By Robert Inlakesh, Information Clearing House,

Germany’s strong support for Israel, despite historical guilt for the Holocaust, may not be solely motivated by remorse. The country’s backing of Israel’s actions in Gaza appears driven by military-industrial interests and alignment with US foreign policy. This suggests a double standard in Germany’s moral arguments and raises questions about its true motives.

If it was true that Germany’s commitment to shielding Israel, at all costs, was down to its historical guilt, then why would it risk association with another act of Genocide?

Despite its historic persecution of European Jewry, Germany today stands as one of the strongest allies of the self-proclaimed ‘Jewish State’ of Israel, providing it with 30 percent of its weapons supplies and unrelenting diplomatic cover. 

While some argue that Berlin’s unwavering support, for its Israeli ally, is born of guilt from the Germany’s genocide during the Second World War, the record suggests there is another explanation for their actions.

Nicaragua Case

Following the success of South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), winning a unanimous decision from the court’s judges that there is a plausible genocide being carried out in Gaza, the State of Nicaragua decided to take the natural next step and pursue one of the collaborators in carrying out violations of the Genocide Convention. 

Managua has accused Germany of complicity in yet another genocide, at the ICJ, a crime for which Berlin is particularly infamous for. 

Not only was the German State responsible for the Holocaust under Nazi rule, but also carried out a Genocide in Namibia prior to the First World War too. 

In the case of the Nazi regime’s extermination of the Jewish people, it is fair to say that modern Germany has expressed its regret, paid reparations and attempted to disassociate itself from the crime. 

However, its refusal to pay its dues for the crimes it committed during the colonial era in Africa, more specifically the Genocide of the Nama and Herero people, reflects an inability to acknowledge its wrong doings against all peoples.

As the second largest weapons supplier, behind the United States, to the Israeli military, Germany is faced with a tremendous legal commitment to attempt in preventing Tel Aviv from carrying out actions that violate international law with those arms. 

In this case, the Israelis have plausibly been accused at the highest judicial body on the planet of committing the crime of all crimes, for which Berlin has alleged its iron clad support for Israel has been premised. 

If Nicaragua’s case is successful, it could trigger the ICJ to order provisional measures that will force Germany to halt arms sales to Israel, which would be a major development.

Freedom of Speech

However, instead of shying away from being tied to yet another genocide, the German State has doubled down in its support for the Israelis in their assault on the Gaza Strip. 

On top of consistently utilising its police and security forces to violently crack down on Germany’s pro-Palestinian peaceful demonstrators, it has also taken unprecedented action to prevent their citizens having the right to freedom of speech on the issue too.

On April 12, the German authorities were reported to have mounted thousands of police officers to participate in shutting down a Palestine Conference organized in Berlin. 

Shortly before the conference, Palestinian-British doctor Ghassan Abu Sitta, who was supposed be a keynote speaker, was denied entry into German territory and deported. 

The electricity was shut off to the conference and even a prominent Jewish pro-Palestine activist was arrested, a police officers prevented journalists from filming, justifying their actions later by stating that one of the speakers who was attending through an online call, Salman Abu Sitta, was banned from political activity inside of Germany.

While the German authorities have made clear that their unconditional support for Israeli actions in Gaza will not be swayed by calls from their own public, even going so far as to prevent democratic means of the German population voicing its disapproval of their governments policy. 

This begs the question as to why the German government, which so openly proclaims its disgust and regret for the actions of the Nazis during the Second World War, truly prioritizes ridding itself of the genocide association label.

Historical Guilt?

If it was true that Germany’s commitment to shielding Israel, at all costs, was down to its historical guilt, then why would it risk association with another act of Genocide?

Instead, the true underlying causes of Germany’s support for Israel, in its war against Gaza, are more likely the need to continue the flow of weapons to the benefit of its own military industrial complex, in addition to its commitment to aiding the United States in maintaining Western supremacy throughout West Asia. 

Germany has strongly condemned Russia for its military action’s in Ukraine and attempted to build, what it calls, a moral argument against Moscow’s offensive actions. 

Yet, comparatively, while the Russian armed forces have killed hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers, only 550 children are said to have been killed during some two years of war. 

When it comes to the actions of the Israelis, inflicting over 40,000 deaths in Gaza – when including the some 13,000 missing and presumed dead – nearly 70% are said to be women and children.

What we see here, in the case of the German government, is not only a clear double-standard, but also an attempt to build moral arguments to justify their positions, when it comes to foreign policy, that are inherently contradictory. 

If we are to take Berlin at face value, about its alleged Genocide guilt and concern over civilian deaths, there are only two viable explanations for their double-standards: Either Germany believes that European lives are worth more than non-Europeans, or they are lying to deceive the public into believing they are committed to certain foreign policy positions for ethical reason for propagandistic purposes alone. 

As is the case for the United States and the other governments of the collective West, it may be that a mixture of the two explanations are true.

Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.

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Some members of Congress are calling for the National Guard to be sent in to break up a protest at Columbia University

by Dave DeCamp, Antiwar. com, April 22, 2024

On Monday, President Biden smeared protesters at college campuses around the country opposed to the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza as “antisemitic.”

“I condemn the antisemitic protests. That’s why I’ve set up a program to deal with that,” Biden told reporters. “I also condemn those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians.”

Biden’s comments came as the media is focused on Columbia University in New York City, where students have set up a camp named the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment.” Some of the students involved in the protest were arrested last week and suspended by the university, prompting a walkout by faculty members to show support for the students.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams has also smeared protesters as “antisemitic,” saying, “I am horrified and disgusted with the antisemitism being spewed at and around the Columbia University campus.”

The demand of the protesters is for Columbia University to divest from companies profiting from the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians and the occupation of the West Bank. Al Jazeera reported that the protest is being organized by the student-led coalition Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), Students for Justice in Palestine, and Jewish Voice for Peace. According to the CUAD’s website, the coalition includes 116 organizations.

The situation at Columbia has led some members of Congress to call for the National Guard to break up the protests, including Senators Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Josh Hawley (R-MO).

Critics of the protests have accused the demonstrators of harassing Jewish students, which has been a common claim about recent college protests in general. Peter Beinart, editor-at-large of Jewish Currents, made the point on X that Jews are usually “overrepresented” among pro-Palestinian protesters at colleges. “Sometimes they’re the largest identity group. Maybe folks calling for cracking down on protesters in the name of Jewish safety should consider their safety too,” he said.

Author: Dave DeCamp

Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com, follow him on Twitter @decampdave. View all posts by Dave DeCamp

Johannes Stern, WSWS, 18 April 2024

@JSternWSWS

Eighty years after the end of the Nazi dictatorship, the ruling class in Germany is shedding its democratic mask. The suppression of the Palestine Congress in Berlin is reminiscent of the darkest times in German history.

Last Friday, 900 police stormed the peaceful gathering and arrested numerous participants, including Jewish opponents of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Approximately 2,500 police officers were mobilized in total, and they have since been brutalizing protesters demonstrating against the dispersal of the Congress.

The World Socialist Web Site and the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (Socialist Equality Party, SGP) condemn the German state’s crackdown—which is redolent of outright dictatorships and fascist regimes—on the Palestine Congress in the strongest terms. It is not only directed against the congress and its supporters, but aims to suppress all social and political opposition. Under conditions in which the ruling class is again relying on militarism and war and is planning massive attacks on the working class, protests are not allowed.

The organizers of the Palestine Congress and their lawyers were willing to abide by all police restrictions. A statement from the lawyers’ collective, which worked closely with the organizers of the congress, showed that there were already several rounds of “safety talks” between organizers and the police in advance, which further restricted the congress. Nevertheless, it was brutally dissolved in the end. Even its most prominent participants were treated like criminals.

For example, the Federal Ministry of the Interior imposed a ban on the former Greek Minister of Finance and chairman of the pan-European party DiEM25, Yanis Varoufakis. The ban also includes an entry and online access ban. In other words, although a few years ago Berlin was still working closely with Varoufakis to impose the European Union’s austerity dictates on the Greek working class, he is now no longer allowed to express himself politically in Germany, because he criticises the mass murder of Palestinians.

Another well-known person blacklisted by the federal government at short notice is the physician and rector of the University of Glasgow, Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah. After the Federal Police also issued him with an entry ban, he was detained upon arrival at Berlin Airport, subjected to an hours-long interrogation and then sent back to London by plane.

Abu Sittah worked in the Gaza Strip during the first six weeks of the war in the Shifa and Ahli hospitals, which were repeatedly attacked by the Israeli army. He testified about his terrible experiences at the International Court of Justice, where Germany has been charged with complicity in genocide, and also gave a harrowing interview to German news magazine Der Spiegel. Now, as an eyewitness to the mass murder, he was forbidden from reporting on the events in Gaza at the congress.

The crackdown against the Palestine Congress is the culmination of a veritable police terror campaign carried out against all opposition since the beginning of Israel’s genocide. In Berlin and other major German cities, entire districts with large Palestinian and Arab populations are under siege. Anyone who wears a Palestinian scarf or in any way expresses their opposition to the government and the genocide it supports must expect to be stopped and arrested by the police.

Applying the same arbitrariness and brutality, the cultural and educational sector is being scoured and whipped into line. Exhibitions by Palestinian artists and opponents of the genocide have been cancelled, cultural institutions such as the Oyoun in Berlin have lost their funding, and teaching appointments, prizes and awards have been withdrawn. Anyone who expresses criticism as an artist, scientist or journalist first loses their job, then is branded an antisemite in a public smear campaign and destroyed by the media.

No one should be intimidated by this filthy campaign. It is the height of provocation when the German ruling class, of all people, invokes the Holocaust to justify another genocide and to criminalize any opposition to it. This also applies to Jewish opponents of genocide. Already in the run-up to the congress, the bank account of the Jewish Voice for a Just Peace, where donations for the event were collected, was frozen. When the police stormed the congress, a leading member of the organisation, Udi Raz, was arrested.

The crackdown was supported by all parties in the Bundestag (federal parliament). Social Democratic Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser praised the brutal actions of the police. It was “right and necessary” that the Berlin police crack down on the so-called Palestine Congress, she wrote on the social media platform X.

A cross-party “Alliance against Anti-Semitic Terrorism,” which includes leading representatives of the governing Social Democrats, Green and Free Democrats, and the opposition Christian Democrats and Left Party in Berlin, like a large part of the media, waged a vicious smear campaign even before the congress began and called for its banning. The participants were concerned with “spreading anti-Semitic hatred” and Berlin should not become “the centre of terrorist glorification,” they wrote in a statement.

The established politicians and the propagandists in the media can shout until they are blue in the face, this will not change reality. The filthy narrative of the fight against “antisemitism” and “terrorism” is increasingly being exposed. It is nothing more than a cover under which the ruling class returns to its roots: fascism and war.

It is not the oppressed Palestinians and the millions of people around the world who stand in solidarity with them and protest against the genocide that promote antisemitism, but the imperialist powers and, above all, the ruling class of Germany. The very narrative that collectively associates Jewish people with the genocidal policies of the far-right Netanyahu regime is thoroughly antisemitic.

In addition, the same parties, politicians and journalists who are now shouting “antisemitism” have no problem courting the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and openly glorifying fascist forces in Ukraine in the NATO war against Russia. They also defended the right-wing extremist Humboldt University Professor Jörg Baberowski after he declared that Hitler was “not vicious” and did not want to know about the extermination of the Jews.

The ruling class is not concerned with the fate of the Jews. As in Ukraine and Russia, German imperialism is also pursuing geostrategic and economic interests in the Middle East, relying on genocide and war. The government is currently working feverishly to, in the words of Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, make Germany “fit for war” again. Domestically, as in the past, this requires the militarisation of society as a whole and the establishment of a dictatorship.

As early as 2017, Germany’s secret service, the Verfassungsschutz (Office for the Protection of the Constitution), under the leadership of right-wing extremist President Hans-Georg Maassen, placed the SGP under intelligence surveillance. And this on the exclusive grounds that the SGP advocates a socialist programme, criticises capitalism, militarism and nationalism, and opposes the established parties and the trade unions. The SGP filed a lawsuit against this and warned even then:

The secret service’s attack on the SGP is a fundamental assault on democratic rights. It is a component of government policy that is increasingly based on authoritarian forms of rule and the reliance on right-wing extremist forces so as to enforce militarist policies, the strengthening of the repressive state apparatus and attacks on social spending, and to suppress all opposition that emerges. It recalls the Weimar Republic, when the intelligence agencies, judiciary, and police ruthlessly persecuted socialists and pacifists while strengthening the Nazis.”

This is the reality. And the suppression of the Palestine Congress is another serious warning. It underlines how aggressive the ruling class is and that, as in the Third Reich, it will stop at nothing to enforce its policy of war and dictatorship. At the same time, their Gestapo-like methods will only act to further fuel popular opposition. According to a recent survey, just 18 percent consider Israel’s actions in Gaza to be justified, while 69 percent oppose them.

The SGP bases itself on this opposition, which is part of a much broader radicalisation of the working class and the development of the international class struggle. It will use the European election campaign, together with its sister parties in the International Committee of the Fourth International, to promote the building of an independent mass movement against genocide, war and dictatorship–and their root cause, capitalism. Our election statement declares:

Millions of people around the world have demonstrated against the genocide in Gaza in recent weeks, despite the propaganda from the politicians and the media, and have indicated how strong and globally networked the working class is today. This movement must be expanded and armed with a socialist perspective.

We demand:

• An immediate end to the siege of Gaza and the complete demobilization of the Israeli army!

• The holding of Netanyahu, Biden, Scholz and all other war criminals accountable for their war crimes!

• The fight to unite Palestinian and Israeli workers in the struggle for a common secular and socialist state!

A “war against humanity”: Six months of the Gaza genocide

Andre Damon, WSWS. April 8, 2024

April 7 marks six months since the beginning of the US-Israeli genocide in Gaza.

In the span of just half a year, Israel has displaced 1.9 million of Gaza’s 2.2 million people, denied the entire population access to food, water and medical care, and carried out daily, systematic massacres leading to the deaths of tens of thousands of people.

The death toll currently stands at 33,137. Once the missing are added, the true toll is likely over 44,000. A further 75,815 people have been wounded.

Over the course of just six months, 5.45 percent of Gaza’s population has been killed, wounded or is missing. A comparable percentage of the American population would be more than 18 million people.

This is an intensity of mass death without precedent in post-World War II history. But most shocking of all is the fact that two-thirds of those killed are women and children. Israel has deliberately targeted medical workers, humanitarian workers, journalists and artists. It is waging, as World Central Kitchen founder Jose Andres said Sunday, a “war against humanity.”

In the course of the past six months, every element of the US-Israeli justification for bombing, invading and blockading Gaza has been exposed as a lie.

Earlier this year, it was revealed that Israel was in possession of Hamas’s entire operational plan for the October 7 attack that served as the pretext for the war. Despite this knowledge, Israeli intelligence and military forces were ordered to stand down and redeploy from the Gaza border immediately ahead of the attack.

In a matter of days, the Israeli military put into effect long-held plans for a genocidal war against the population of Gaza. “We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly,” declared Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on October 9. “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel.” 

Just four days later, Israeli President Isaac Herzog declared, “It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. It’s not true this rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved…  we will fight until we break their backbone.” Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter declared, “We’re rolling out the Gaza Nakba.”

Having made these statements of genocidal intent, the Netanyahu government systematically targeted all aspects of social, economic and cultural life in Gaza, working to level every hospital, school and home, and kill as many men, women and children as possible.

The genocide has undeniably shown that the perspective of Zionism is bankrupt and reactionary. Israel will forever be marked by its association with mass murder. It is the end product of decades of brutal oppression of the Palestinians, and the false identification of the interests of the Jewish people as a whole with the Israeli state.

Beyond Israel, the genocide stands as a condemnation of the entire imperialist order. The capitalist powers in the US-NATO axis have supported, armed, funded and politically justified one of the greatest crimes of the modern era.

As the Israeli government was publicly stating its intent to massacre and expel the population of Gaza, the Biden administration declared over and over its opposition to any negotiated settlement of the conflict. There is “no possibility” of a ceasefire, Biden said on November 9.

Just days later, Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer addressed a pro-genocide rally in Washington, in which he bellowed, “We stand with you … . We will not rest until you get the assistance you need.”

Over the course of six months, the Biden administration has made more than 100 separate arms transfers to Israel, making it clear that the Netanyahu government has a green light to starve, kill and torture the population of Gaza at will. 

This reality stands as an unanswerable rebuttal to the claims by the Biden administration and US media that the White House has sought to “pressure” the Netanyahu government to protect civilians.

In fact, the administration’s policy has amounted to a massive blank check for Israel, a policy that continues to this day despite the purely verbal criticism of Netanyahu by the White House.

The Biden administration’s categorical support for the Israeli genocide is part of an eruption of US militarism throughout the Middle East, including Iran, as part of a broader struggle for global domination targeting Russia and China.

The Gaza genocide will have vast and far-reaching social and political consequences. Already, the mass murder in Gaza has sparked the largest global mass demonstrations since the Iraq war. It has shown the imperialist powers, who endlessly invoke “human rights” to justify their wars, as enablers and accomplices of genocide.

Most of all, the Gaza genocide is a crime of capitalism. The capitalist social order is legitimizing every form of social barbarism: from nuclear war to perpetual mass death in a preventable pandemic to genocide. Future generations will see the Gaza genocide as an inflection point, propelling the growth of powerful currents in opposition to the capitalist social order.

As WSWS International Editorial Board Chairman David North explains in The Logic of Zionism: From Nationalist Myth to the Gaza Genocide:

The ongoing war, for all its horrors, has made one significant political contribution. It has awakened the youth. It has opened the eyes of the world. It has exposed the Zionist regime and its imperialist accomplices for the criminals they are. It has set into motion a tidal wave of outrage that is sweeping across the world and will sweep across those responsible for this genocide.

The task is to turn this growing opposition, which is as yet of a politically amorphous character, into a conscious movement based on a socialist perspective oriented to the working class.

Ralph Nader, Common Dreams, Apr 06, 2024

The U.S. government’s unwavering commitment to Israel’s annihilation of Gaza – torrents of heavy weaponry, diplomatic and political cover, and vast majorities in Congress swearing fealty to Netanyahu’s extremist regime – is usually attributed to AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), the powerful domestic pro-Israeli government lobby, organized in every Congressional District, with its abundant campaign cash and its many personal contacts in Congress and the Executive Branch.

This is only a partial explanation of the US-Israel alliance. A far more formidably entrenched factor is that Israel and the U.S. have overlapping Empires – one in the Middle East and the other globally – with deep common purposes. Here are some examples of how these empires operate in tandem.

Both Empires violate international laws with impunity. The U.S. sends special forces, drones, the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force, anywhere and anytime it wants – especially the case of Iraq and Afghanistan. National boundaries and sovereignty mean nothing. Similarly, Israel completely dominates the Middle East militarily, bombing, sabotaging, and killing whomever it wants in neighboring countries. It has attacked Lebanon and Syria routinely with its air force, artillery, and invaded Lebanon on the ground, prompting feeble responses it always labels “terrorism.”

“Israel and the U.S. have overlapping Empires—one in the Middle East and the other globally—with deep common purposes.”

Both Empires consider every military operation defensive. They say they never conduct offensive attacks, but when they do, they invariably describe them as self-defense. Israel slaughters Palestinians decade after decade in the Palestinian territories while claiming self-defense. With the second most modern military in the world, backed by the U.S., Israel invades, engages in nightly destruction of Palestinian homes, seizes Palestinian land and water for their colonies, imprisons thousands without charges, including women and children, inflicts collective punishment, operates many checkpoints and imposes embargoes, sieges and blockades. All of these unlawful actions are claimed to be taken in the name of self-defense.

The U.S. has 750 military bases in over 80 countries, 26 military installations in the Middle East, runs the provocative NATO military alliance, and digs into the South China Sea. All this is also claimed to be done in the name of self-defense.

Both Empires have collaborating military-industrial complexes and are major arms exporters. As the chief innovator in weapons of mass destruction, the U.S. and its companies like Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing welcome feedback from the Israeli military on how their weapons fare in its attacks. Palestine has become a major testing ground for the most super-modern surveillance technology. (Check out the book, The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World by Antony Loewenstein, 2023).

Both Empires wield “force projection” as atomic bomb powers, though Israel refuses to join the non-proliferation treaty.

Despite their many wars and raids on defenseless populations, both incurred a rare counter-attack (9/11 & October 7) when advance warnings by advisors were ignored (GW Bush and Netanyahu) and military defenses were AWOL. After being attacked, both Empires went berserk and responded with massive killing of civilians by overwhelming invasions.

Both Empires lie repeatedly regarding their tactics and strategies. Recall Rep. Ron Paul’s terse recognition that Bush and Cheney “lied us into invading Iraq.”

Both Empires control the United Nations Security Council with the U.S. veto shielding whatever Israel does. Both occupy or control land that is not theirs, violating international laws.

Both Empires violate their legal duty as occupiers to protect the civilian population’s well-being. Both have restricted humanitarian assistance and critical civilian imports – Israel savagely in Gaza and Palestine, and the U.S. in Iraq under Bill Clinton. Both decline to estimate their aggregate civilian casualties.

Both Empires’ leaders, Biden and Netanyahu, profess to practice their respective religions, though they are violating the basic precepts of both their religions in implementing their violent wars.

Both Empires spend little time pressing for ceasefires, peace negotiations, and the stability of peace treaties. They find such restraints as unacceptable curbs on their freedom to wage war.

Both Empires, contrary to their fundamental juridical documents, in the case of the U.S., our Constitution, operate as elected dictatorships in conducting military and foreign policy. The Congress and the Knesset become supine and surrender to the Executive and, for Israel, the ruling executive coalition. In the U.S., the U.S. Supreme Court has long ruled that no citizens of our country, not even individual members of Congress, “have legal standing to sue” the U.S. government for either initiating illegal wars or engaging in additional illegal tactics like torture or corruption.

To remove the challenges from “We the People” against a lawless government, the Supreme Court has endorsed the “state secrets” doctrine. It authorizes the government to demand the dismissal of constitutional claims, in federal court, based on killings, torture, kidnapping, or otherwise by alleging the defense would require disclosure of national security information.

The Israeli Supreme Court doesn’t worry about the Israeli military machine.

Both Empires have a so-called free mainstream media that mostly toes the Empire party line and knows its permissible place in the overall profit-making power structure. Both have a small independent media that is still able to dissent, however futilely, though the U.S. has no counterpart to the outspoken Israeli newspaper HAARETZ.

There are some differences between the two Empires. Israel attacked the USS Liberty on June 8, 1967, killing 34 American sailors and wounding 171, and mostly got away without consequences. (See, The Intercept article: Fifty Years Later, NSA Keeps Details of Israel’s USS Liberty Attack Secret by Miriam Pensack).

Prosperous Israel persuades the U.S. Congress yearly to provide Israel with billions of dollars, mostly for military arms, and is about to get an additional $14.1 billion – the Biden genocide tax on Americans – as Netanyahu’s terror state continues intensifying his Palestinian Holocaust. (The reported casualty toll is lethally undercounted. See the March 5, 2024 column: “Stop the Worsening UNDERCOUNT of Palestinian Casualties in Gaza”).

If Biden’s people privately object to some Israeli off-the-wall slaughter of courageous journalists, United Nations staff, aid workers, patients in hospitals, and the starvation of babies, Netanyahu can softly say to Biden and Blinken, “Joe, Tony, why don’t you take up your complaints with OUR Congress.”

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Ralph Nader

Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate and the author of “The Seventeen Solutions: Bold Ideas for Our American Future” (2012). His new book is, “Wrecking America: How Trump’s Lies and Lawbreaking Betray All” (2020, co-authored with Mark Green).

The resistance movement of Palestinians in Gaza was said to be holding about 100 hostages. According to some accounts, some of these hostages were killed by Israeli bombardment.

Israel as an occupying power is illegally holding more than 8000 Palestinians. As a peace activist, I fully stand for the release of all such hostages, both by the resistance movement and the occupying power.

It can happen when Israel stops its genocidal war and ethnic cleansing, orders a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, withdraws its army from Gaza (and also from the West Bank) and adheres to the UN resolutions to end its occupation of the Palestinian land it captured in 1967.

That is the only sane way to peace. But will Israel and its main sponsor and abettor of wars and ethnic cleansing, the United Sates, give peace a chance? Because of their record, I am reluctant to make any prediction.

— Nasir Khan

by Mel Gurtov, Counterpunch, April 4, 2024

The Biden administration continues to act contrary to logic and humane values in response to Israel’s war policies. Despite overwhelming evidence of Israel’s war crimes and acts that constitute genocide, the administration plies the right-wing Israeli government with more weapons. The latest arms package being prepared by the administration will reportedly be the largest since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack. Valued at around $18 billion, it will include 50 F-15 fighter jets and precision-guided munitions kits as well as more 2000- and 500-pound bombs.

Many critics, including some within the administration itself, have pointed with alarm to the obvious contradiction in US policy between supporting negotiations on a cease-fire and hostage release on one hand, and continuing to ship non-defensive weapons to Israel on the other. The contradiction applies not just to the immediate situation in Israel but also to overall US policy on the abuse of military aid—NSM 20—which specifies that arms recipients must adhere to international and American law. Israel, while giving assurances about its use of US weapons, has violated US policy guidelines in numerous ways—for instance, bombing hospitals and other civilian targets with US bombs, and using US-supplied white phosphorus munitions in densely populated areas of Gaza.

Such violations make the US complicit in Israel’s war crimes and genocide, which Oxfam and Human Rights Watch documented in a joint letter submitted to the administration March 13. Just recently, the UN Special Rapporteur on Palestinian rights condemned Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza and proposed an arms embargo on Israel. If the Biden administration wants to be taken seriously when it demands Israel’s restraint in its Gaza operations, calls for a “sustainable” cease-fire, and insists on Israel’s removal of obstacles to the delivery of humanitarian aid, it must stop delivery of non-defensive weapons to Israel. Otherwise, such calls lack credibility, undercut any leverage the US might have on Israeli policy, and spotlight the US role in prolonging the war and contributing to the horrific humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Mel Gurtov is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Portland State University, Editor-in-Chief of Asian Perspective, an international affairs quarterly and blogs at In the Human Interest.

Ralph Nader, Counterpunch, April 1, 2024

Image by Jeff Kingma.

Joe Biden has long had a problem with PEACE – as in “ceasefires,” “serious peace negotiations,” and conditioning the transfer or sale of major weapons systems as required by five U.S. criminal statutes. From one side of his mouth, Biden urges futilely Israeli compliance with international law while on the other side he supports the daily shipment of weapons of mass destruction to the Israeli government. These weapons are being used in the genocidal killing of Palestinians in Gaza.

A majority in Congress is even more hawkish and lets Biden do whatever he wants in making war abroad. The cornerstone of our Constitution – the separation of powers – has been demolished in area after area. (See, our open letter of November 28, 2023, to the members of the U.S. Congress).

By contrast, American public opinion has turned against U.S. arms shipments to Israel and the annihilation of Palestinian civilians from infants to the elderly. Whole extended families are being wiped out by American-made bombs and missiles. The homeless survivors are injured, starving and suffering from untold illnesses.

The Israeli state terror is producing a Palestinian Holocaust. Netanyahu’s violent anti-semitism against the Arabs of Palestine is out of control. Many courageous Israeli human rights groups protest, to no avail, (See, the December 13, 2023, open letter to Biden that appeared in the New York Times) as Netanyahu and his extremist coalition reveal their long-time objective of driving millions of Palestinians out of what is left of their Palestine.

As for the Hamas raid on October 7th, and the total collapse of the highly touted Israeli border security, a World War II Holocaust survivor told the New York Times, “It should never have happened…” Yet, Netanyahu has blocked an official investigation of this unexplained multi-tiered technological and human intelligence debacle.

Meanwhile, public dissatisfaction with the dictatorial decision-making by the White House and the absence of Congressional action is growing rapidly. More and more labor unions are now opposing Biden’s bombings, Jewish Americans working with Jewish Voice for Peace and If Not Now are brilliantly organizing demonstrations. Veterans for Peace’s 27 chapters around the country are in the streets peacefully demanding a ceasefire, cessation of weapons shipments and major increases in humanitarian aid. They are mostly ignored by the corporate media, NPR and PBS.

Religious groups are beseechingly calling for peace. This week in the latest public letter, 140 Global Christian Leaders, organized by Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP) called on President Biden “…to have the moral courage to end U.S. complicity in the ongoing violence and, instead, do everything in [his] power to…” stop the “death and destruction” in Palestine.

The CMEP receives little or no coverage by the mainstream media even though this organization represents millions of people.

But then look who is not taking a pro-peace stand, staying silent or actively backing the Israeli war machine. The American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars are on the sidelines. The AFL-CIO Labor Federation finally came out tepidly for a ceasefire but has exerted very little of its muscle on Capitol Hill.

AIPAC, the “pro-Israeli government can do no wrong lobby” has been cultivating relationships with these U.S. organizations and others like them for decades.

The worst abdications have come from the legal profession in the form of State Bar Associations and the American Bar Association (ABA) – the largest organization of lawyers in the world. These lawyers are all “officers of the court” instructed to stand for the rule of law. Except for a brief time in 2005-2006 (https://nader.org/2013/04/19/aba-white-papers/ ) the ABA has idled while Presidents regularly have violated our Constitution and all kinds of laws – domestic and international – with impunity, facilitated by a supine Congress.

Bruce Fein and I have asked 50 State Bar Associations to be first responders in challenging the ongoing breakdown of the rule of law due to their professional duties and knowledge. None have responded.

As for the healthcare professionals watching Israel raining death and destruction directly on Gaza’s hospitals and health clinics, inundated with desperate patients, their endangered physicians and assistants without the means to devote their care, the response is overwhelmingly silent. The American Public Health Association and the American Medical Student Association are among the few to have condemned Israel’s atrocities.

Yet, the desperate pleas by their wounded professional colleagues have failed to register with the likes of the American Medical Association, the American College of Surgeons, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma and many others. (See the letter of March 1, 2024, which has gone unanswered).

What can turn our country around? An organized citizenry of less than one percent of the voters in Congressional Districts, giving voice to the voiceless majority, can free Congress from its captivity imposed by the forces of greed, power and violent Empire, draining resources from our dire domestic needs.

As I wrote in the Capitol Hill Citizen (February/March 2024 issue), Congress has become a weapon of mass destruction with multiple warheads. Only the people can recover their sovereign power, under the Constitution, now delegated to a Congress that sells out to the highest corporatist bidders.

On the Israeli slaughter of Gaza’s people, a small but growing number of Democrats in Congress are standing tall. They need your active backing to expand their numbers. (See, Ceasefire Tracker: https://workingfamilies.org/ceasefire-tracker/).

As for the cruel, vicious, genocidal, maniacal Republicans, they remain disgraced in their full-throttled support for Netanyahu, who is fighting for his job, trying to escape Israeli prosecutors and is hugely unpopular in Israel.

The GOP position was expressed by Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton – a lawyer no less – who said last October, for posterity’s eternal damnation: “As far as I’m concerned, Israel can bounce the rubble in Gaza.” This is exactly what the massacring Israeli juggernauts have done with the weapons, taxpayers’ money and diplomatic cover enabled by corrupt outlaws like Tom Cotton.

Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer and author of Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us! 

A White House official reaffirmed that US aid to Israel is unconditional

by Dave DeCamp, Antiwar. com, March 31, 2024

The Biden administration has approved billions of dollars worth of bombs and fighter jets for Israel to support the slaughter and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza despite claims from US officials that they’re concerned about the massive civilian casualty rate.

US officials told The Washington Post that the administration approved the transfer of 500 MK82 500-pound bombs and more than 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs, which Israel has used to kill scores of civilians by dropping them on Gaza’s densely populated cities.

The administration also approved the transfer of 25 F-35 fighter jets to Israel, a deal worth $2.5 billion that’s likely being paid for by US military aid to Israel. US officials said both transfers had been approved by Congress years ago and not fulfilled, so lawmakers were not notified about the final approval.

A White House official confirmed to the Post that US military aid to Israel is still unconditional. “Conditioning aid has not been our policy,” the official said.

News of the weapons transfers came after Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant visited Washington to ensure continued US support for Israel’s brutal campaign. While President Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appear to be at odds in public, behind the scenes, US support for Israel continues unabated.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Sunday that 32,782 Palestinians have been killed and 75,298 have been wounded since October 7. The total of dead includes over 13,000 children. The numbers from Gaza’s Health Ministry are considered low estimates since they don’t take into account the thousands who are missing and presumed dead under the rubble.

Pro. Mearsheimer’s lucid and informative analysis of the UNSC latest resolution on Israel’s war in Gaza

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