral dilemma for the US, Britain, Germany and France, who are openly backing the mass murder of children in Gaza, with Joe Biden actually funding the bombings with millions.

Called ‘Genocide Joe’ now, even by his Democrat supporters, especially the millennials, and hitting 80, there have been massive protests in America (300,000 in Washington DC) and in Europe (half-a-million in London) – as well as in other nations. Even the caucus rally in South Carolina by a thoroughly discredited Kamala Harris had Palestinian flags in the audience.

Indeed, Jewish Groups for Peace in America have been the most vociferous against Netanyahu’s brand of Zionism, whereby he is using mythical narratives to unleash the savagery. The role of notorious Jewish lobbies, including among big business and multinationals, have been dissected publicly by activists, academics and journalists, especially that of the shadowy America Israel Pubic Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Not only does this outfit have tremendous power over various American regimes, both Republicans and Democrats, with their huge money resources and powerful connections, they can shape the destiny of the presidential polls in America. There are allegations that they are pumping in huge money to get those candidates defeated who have opposed the regime in Tel Aviv.

It is indeed a bad faith choice for Americans now, between two very old and unprincipled men who have discarded all values of basic humanity and ethics, and who seem untouched by the 10,000 dead children, the daily violation of international laws, the bombing of churches, mosques, schools, university campuses, refugee camps, hospitals, the killings of more than 100 journalists. They stand totally committed to the ultra-orthodox, Rightwing, extremist Israeli regime, and its barbarism in Palestine.

For a capitalist empire with vast inequalities and thousands of homeless on its big city streets in this freezing cold, the collective guilt and anxiety for its relentless mass murders across the globe – from Vietnam to Gaza – is a psychological epidemic. That thousands have consistently protested across its cities, especially women and the young, only shows that a regime which feeds on barbarism has no democratic credibility, and is as inhuman as any other totalitarian or fascist regime.

With all credit to the West and Europe for its resurrection of arts, architecture, classical music, cinema, academics and culture in the post-war scenario, its governments are most often followers of the Hobbesean principle – they are short, nasty, brutish and barbaric. And that they care a damn for democracy, higher civilizational values, and basic human conduct.

Hence, this high moral ground with which the white empire looks down at the Orientals, has been yet again exposed with its total endorsement of the genocide in Gaza. Yet again, it has taken 25,000 human beings to die by Hiroshima-Nagasaki type of bombing, including 10,000 plus children, and infinite suffering and injustice, to show the cracked, blood-stained mirror to these western empires.

Indeed, it is the people of these countries, now on the streets in mourning and in protest for Gaza – they must show the way. It’s time the West and America discovers a radical paradigm shift in its politics, and creates a new counter-culture of humane civilizational evolution, defying the medieval cruelties of the present and the past. Or else, it would continue to be Eyeless in Gaza and other endless stories of stark silence and barbarism!

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Netanyahu Genocide Case ICJ

We Are Fighting Lies, Terrorists: Netanyahu Slams SA At ICJ

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed South Africa over its genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague during its war against Hamas in Gaza on Thursday.

“We are fighting terrorists, and we are fighting lies. Today, again, we saw an upside-down world in which the State of Israel is accused of genocide at a time when it is fighting genocide,” Netanyahu said in a statement.

He said that Israel is fighting against “terrorists,” as he referenced Hamas, and added that the group has committed horrific crimes against humanity since the October 7 assault.

Netanyahu said, “Israel is fighting against murderous terrorists who committed horrific crimes against humanity: they slaughtered, they raped, they burned, they dismembered, they beheaded–children, women, the elderly, young men and young women.”

“A terrorist organisation carried out the worst crime against the Jewish people since the Holocaust, and now someone comes to defend it in the name of the Holocaust. What brazen gall! The world is upside down,” he added, as he lambasted South Africa over its ICJ case.

The Israeli Prime Minister further questioned South Africa of its case when millions of people were being murdered and uprooted from their homes in Syria and Yemen.

In his statement, according to the Israeli Prime Minister’s office, Netanyahu said, “And the IDF, the most moral army in the world, which does everything to avoid harming non-combatants, stands accused – by the representatives of these monsters – of genocide. South Africa’s hypocrisy screams to the high Heavens.”

“Where was South Africa when millions of people were being murdered and uprooted from their homes in Syria and Yemen, by whom? By Hamas’s partners. The world is upside down. Where were you?” he questioned.

Netanyahu said that Israel “will continue to fight the terrorists” and also continue to refute the lies.

“We know where we are. We will continue to fight the terrorists. We will continue to refute the lies. We will continue to uphold our just right to defend ourselves and to ensure our future – until total victory,” Netanyahu said.

Proceedings began on Thursday in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague, where Israel is being accused of committing “genocidal” acts during its war against Hamas in Gaza, The Times of Israel reported.

South Africa has lodged an urgent appeal to the ICJ to force Israel to “immediately suspend” its military operations in the Strip.

South Africa has based its accusation both on actions taken by Israel throughout the war and controversial comments made by Israeli officials regarding Palestinians in Gaza and how they should be treated.

At the ICJ, South Africa’s Justice Minister Ronald Lamola said that Palestinians have suffered at the hands of Israel since 1948.

“The violence and the destruction in Palestine did not begin on October 7, they have experienced violence for the last 76 years,” Lamola said, as per The Times of Israel.

“In the Gaza Strip since 2004 Israel exercises control over land crossings, civilian infrastructure. Entry and exit to Gaza is strictly prohibited, with Israel operating the only entry points,” he said.

“Gaza is still considered to be under occupation by international law,” he said.

He further said: “South Africa unilaterally condemned the targeting of civilians by Hamas and taking of hostages on October 7, 2023. That said, no attack, however serious, can justify breaches to the convention whether as a matter of law or morality.”

“Israel has crossed this line, and breached the [genocide] convention,” he said. “This is why South Africa has filed this case.”

The Israel-Hamas war began following the October 7 Hamas terror onslaught in which some 1,200 people in Israel were killed and approximately 240 kidnapped and held hostage in Gaza, mainly civilians.

An attorney for South Africa puts forward the accusation that Israel is committing “acts of genocide” during its war against the Hamas terror group in the Gaza Strip.

“South Africa contends that Israel has transgressed Article II of the convention, by actions which show a systematic pattern of conduct from which genocide can be inferred,” said Adila Hassim, as per The Times of Israel. (ANI)

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