Middle East Press On Europe, Gaza, Israel, Tel Aviv, Nasrallah, Sinwar and Haniyeh: New Age Islam's Selection, 26 October 2024
By New Age Islam Edit Desk
26 October 2024
Europe's Silence On Gaza: Arts Community Faces Criticism
Cracks In Israel's Shield: How Global Attitudes On Tel Aviv Are Shifting
Israel: From Haniyeh And Nasrallah To Sinwar… A Strategic Failure
A Historic Humiliation: Israel’s Precision Strikes Leave Iran Defenceless
'The Country It Loathes Most': South Africa's Struggle To Find Evidence Against Israel
In Unjust World Order, Türkiye And BRICS Align Naturally
Israel Kills The Journalists. Western Media Kills The Truth Of Genocide In Gaza
Taking A Look At France's Anti-Israel Policy Over The Years And The Larger Threat
The Past Year's Military Events Have Rewritten Israel's Defence Doctrine
The Long History Of Palestine: Why Palestinians Are Winning The Legitimacy War
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Europe's Silence On Gaza: Arts Community Faces Criticism
By Anadolu Agency
October 25, 2024
Europe’s culture, cinema and arts sectors remain largely silent on Israel’s actions in Gaza, where international court trials accuse Israel of genocide against Palestinians.
Anadolu’s series, “Silent Supporters of Israel’s Genocide in Europe”, reveals how European cultural industries support Israel’s stance, often exerting pressure on artists who show solidarity with Palestine.
Western cultural institutions and festivals work to justify Israel’s actions in Gaza, creating a systematic mechanism that represses Palestinian solidarity in the arts.
In Europe, cultural and artistic circles largely ignore the genocide and humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Artists attempting to support Palestine face job losses, censorship at festivals and other sanctions.
Berlin Film Festival controversy
Expressions of solidarity with Palestine during the Berlin Film Festival’s closing ceremony drew backlash from German politicians.
Culture Minister, Claudia Roth, condemned the speeches as “horribly one-sided against Israel.” Berlin’s Cultural Senator, Joe Chialo, labelled it “arrogant anti-Israel propaganda”, threatening investigation and stating it “has no place on Berlin stages”.
Israeli director, Yuval Abraham, who faced accusations of anti-Semitism, responded: “Such accusations diminish the value of the term ‘anti-Semitism’ and endanger Jewish lives.”
At the Amsterdam Film Festival, 12 documentary filmmakers withdrew after it denounced Palestinian protests, while Palestinian-Jordanian director, Darin J. Sallam’s film was removed from the Bristol Palestine Film Festival.
“Silence is complicity … these cowardly acts … make them complicit in the ongoing genocide,” remarked Sallam.
Eurovision’s flag ban
At the Eurovision Song Contest in Malmo, Sweden, from 7-11 May, Palestinian flags were banned, sparking protests against Israel’s participation.
Michelle Roverelli, Communications Director of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), justified the restriction, allowing only national and rainbow flags.
According to Swedish news agency, TT, security personnel confiscated Palestinian flags or banners containing political messages.
Despite Russia’s expulsion due to its invasion of Ukraine, the EBU defended Israel’s participation. Human rights groups labelled this a “double standard”, as Irish finalist, Bambie Thug, faced pressure to remove “ceasefire” and “freedom” body paint.
Hollywood sanctions on pro-Palestine artists
Oscar-winning actress, Susan Sarandon’s pro-Palestine stance led to her being dropped by her agency, United Talent Agency (UTA). Similarly, Scream star, Melissa Barrera, was removed from a film due to her social media posts.
Barrera, the star of Scream VII, was dismissed by Spyglass Media for calling Israel’s actions “genocide” on Instagram. She clarified: “I denounce both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, yet I will continue to raise my voice for human rights.”
Vanity Fair edited out the Palestinian flag pin on Australian actor, Guy Pearce, while Bridgerton star, Nicola Coughlan, revealed she was cautioned that supporting Palestine could jeopardise her career.
Artists’ resistance messages despite repression
Despite severe sanctions, some artists continue supporting Palestine.
Model, Bella Hadid, reported losing several brand contracts over pro-Palestine posts, stating: “I will continue to be a voice for the Palestinian people, no matter the cost.”
British musician, Roger Waters, cited similar reasons for concert cancellations in Germany, calling pro-Palestine support “career suicide in the art world.”
British director, Ken Loach, highlighted Israel’s actions in Palestine during the 2024 BAFTA Awards ceremony, a stance criticised by free speech advocates.
The European Writers’ Association issued a report, saying: “Germany’s normalisation of cancelling Palestinian authors’ events at book fairs and threatening deportation of those criticism of Israel clearly illustrates the ongoing pressure on intellectuals.”
‘The worst genocide we’ve ever seen in our lifetime’
At the Venice Film Festival, Japanese-American director, Neo Sora, expressed his solidarity with Palestine, commenting on the pro-Israel stance in the art world.
Working on his debut feature film on 7 October, Sora stated: “It was really difficult to try to continue to have the motivation to be able to finish the film, because in the face of such an extreme live stream genocide … probably the worst genocide that we’ve ever seen in our lifetime.”
He added: “Certainly, I couldn’t figure out if I can continue to make films, because what is the point of telling stories about human dignity and humanity if we’re confronted with … horrible violence.”
Sora also shared his Venice Film Festival experiences, where he wore a keffiyeh and carried a Palestinian flag: “People were shouting from the audience, free Palestine … Arabic and Japanese audiences expressed gratitude for the solidarity.”
‘Structural biases in American film industry’
Sora criticised structural biases in the American film industry, noting: “In America, it is very based on either personal investors or corporations … They will be more likely to want to support Israeli projects and not Palestinian projects.”
He also highlighted the lack of awareness in Japan regarding Palestine: “Where I’m coming from in Japan … very few people are aware about what is actually happening.”
‘Genocide also targets Palestinian cultural identity’
Sora pointed to Israel’s targeting of Palestinian culture, stating: “I think one thing that has been happening through this genocide is the destruction … of the cultural identity of Palestine through the destruction of these archives and institutions and museums and memory.”
He warned about Israel’s military use of artificial intelligence, adding: “We have been using our creativity that we should be using to create art for killing … we won’t survive as humans if we don’t stop this.”
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20241025-europes-silence-on-gaza-arts-community-faces-criticism/
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Cracks In Israel's Shield: How Global Attitudes On Tel Aviv Are Shifting
By Anadolu Agency
October 25, 2024
“When I went to the West Bank earlier this year, I met Palestinians whose communities have suffered horrific violence at the hands of Israeli settlers. The inaction of the Israeli government has allowed an environment of impunity to flourish, where settler violence has been allowed to increase unchecked.”
These were the words of British Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, last week as he announced sanctions against seven organisations that support illegal Israeli settlers in the Occupied West Bank. But, notably, Lammy stopped short of penalising two extremist ministers serving in Israel’s government, a move his Tory predecessor, David Cameron, had been planning during his tenure as Foreign Secretary in the government of former Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak.
What is driving this shift?
Cameron, who had served as prime minister earlier in 2010-2016, recently revealed to the media that, in his last days in government, he had been preparing sanctions against Israeli Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, and National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir. His reasoning? Cameron branded the two men “extremists” and claimed sanctions could have pressured Israeli Premier, Benjamin Netanyahu, to comply with international law. A few weeks ago, it was hard to imagine a UK government ever sanctioning a minister of an ally, especially one as closely tied to Britain as Israel.
For years, Israel has been shielded from such action. But, it seems, times are changing. This is the third episode of financial and other sanctions against certain elements of the West Bank settlers’ community by the UK government. Sanctioning settlers is one thing, but targeting government ministers? That’s a whole new ball game.
What’s driving this shift? Look no further than the troubling words and actions of the two aforementioned Israeli ministers. Ben-Gvir has repeatedly expressed his belief that Jewish Israeli rights over-ride Arab human rights and his comments on why security forces should kill rather than capture enemies have sparked outrage, both in Israel and abroad. Meanwhile, Smotrich’s stance that starving 2 million people in Gaza is “moral” until Israeli hostages are returned has also drawn widespread condemnation. Even UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer called his words “abhorrent”.
A dilemma the West can no longer ignore
The UK is facing a dilemma it can ignore no longer: How do you confront a staunch ally who is heading down a dangerous road while still being ready to defend them in a crisis? Britain is not alone in this predicament. Western Europe, too, is beginning to grapple with this uncomfortable question. The shield around Israel seems to be cracking, and the implications could be far-reaching. French President, Emmanuel Macron, has already pointed to stopping weapons supplies to Israel as a means of supporting the peace process there.
The aftermath of the 7 October attacks have unfolded into a protracted and devastating conflict, marked by Israel’s forceful reprisals. Civilian casualties have crossed the 50,000 mark and millions have been displaced, yet Israel’s long-term strategy remains elusive. The murder of Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar, was important for Israel, but its broader goal of neutralising Hamas and Hezbollah is far from realisation. As the war extends into Gaza and Lebanon, the question of Israel’s next moves grows more pressing. Speculation is increasingly focused on figures like Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, whose hard-line visions are gaining attention. Their desired outcomes — a Gaza left in ruins and the expulsion of its Palestinian population, along with the annexation of the West Bank — are no longer fringe ideas. In fact, these goals appear to be seeing into the Netanyahu government’s strategic calculus. The prospect of a two-state solution, once the international community’s preferred pathway, seems ever more distant as Netanyahu’s government doubles down on its opposition to a Palestinian State.
Is this the Israel that its long-standing allies, including the UK, are still willing to stand behind? The country’s expansion into the West Bank and the imposition of sanctions on settlers suggest a growing discomfort among its supporters. The UK’s actions — financial penalties against elements of the settler community – may signal the beginning of a broader reckoning. Could wider sanctions on settlements and economic activity in the West Bank follow? And does this mean that Israel’s allies no longer believe that its current path guarantees security or a sustainable future for the region? The answer to this question is still vague, as the situation is quite fluid. The growing distance between US President Joe Biden and Netanyahu is also indicative of this new development. It seems that the continued relentless and Israeli aggression in Gaza and the West Bank has eventually penetrated the public opinion in the West, leading to a subtle but significant recalibration in global leadership, which is being reflected in the recent public stances of Biden, Macron and Starmer on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20241025-cracks-in-israels-shield-how-global-attitudes-on-tel-aviv-are-shifting/
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Israel: From Haniyeh And Nasrallah To Sinwar… A Strategic Failure
By Dr Abdullah Khalifa Al-Shayji
October 25, 2024
History teaches us that ideas and ideologies do not fade and end with the assassination and killing of their leaders and founders but, rather, they rediscover themselves through its members and staff who emerged, trained and acquired intellectual, ideological and even combat expertise and capabilities.
Yahya Sinwar, the architect of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, according to The New York Times, sought to convince Iran and Hezbollah to participate in a qualitative multi-front operation since 2022. This is why the launch of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood was delayed by the leader of the Hamas movement and head of the movement’s political bureau. The only Hamas leader who has notable combat capabilities and heads the movement’s political bureau in Gaza and was later elected to the position of head of the movement’s political bureau after the martyrdom of Ismail Haniyeh, the former head of the political bureau, in an Israeli assassination operation at the end of July in the heart of Tehran. This prompted an Iranian missile response in early October to avenge the assassination of Haniyeh and then Hassan Nasrallah.
As Israel prepared for retaliation against Iran, Israeli forces unintentionally assassinated a leader who was more extreme and less pragmatic than his predecessor, Ismail Haniyeh, head of the Hamas political bureau, on a routine patrol in the Sultan neighbourhood.
The airing or leaking of the drone video, which filmed Sinwar without them knowing that the Palestinian leader was discovered by a military force on a routine patrol in Rafah, was the greatest act of foolishness, as it exposed the Zionists’ narratives that Sinwar lives and resides in hideouts and tunnels surrounded by Israeli captives as human shields. They exposed their own lie by showing the video of him fighting on the ground, and alone until his last breath.
Hezbollah’s success in infiltrating Prime Minister Netanyahu’s home with a drone in Caesarea, the luxurious suburb south of Haifa, where other senior officials and the wealthy reside, bypassing all the advanced Israeli and American defences last Saturday morning, causing a massive explosion that hit Haifa and Haifa Bay, and raining a barrage of missiles on the northern settlements, the Galilee and the Golan Heights, proves the accuracy of the threats made of Hezbollah’s Deputy Secretary-General, Naim Qassem, in his third defiant speech since the assassination of Secretary-General, Hassan Nasrallah. He had stressed that the fighting is continuing and heading towards a new, escalated phase that will be discussed in the coming days; the phase of hurting the enemy by striking a Binyamina base in Haifa with a drone, killing 4 soldiers. The displaced Israelis will not return but, rather, more settlers will be deported from the north.
Yahya Sinwar will go down in history as the only person who inflicted the greatest human loss and the greatest military and intelligence failure on Israel since the Holocaust, with Netanyahu and Israeli leaders admitting to killing more than 1,200 soldiers and civilians (it remains unknown how many of them were killed by mistake by the Israeli occupation forces with friendly fire). Israel decided, out of arrogance and confusion, to air a video from a drone showing Yahya Sinwar’s last moments after he was shot and bombing the house he was protected in, surrounded by a tank. Despite his injury, Sinwar continued to fight until his last breath. His last heroic act was throwing his stick after his hand was injured and amputated, at the drone, which will only inspire millions to fight, be brave and courageous. He brought the power of inspiration and sacrifice to an entire generation, as the Arab media was filled with praise for his heroism, courage and sacrifice amidst complete official Arab silence!
Those who believe that Hamas or any legitimate resistance movement will weaken and retreat after the death of its founders and leaders are delusional. Israel has previously assassinated Hamas leaders in its political and military wings, including the founder of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Abdel Aziz Al-Rantisi, Nizar Rayyan, Saeed Siam and Saleh Al-Arouri in Beirut and, recently, the leaders in the movement’s political wing, Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and Yahya Sinwar in Rafah, and carried out a failed assassination operation of Khaled Meshaal in Amman. It also assassinated, in various operations, the leaders of the military wing of the Qassam Brigades: Yahya Ayyash, Salah Shehadeh, Ahmed Al-Jaabari and others. However, this will not weaken Hamas, as Hamas leaders, most notably Khalil Al-Hayya, deputy head of the movement’s political bureau, confirmed in a statement when confirming Sinwar’s death and stressing that the Resistance will continue and will follow in the path of the heroic martyr leader, Yahya Sinwar.
President Obama assassinated Osama Bin Laden, the leader of Al-Qaeda in Pakistan in 2011 – who claimed responsibility for the largest attack inside the US in 2001 – and President Biden assassinated Bin Laden’s successor, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, in Afghanistan in 2022. Trump killed the leader of Daesh in northern Syria in 2019. Since the launch of Operation Flood of Al-Aqsa in October 2023, Netanyahu has assassinated military and political leaders, most notably Mohammad Deif, Sinwar, and Ismail Haniyeh. As for Hezbollah, Israel assassinated Hezbollah Secretary-General, Hassan Nasrallah, and his potential successor in devastating raids on the southern suburbs of Beirut within a week, in addition to assassinating the military leaders of the group’s elite forces, the Radwan Division.
While it is true that the impact of these assassinations was painful and affected these organisations, in operational reality, these assassinations did not affect their capabilities. Hezbollah bombed Tel Aviv, Haifa, Acre and the Galilee three weeks after the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, and Hamas fought fearlessly, killing, sniping, booby-trapping buildings and inflicting losses on the invading soldiers, their tanks and vehicles in Gaza. They bombed the Gaza envelope and even Tel Aviv. The Taliban controlled all of Afghanistan after the disordered withdrawal of American forces.
Israel’s failure to achieve its declared war goals of completely defeating Hamas, eliminating its capabilities, freeing the hostages and neutralising Gaza so that it does not pose a future threat to Israel’s security, as well as the lack of clarity about who will run the Gaza Strip the day after the war, as well as its forces remaining in Lebanon, is a strategic loss that makes the immediate victories less important. The euphoria of a temporary victory does not cover up the absence of a clear strategy. The continuation of the Occupation without moving to a strategic vision for a comprehensive solution that achieves permanent, comprehensive and just peace through the establishment of a Palestinian State, as everyone, except Netanyahu and his extremist gang, is demanding, means the continuation of the conflict and violence and the absence of security, stability and strategic victory.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20241025-israel-from-haniyeh-and-nasrallah-to-sinwar-a-strategic-failure/
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A Historic Humiliation: Israel’s Precision Strikes Leave Iran Defenceless
By Zvika Klein
OCTOBER 26, 2024
As dawn broke over Tehran today, it wasn't the usual hum of a busy city greeting the morning. Instead, the reverberations of precision strikes echoed across Iran’s strategic landscape. You could almost picture the startled faces behind closed doors in Iran’s power centers, scrambling to understand how Israel managed to pull off an operation so audacious, so brazen, and yet so meticulously calculated.
For over three hours, Israel has been striking with unprecedented precision, unmasking a simple truth: Tehran, for all its bluster, isn’t untouchable. You can almost feel the tectonic plates shifting under Iran’s feet as the “regional power” finds itself reeling, looking a lot less like the force it projects to the world and a lot more like Hezbollah, scrambling to avoid the light.
Imagine the dilemma for Iran’s leadership – retaliate and risk a spiral that might burn everything it’s built, or stay silent and let Israel’s quiet triumph ring louder. Either way, Iran is backed into a corner of its own making. A response would almost certainly turn Tel Aviv into a potential target, but after tonight, Iran knows that Israel can just as easily reach Tehran. This isn’t a vague threat; it’s a promise that’s landed, with clarity and force, right on their doorstep.
Israel changed the game
Israel has done more than just attack military installations here. It has rewritten the rules of the game, showing that it has both the nerve and the know-how to reach where it needs to, to disrupt what it must. This isn’t just an exercise in military might – it’s a statement. Israel has stripped Iran of some of its military edge in a single night, leaving the so-called “regional power” scrambling for control over its narrative, like a magician left with empty hands in front of a disappointed audience.
What we’re witnessing isn’t just military strategy but also a glimpse of a new regional dynamic. Israel has drawn a line that will be felt in power corridors well beyond Tehran. It’s a lesson in calculated defiance, one that sends a message to Iran and its proxies: Israel is ready to protect its own, to reach into even the most fortified of regions if it means safeguarding its people. The reverberations of tonight’s strike won’t fade quickly – they mark a turning point, a shift that might just reshape the balance of power for years to come.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-826128
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'The Country It Loathes Most': South Africa's Struggle To Find Evidence Against Israel
By Ian Lloyd Neubauer
OCTOBER 25, 2024
Ten months ago, South Africa sued Israel at the International Criminal of Justice (ICJ) for the alleged crime of genocide in Gaza in what is shaping up to be one of the most extraordinary and unusual legal cases in recent history.
Extraordinary, as Israel was born in the ashes of the Nazi Holocaust – the mass-murdering event for which the word “genocide” was coined, and unusual as South Africa is now demanding an extension on the October 28 deadline to submit its final cache of evidence. Plaintiffs nearly always work to expedite courtroom proceedings, not to slow them down.
The request for an extension signals that South Africa has failed to unearth enough legally compelling evidence to secure a courtroom victory. It also accentuates the need to reexamine the evidence thus far presented and to understand why South Africa, a country on a different continent with a tiny Muslim population, is so determined to see Israel charged with “the crime of all crimes.”
South Africa claims Israel has repeatedly breached the United Nations-approved Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (November 9, 1948) in its counter-invasion of Gaza sparked by Hamas’ October 7 orgy of blood, rape, and fire that resulted in the greatest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust.
Adopted verbatim by the ICJ, the convention defines “genocide” as the carrying out one or more of five specific war crimes with the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group.”
The first is killing people simply because they are members of a group. The second is “causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group,” a war crime anti-Israel academics and legal experts are now using to describe Israel’s retaliatory pager attacks against terror group Hezbollah, alleging Israel is expanding its genocide to Lebanon.
The remaining three war crimes listed in the convention include inflicting “conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction,” preventing births, and abducting children.
Specifically, South Africa alleged Israel deliberately killed 23,570 Gazans that it sourced from a daily death toll released by Hamas’s Health Ministry. The figure has since been revised by Hamas to 41,000.
Hamas's fraudulent numbers
Every civilian killed in wartime is a tragedy. However, Abraham Wyner, a statistics professor at the University of Pennsylvania, is one of many experts certain the figure is fake. Hamas releases “fake daily numbers that vary too little because they do not have a clear understanding of the behavior of naturally occurring numbers,” Wynder wrote in Tablet, an online Jewish magazine.
The figure, he alleges, blames every death in Gaza since October 7 on the Israel Defense Forces, including natural deaths, which the CIA World Factbook puts at 2.9% annually, about 6,200 people; the well-documented assassination by Hamas of alleged looters, homosexuals, political rivals, and peaceniks such as Islam Hejazy, head of the NGO HEAL Palestine, whose car was sprayed with 90 bullets in September for refusing to handover to Hamas money it raised to help Gazans.
Hamas’ figure also includes deaths caused by friendly fire. According to the IDF, one in five of the 9,100 rockets fired at Israel since October 7 landed inside Gaza, as occurred on October 17 when a rocket launched by rival Palestinian terror group Islamic Jihad hit a car park at the Al-Ahli Hospital, and Hamas instantly claimed 500 people had been killed.
Poignantly, Hamas’ death count makes no distinction between non-combatants and combatants, the latter of whom cannot be included in a tally for alleged genocide. The IDF puts the number of Hamas soldiers killed during its campaign at 17,000,
If accepted as fact by the court, this evidence reduces the ratio of non-combatant to combatant deaths in Gaza to close to 1:2. This is far lower than the average of 1:9 deaths in modern warfare.
South Africa also alleges Israel has imposed measures preventing Palestinian births through the destruction of “essential health services.” Yet, according to the NGO Save the Children, 5,522 babies have been born in Gaza every month since October 7. This is even higher than the pre-war annual birth rate in Gaza of 4,783 babies per month. And while the IDF has bombed and raided several Gazan hospitals, in every instance it has released evidence showing Hamas had built tunnels and command centers under hospitals, rendering them legitimate military targets.
Finally, South Africa alleges Israel “intended” to commit genocide in Gaza, citing quotes from high-ranking Israeli officials like Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (“We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly,” retired Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland (“The Israeli state has no choice but to turn Gaza into a place that is temporarily or permanently impossible to live in,”) and President Isaac Herzog (“There are no innocent civilians in Gaza”).
Israeli Holocaust historian Omer Bartov has warned that such statements “could easily be construed as indicating a genocidal intent.” However, they do not prove genocide has happened, meaning that a guilty ruling based on evidence South Africa has presented, which also includes Israeli flags adorning wrecked buildings in Gaza, would represent a significant departure in legal precedent.
From Myanmar to East Timor, Syria, and Iraq, dozens of genocidal events that ticked all five boxes have occurred in the 76 years that have passed since the genocide convention was introduced. But the United Nations and its courts have only officially recognized three as genocide: the slaughter and starvation of three million Cambodians by the Khmer Rouge; the killing of an estimated 800,000 Tutsi by the Hutus in Rwanda; and the extermination of 8,000 Bosnian Muslim boys and men by Bosnian Serb forces in Srebrenica.
The lackluster record is the result of a lack of political will. But when it comes to Israel, South Africa has will in spades. It has long drawn parallels between its historic fight against apartheid and the Palestinian cause – and is seeking payback over ties the Israeli military shared with South Africa’s apartheid-era regime.
Is South Africa enabling genocide?
Rather than a harbinger of global justice, the ANC, since assuming office in 1994, has become an enabler of genocide. According to the US Embassy in South Africa, it has covertly provided arms to Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, which has been classified as genocide by Washington DC-based watchdog group Genocide Watch.
In 2015, the ANC ignored an ICJ arrest warrant against then-Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir, who oversaw the genocide of 200,000-400,00 people in Darfur in the early 2000s during a state visit to South Africa.
Today, Sudan is the site of the world’s greatest humanitarian disaster. More than 10 million people have been displaced, 5.2 million women and children are starving, and sexual violence against women and girls has reached epidemic levels, according to Médecins Sans Frontières.
Yet the ANC still refuses to lift an eyebrow.
In the same month that ANC prosecutors took Israel to the world court, a beaming South African President Cyril Ramaphosa posed for photos at his official residence in Pretoria with Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, a Sudanese general whose militia last year killed 15,000 people belonging to the Masalit ethnic minority and who has also been implicated in the Darfur genocide.
The only way to interpret it, says Johannesburg-based think-tank the Brenthurst Foundation, is that South Africa “has countries and leaders that it likes and those that it loathes.” And Israel, the world’s only Jewish majority, is the country it loathes most.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-825966
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In Unjust World Order, Türkiye And BRICS Align Naturally
By Imran Khalid
OCT 26, 2024
"We are determined to further our dialogue with the BRICS family, with whom we have developed close relations based on mutual respect and win-win stances ... We believe BRICS makes unique contributions to building a more just global order by serving the goals of development of global commerce, economic growth and sustainable development," President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said while reiterating Türkiye’s sincere intent to join BRICS in his address to the recent summit of the bloc in Kazan, Tatarstan.
Erdoğan's participation in the BRICS summit has certainly provided the impetus to Türkiye’s journey to eventually join this club – a bold and strategically well-timed move that is being viewed by the Western capitals with a lot of suspicions for a number of reasons. Türkiye’s NATO membership would mark a historic first, positioning the country as the only member of the alliance openly challenging Western powers. Relations between Ankara and its Western counterparts have been quite sour over the escalating violence in the Middle East. Erdoğan, during the "Strengthening Multilateralism for Equitable Global Development and Security"-themed gathering, emphasized the inadequacy of post-World War II political and financial structures that have failed to adapt to a rapidly shifting global landscape, where socio-economic vulnerabilities are rising, and power balances are shifting.
The Turkish president’s message was clear: His country remains committed to the idea that a fairer world is achievable. In an era of deep global challenges – be it economic inequality, security threats or climate crises – Erdoğan’s stance is indicative of a growing discomfort between Türkiye and the West on these matters, particularly instability in the Middle East. Erdoğan’s one-on-one meeting with his Russian counterpart President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the Kazan summit was also taken with a pinch of salt by many in the Western capitals.
Türkiye’s formal application to join BRICS marked a key moment for this important group. Since its inception in 2006, BRICS has evolved into one of the most influential and effective blocs for economic and political stability across the globe. As a growing economy, Türkiye’s entry would certainly augment and beef up BRICS' role. The recent inclusion of Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) highlights the group's expansion in the regions of the Middle East and Africa, which are strategically important for Türkiye. This change also shows that BRICS is quickly emerging as a significant platform giving a voice to the Global South.
With the recent expansion, BRICS now constitutes 28% of the worldwide economy, 45% of the global population and 44% of crude oil production, showing its growing potential to change the world stage. This strength supports the idea of a multipolar world and promotes fairer international relations. By uniting nations – with divergent economic and political outlooks – under one umbrella, BRICS can tackle urgent global issues and encourage fairer global governance. In a fragmented world where unilateralism often rules, a stronger BRICS alliance offers a spot for cooperation focused on inclusivity and respect.
Symbol for Global South
BRICS is a powerful symbol for the hopes of the Global South, reaching beyond its original members. Since it began, this group has built strong connections aligned with what emerging markets and developing nations want. BRICS has always supported openness and working together. Türkiye's membership application is a reflection of the appeal and strategic important BRICS has earned over the years.
It seems multi-polarity is gaining currency in the Global South. As BRICS keeps inviting new members, its role as an alternative to Western power will only get stronger. This will help shape global governance and build a fairer world order. The essence of what makes BRICS attractive is that it represents a united voice seeking an open system.
Türkiye's push to join BRICS has stirred reactions in Washington and Brussels. It's quite understandable why. Türkiye has been on the path to EU membership for many years, but it hasn’t been easy or smooth sailing. After long frustrated negotiations for the EU membership, Erdoğan now seems ready to explore other options. By applying for full membership in BRICS, Türkiye is not only making a strong geopolitical statement, but also carving a role of an influential player in the ever-changing world order.
This is also symptomatic of the fact that power is moving away from traditional Western centers. Türkiye's own foreign policy stance often collides with NATO and the EU on topics like Gaza, Syria and Ukraine, depicting an independent foreign policy agenda. Ankara is trying to manage a complex diplomatic landscape that balances Western connections with aspirations in this new multipolar setting. What we're seeing isn’t merely a shift – it’s Türkiye reshaping its global role.
Why an alternative?
BRICS includes big emerging countries like Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa along with newer members like Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Iran. It all centers on economic teamwork and growth. It champions diversity – all sorts of differences can coexist productively within it. Even though member states have varying political beliefs, they can still work together successfully, a real show of potential cooperation.
By joining BRICS, Türkiye would fit right into this focus on economic development since it's expected to be one of the top 12 economies by 2050. Joining would give Türkiye an alternative to the West-focused “rules-based” international framework. It’s more than just symbolic. It showcases what developing countries desire: fairness globally.
Plus, it could help ease tension between NATO and nations in BRICS like China and Russia by bridging gaps between cultures, showing that Western dominance doesn’t have to define everything.
Over nearly two decades, BRICS has attracted significant attention due to its successes in offering an alternative to today’s unfair international system – one that often leaves developing countries behind. That unjust setup pushes many toward BRICS, which symbolizes hope for better cooperation. While financial collaboration forms one part of what drives BRICS forward – as it remains magnetic – its original five members make up over half of global growth even during tough times. With new members added into this mix now coming onboard meaning higher growth potential and improved access thanks to enhanced resource capabilities throughout their developments, they stand united as numbers grow.
Positioning itself as an alternative to the World Bank rather than the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the New Development Bank (NDB), first proposed in 2011 and operational by 2015, was started with $100 billion in capital. Though its pockets are not as deep as that of the World Bank, the NDB’s policy of lending in local currencies has set it apart, which is a key reason why more and more countries are opting to join BRICS. Still, this development demands a nuanced analysis, neither overstated nor overlooked.
Official NDB figures divulge that 96 projects are currently being financed with loans totaling $32.8 billion. The majority are concentrated in China, Russia, Brazil, India and Egypt, with $20 billion of the total in U.S. dollars and the equivalent of $3 billion in euros. Interestingly, over $5 billion of the loans are denominated in renminbi, indicating a gradual shift. Although local currencies still have a tiny share, the movement is quite palpable in this direction. With around 75% of NDB loans still tied to the dollar and euro, it is too early to declare that BRICS is dismantling dollar hegemony. Yet it is challenging the influence of the dollar on the global economy. It is clear that BRICS is exploring alternatives – something neither the IMF nor World Bank offers. While the NDB may not rival the World Bank just yet, its existence signals the possibility of a broader financial shift. So, where does Türkiye fit into this equation, and why is BRICS so appealing to Ankara?
The NDB mobilizes funds for infrastructure across member nations. This initiative boosts confidence among other countries that seek membership too. Beyond merely finance operations, strong infrastructure aids in supporting peaceful resolutions during conflicts, stabilizing forces within security sectors and promoting cultural exchanges by nurturing respect among diverse backgrounds.
What is being termed as “BRIC wisdom” represents helping nations tackle tricky international relations through openness. This approach protects each member's dignity while maximizing benefits collaboratively amid starkly divided environments. BRICS leadership advocates for development goals globally as representatives of the Global South.
The bloc also serves as a central hub for shaping future governance worldwide and enhancing collaboration with new regions like the Middle East to boost overall synergy in the energy and finance sectors. It helps members expand their influence and gain traction to maintain balance and improve the necessary regional dynamics. Members are able to more effectively address challenges through gradual revisions in practices by managing complexities for successful integration and harmonious compatibility. This cooperation supports shared aspirations based on unchanged principles focused solely on collective growth and united efforts in establishing centres for fostering stronger partnerships.
So, Türkiye’s inclusion in this club would certainly be a win-win proposition.
https://www.dailysabah.com/opinion/op-ed/in-unjust-world-order-turkiye-and-brics-align-naturally
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Israel Kills The Journalists. Western Media Kills The Truth Of Genocide In Gaza
25 October 2024
Israel knew that, if it could stop foreign correspondents from reporting directly from Gaza, those journalists would end up covering events in ways far more to its liking.
They would hedge every report of a new Israeli atrocity – if they covered them at all – with a "Hamas claims" or "Gaza family members allege". Everything would be presented in terms of conflicting narratives rather than witnessed facts. Audiences would feel uncertain, hesitant, detached.
Israel could shroud its slaughter in a fog of confusion and disputation. The natural revulsion evoked by a genocide would be tempered and attenuated.
For a year, the global networks’ most experienced war reporters have stayed put in their hotels in Israel, watching Gaza from afar. Their human-interest stories, always at the heart of war reporting, have focused on the far more limited suffering of Israelis than the vast catastrophe unfolding for Palestinians.
That is why western audiences have been forced to relive a single day of horror for Israel, on 7 October 2023, as intensely as they have a year of daily horrors in Gaza – in what the World Court has judged to be a "plausible" genocide by Israel.
That is why the media have immersed their audiences in the agonies of the families of some 250 Israelis – civilians taken hostage and soldiers taken captive – as much as they have the agonies of 2.3 million Palestinians bombed and starved to death week after week, month after month.
That is why audiences have been subjected to gaslighting narratives that frame Gaza’s destruction as a "humanitarian crisis" rather than the canvas on which Israel is erasing all the known rules of war.
While foreign correspondents sit obediently in their hotel rooms, Palestinian journalists have been picked off one by one – in one of the greatest massacres of journalists in history.
Israel is now repeating that process in Lebanon. On Thursday night, it struck a residence in south Lebanon where three journalists were staying. All were killed.
In an indication of how deliberate and cynical Israel’s actions are, it put its military’s crosshairs on six Al Jazeera reporters this week, smearing them as "terrorists" working for Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
They are reportedly the last surviving Palestinian journalists in northern Gaza, which Israel has sealed off while it carries out the so-called "General’s Plan".
Israel wants no one reporting its final push to exterminate northern Gaza by starving out the 400,000 Palestinians still there and executing anyone who remains as a "terrorist".
These six join a long list of professionals defamed by Israel in the interests of advancing its genocide - from doctors and aid workers to UN peacekeepers.
Sympathy for Israel
Perhaps the nadir of Israel’s domestication of foreign journalists was reached this week in a report by CNN. Back in February whistleblowing staff there revealed that the network’s executives have been actively obscuring Israeli atrocities to portray Israel in a more sympathetic light.
In a story whose framing should have been unthinkable – but sadly was all too predictable – CNN reported on the psychological trauma some Israeli soldiers are suffering from time spent in Gaza, in some cases leading to suicide.
Committing a genocide can be bad for your mental health, it seems. Or as CNN explained, its interviews "provide a window into the psychological burden that the war is casting on Israeli society".
In its lengthy piece, titled "He got out of Gaza, but Gaza did not get out of him", the atrocities the soldiers admit committing are little more than the backdrop, as CNN finds yet another angle on Israeli suffering. Israeli soldiers are the real victims – even as they perpetrate a genocide on the Palestinian people.
One bulldozer driver, Guy Zaken, told CNN he could not sleep and had become vegetarian because of the "very, very difficult things" he had seen and had to do in Gaza.
What things? Zaken had earlier told a hearing of the Israeli parliament that his unit’s job was to drive over many hundreds of Palestinians, some of them alive.
CNN reported: "Zaken says he can no longer eat meat, as it reminds him of the gruesome scenes he witnessed from his bulldozer in Gaza."
Doubtless some Nazi concentration camp guards committed suicide in the 1940s after witnessing the horrors there – because they were responsible for them. Only in some weird parallel news universe would their "psychological burden" be the story.
After a huge online backlash, CNN amended an editor’s note at the start of the article that originally read: "This story includes details about suicide that some readers may find upsetting."
Readers, it was assumed, would find the suicide of Israeli soldiers upsetting, but apparently not the revelation that those soldiers were routinely driving over Palestinians so that, as Zaken explained, "everything squirts out".
Banned from Gaza
Finally, a year into Israel’s genocidal war, now rapidly spreading into Lebanon, some voices are being raised very belatedly to demand the entry of foreign journalists into Gaza.
This week - in a move presumably designed, as November’s elections loom, to ingratiate themselves with voters angry at the party’s complicity in genocide - dozens of Democratic members of the US Congress wrote to President Joe Biden asking him to pressure Israel to give journalists "unimpeded access" to the enclave.
Don’t hold your breath.
Western media have done very little themselves to protest their exclusion from Gaza over the past year – for a number of reasons.
Given the utterly indiscriminate nature of Israel’s bombardment, major outlets have not wanted their journalists getting hit by a 2,000lb bomb for being in the wrong place.
That may in part be out of concern for their welfare. But there are likely to be more cynical concerns.
Having foreign journalists in Gaza blown up or executed by snipers would drag media organisations into direct confrontation with Israel and its well-oiled lobby machine.
The response would be entirely predictable, insinuating that the journalists died because they were colluding with "the terrorists" or that they were being used as "human shields" – the excuse Israel has rolled out time and again to justify its targeting of doctors in Gaza and UN peacekeepers in Lebanon.
But there’s a bigger problem. The establishment media have not wanted to be in a position where their journalists are so close to the "action" that they are in danger of providing a clearer picture of Israel’s war crimes and its genocide.
The media’s current distance from the crime scene offers them plausible deniability as they both-sides every Israeli atrocity.
In previous conflicts, western reporters have served as witnesses, assisting in the prosecution of foreign leaders for war crimes. That happened in the wars that attended the break-up of Yugoslavia, and will doubtless happen once again if Russian President Valdimir Putin is ever delivered to The Hague.
But those journalistic testimonies were harnessed to put the West’s enemies behind bars, not its closest ally.
The media do not want their reporters to become chief witnesses for the prosecution in the future trials of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, at the International Criminal Court (ICC). Karim Khan, the ICC’s prosecutor, is seeking arrest warrants for them both.
After all, any such testimony from journalists would not stop at Israel’s door. They would implicate western capitals too, and put establishment media organisations on a collision course with their own governments.
The western media does not see its job as holding power to account when the West is the one committing the crimes.
Censoring Palestinians
Journalist whistleblowers have gradually been coming forward to explain how establishment news organisations - including the BBC and the supposedly liberal Guardian – are sidelining Palestinian voices and minimising the genocide.
An investigation by Novara Media recently revealed mounting unhappiness in parts of the Guardian newsroom at its double standards on Israel and Palestine.
Its editors recently censored a commentary by preeminent Palestinian author Susan Abulhawa after she insisted on being allowed to refer to the slaughter in Gaza as "the holocaust of our times".
During Jeremy Corbyn’s tenure as leader of the Labour Party, senior Guardian columnists such as Jonathan Freedland made much of the insistence that Jews, and Jews alone, had the right to define and name their own oppression.
That right, however, does not appear to extend to Palestinians.
As staff who spoke to Novara noted, the Guardian’s Sunday sister paper, the Observer, had no problem opening its pages to British Jewish writer Howard Jacobson to smear as a "blood libel" any reporting of the provable fact that Israel has killed many, many thousands of Palestinian children in Gaza.
One veteran journalist there said: "Is the Guardian more worried about the reaction to what is said about Israel than Palestine? Absolutely."
Another staff member admitted it would be inconceivable for the paper to be seen censoring a Jewish writer. But censoring a Palestinian one is fine, it seems.
Other journalists report being under "suffocating control" from senior editors, and say this pressure exists "only if you’re publishing something critical of Israel".
According to staff there, the word "genocide" is all but banned in the paper except in coverage of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), whose judges ruled nine months ago that a "plausible" case had been made that Israel was committing genocide.
Things have got far worse since.
Whistleblowing journalists
Similarly, "Sara", a whistleblower who recently resigned from the BBC newsroom and spoke of her experiences to Al Jazeera’s Listening Post, said Palestinians and their supporters were routinely kept off air or subjected to humiliating and insensitive lines of questioning.
Some producers have reportedly grown increasingly reluctant to bring on air vulnerable Palestinians, some of whom have lost family members in Gaza, because of concerns about the effect on their mental health from the aggressive interrogations they were being subjected to from anchors.
According to Sara, BBC vetting of potential guests overwhelmingly targets Palestinians, as well as those sympathetic to their cause and human rights organisations. Background checks are rarely done on Israeli or Jewish guests.
She added that a search showing that a guest had used the word "Zionism" – Israel’s state ideology – in a social media post could be enough to get them disqualified from a programme.
Even officials from one of the biggest rights group in the world, the New York-based Human Rights Watch, became persona non grata at the BBC for their criticisms of Israel, even though the corporation had previously relied on their reports in covering Ukraine and other global conflicts.
Israeli guests, by contrast, "were given free rein to say whatever they wanted with very little pushback", including lies about Hamas burning or beheading babies and committing mass rape.
An email cited by Al Jazeera from more than 20 BBC journalists sent last February to Tim Davie, the BBC’s director general, warned that the corporation’s coverage risked "aiding and abetting genocide through story suppression".
Upside-down values
These biases have been only too evident in the BBC’s coverage, first of Gaza and now, as media interest wanes in the genocide, of Lebanon.
Headlines - the mood music of journalism, and the only part of a story many of the audience read – have been uniformly dire.
For example, Netanyahu’s threats of a Gaza-style genocide against the Lebanese people earlier this month if they did not overthrow their leaders were soft-soaped by the BBC headline: "Netanyahu’s appeal to Lebanese people falls on deaf ears in Beirut."
Reasonable readers would have wrongly inferred both that Netanyahu was trying to do the Lebanese people a favour (by preparing to murder them), and that they were being ungrateful in not taking up his offer.
It has been the same story everywhere in the establishment media. In another extraordinary, revealing moment, Kay Burley of Sky News announced this month the deaths of four Israeli soldiers from a Hezbollah drone strike on a military base inside Israel.
With a solemnity usually reserved for the passing of a member of the British royal family, she slowly named the four soldiers, with a photo of each shown on screen. She stressed twice that all four were only 19 years old.
Sky News seemed not to understand that these were not British soldiers, and that there was no reason for a British audience to be especially disturbed by their deaths. Soldiers are killed in wars all the time – it is an occupational hazard.
And further, if Israel considered them old enough to fight in Gaza and Lebanon, then they were old enough to die too without their age being treated as particularly noteworthy.
But more significantly still, Israel’s Golani Brigade to which these soldiers belonged has been centrally involved in the slaughter of Palestinians over the past year. Its troops have been responsible for many of the tens of thousands of children killed and maimed in Gaza.
Each of the four soldiers was far, far less deserving of Burley’s sympathy and concern than the thousands of children who have been slaughtered at the hands of their brigade. Those children are almost never named and their pictures are rarely shown, not least because their injuries are usually too horrifying to be seen.
It was yet more evidence of the upside-down world the establishment media has been trying to normalise for its audiences.
It is why statistics from the United States, where the coverage of Gaza and Lebanon may be even more unhinged, show faith in the media is at rock bottom. Fewer than one in three respondents – 31 percent – said they still had a "great deal or fair amount of trust in mass media".
Crushing dissent
Israel is the one dictating the coverage of its genocide. First by murdering the Palestinian journalists reporting it on the ground, and then by making sure house-trained foreign correspondents stay well clear of the slaughter, out of harm's way in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
And as ever, Israel has been able to rely on the complicity of its western patrons in crushing dissent at home.
Last week, a British investigative journalist, Asa Winstanley, an outspoken critic of Israel and its lobbyists in the UK, had his home in London raided at dawn by counter-terrorism police.
Though the police have not arrested or charged him – at least not yet – they confiscated his electronic devices. He was warned that he is being investigated for "encouragement of terrorism" in his social media posts.
Police told MEE that his devices had been seized as part of an investigation into suspected terrorism offences of "support for a proscribed organisation" and "dissemination of terrorist documents".
The police can act only because of Britain’s draconian, anti-free speech Terrorism Act.
Section 12, for example, makes the expression of an opinion that could be interpreted as sympathetic to armed Palestinian resistance to Israel’s illegal occupation – a right enshrined in international law but sweepingly dismissed as "terrorism" in the West – itself a terrorism offence.
Those journalists who haven’t been house-trained in the establishment media, as well as solidarity activists, must now chart a treacherous path across intentionally ill-defined legal terrain when talking about Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Winstanley is not the first journalist to be accused of falling foul of the Terrorism Act. In recent weeks, Richard Medhurst, a freelance journalist, was arrested at Heathrow airport on his return from a trip abroad. Another journalist-activist, Sarah Wilkinson, was briefly arrested after her home was ransacked by police. Their electronic devices were seized too.
Meanwhile, Richard Barnard, co-founder of Palestine Action, which seeks to disrupt the UK’s supply of weapons to Israel’s genocide, has been charged over speeches he has made in support of Palestinians.
It now appears that all these actions are part of a specific police campaign targeting journalists and Palestinian solidarity activists: "Operation Incessantness".
The message this clumsy title is presumably supposed to convey is that the British state is coming after anyone who speaks out too loudly against the British government’s continuing arming and complicity in Israel’s genocide.
Notably, the establishment media have failed to cover this latest assault on journalism and the role of a free press – supposedly the very things they are there to protect.
The raid on Winstanley’s home and the arrests are intended to intimidate others, including independent journalists, into silence for fear of the consequences of speaking up.
This has nothing to do with terrorism. Rather, it is terrorism by the British state.
Once again the world is being turned upside down.
Echoes from history
The West is waging a campaign of psychological warfare on its populations: it is gaslighting and disorientating them, classing genocide as "self-defence" and opposition to it a form of "terrorism".
This is an expansion of the persecution suffered by Julian Assange, the Wikileaks founder who spent years locked up in London’s Belmarsh high-security prison.
His unprecedented journalism – revealing the darkest secrets of western states – was redefined as espionage. His "offence" was revealing that Britain and the US had committed systematic war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Now, on the back of that precedent, the British state is coming after journalists simply for embarrassing it.
Last week, I attended a meeting in Bristol against the genocide in Gaza at which the main speaker was physically absent after the British state failed to issue him an entry visa.
The missing guest – he had to join us by Zoom – was Mandla Mandela, the grandson of Nelson Mandela, who was locked up for decades as a terrorist before becoming the first leader of post-apartheid South Africa and a feted, international statesman.
Mandla Mandela was until recently a member of the South African parliament. A Home Office spokesperson told MEE that the UK only issued visas "to those who we want to welcome to our country".
Media reports suggest Britain was determined to exclude Mandela because, like his grandfather, he views the Palestinian struggle against Israeli apartheid as intimately linked to the earlier struggle against South Africa’s apartheid.
The echoes from history are apparently entirely lost on officials: the UK is once again associating the Mandela family with terrorism. Before it was to protect South Africa’s apartheid regime. Now it is to protect Israel’s even worse apartheid and genocidal regime.
The world is indeed turned on its head. And the West’s supposedly "free media" is playing a critical role in trying to make our upside-down world seem normal.
That can only be achieved by failing to report the Gaza genocide as a genocide. Instead, western journalists are serving as little more than stenographers. Their job: to take dictation from Israel.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/gaza-israel-kills-journalists-western-media-killing-truth-genocide
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Taking A Look At France's Anti-Israel Policy Over The Years And The Larger Threat
By David Ben-Basat
OCTOBER 25, 2024
While Israel continues to fight the axis of evil from Iran and the remnants of terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas, there are few countries that stand unequivocally by its side.
France, which betrayed Israel during the Six-Day War in 1967 by imposing a military embargo, continues with its familiar mantras. President Emmanuel Macron claims that without a military embargo on Israel, there will be no ceasefire. Perhaps it’s worth reminding Mr. Macron that France has hardly supplied Israel with military equipment for years, and his statement about an embargo is merely lip service to Lebanese and Muslim immigrants in his country, nothing more.
Macron’s directive to bar Israel from participating in the EUROSATORY and EURONAVAL exhibitions is nothing short of disgraceful. He is attempting to harm Israel’s weapons industry by imposing a boycott on Israeli companies, contrary to French law, which prohibits boycotts against economic entities. The French president may condemn violence (on both sides, of course), but he fails to understand that it is Iran, through Hezbollah, that has taken control of Lebanon and turned it into a living hell.
Ceasing the fight against the terrorist organization after the blow and humiliation it suffered would allow it to recover and resume its grip on Lebanon, draining it dry as before. There is only one way to end the fighting and achieve a ceasefire: continuing to strike the head of the snake until its military is dismantled, it withdraws beyond the Litani River, and a security zone is established on the Lebanese side.
The token homage that Macron is forced to pay to the political Left doesn’t obscure the fact that France has already been conquered by immigrants. Lebanon is a member of L’Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) – comprised of 88 French-speaking states and governments – but Macron forgets that this is not the Lebanon of 1943 when France detained Lebanese leaders to “restore order” in the country and was forced to release them under pressure from the great powers.
Lebanon gained independence in 1944, but France still sees itself as some kind of patron of the Land of the Cedars. France chooses to ignore the fact that Lebanon was conquered by Hezbollah, which for over 20 years has operated in the country as if it were its own. How can Macron not see that this murderous terrorist organization has turned Lebanon into a base for the destruction of Israel? Does the French president not realize that his own country is next in line?
Today, Israel is doing what France should have done: It is not allowing a murderous terrorist organization to take over Lebanon and destroy it.
Examining France's media, including state-run television
A key element in the anti-Israel propaganda in France is the state-run television channel France 24. I recently watched the popular political program The World This Week, and was enraged by the lack of balance. The producers brought in anti-Israel, if not antisemitic, interviewees – ignorant and foolish people who have no understanding of history, and whose anti-Israel views are based on statements completely detached from reality.
In the guise of a diplomacy expert, France 24 senior editor Lola Jacinto claimed that the basis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was Israel’s refusal to establish a Palestinian state and agree to a ceasefire; and that the poor Palestinians genuinely want peace but Israel refuses to reach out. I was almost convinced. Until they began interviewing the “peace-loving mediator” Oliver McTernan, an Irish-born expert in peacebuilding and interfaith dialogue, particularly in the Middle East and Africa.
As a “credible” commentator, it didn’t surprise me when McTernan revealed that, according to him, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict began 75 years ago and stems from Israel’s refusal to reach a peaceful resolution, partly because of its continued occupation of Gaza. The ignorance of this Harvard research fellow is simply unbelievable. Mr. McTernan is clearly unaware that Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005.
How someone so uninformed and lacking in knowledge serves as an international conflict resolver and television commentator is a mystery. France 24 is trying to manipulate viewers’ minds and is fueling the rising antisemitism in France, just as are several British media outlets, such as Sky News and the BBC. They, too, choose to ignore the fact that there have been 20 attempted attacks in their country by Iran over the last two years.
The elimination of terrorist leaders (like Hassan Nasrallah and Yahya Sinwar) whose hands are stained with the blood of thousands of civilians (in Israel and abroad), along with the dismantling of Hamas and Hezbollah’s military forces, does not yet signify the complete defeat of these terror organizations. However, it proves to the countries in the region that Israel has regained its power of deterrence and will hold accountable each and every one of the despicable murderers who participated in the most horrific massacre since the state’s establishment.
It’s not just that France and other European countries support the imposition of a military embargo on Israel – most of which have never even supplied Israel with so much as a tank screw – but they also kowtow to the Palestinian immigrants living within their borders.
Some South American countries gave refuge to Nazis fleeing Germany after World War II. Yet, South American leaders continue to blame all their countries’ woes on the rich “imperialist” United States, which supposedly doesn’t assist them – while conveniently forgetting the corruption that has become a way of life and a norm in most of their countries. Israel, seen in their eyes as a US satellite state, is tainted by the criticism. Recently, Nicaragua cut diplomatic ties with Israel.
Nicaraguan Vice President Rosario Murillo announced that the break in relations was due to “Israel’s attacks on Palestinian territories,” adding that “The Israeli government is fascist and committing genocide.” Nicaragua, led by President Daniel Ortega, is an ally of Iran. In recent years, it has become more and more isolated, after Ortega – often referred to as a dictator – violently suppressed protests against his government in 2018. According to human rights organizations, around 300 people were killed in those clashes.
MEANWHILE, AND unrelated, Claudia Sheinbaum, the newly elected Jewish president of Mexico, has expressed her support for the establishment of a Palestinian state. The Mexican press has been reporting on large protests across the country in recent days, expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people and calling for the severing diplomatic ties with Israel.
The great military success against terrorist organizations and the elimination of many of their leaders represent a game changer, placing Israel in a new position of power vis-à-vis the world and Iran.
This is a rare opportunity to capitalize on the state’s military success and do everything, including offering far-reaching proposals to the terrorists, to secure the release of the remaining hostages and their return to their families.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-825970
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The Past Year's Military Events Have Rewritten Israel's Defence Doctrine
By Amotz Asa-El
OCTOBER 25, 2024
Christmas 1948 was one day away when The Palestine Post’s lead headline reported: “Tank and air battles rage near Egyptian border.”
It was not the full drama. Having erupted two days earlier, but been kept secret by the censor, the reported battle was actually Israel’s first invasion of another country. Even more importantly, it inspired a time-honoured military doctrine which over the past 12 months was effectively rewritten.
Known as Operation Horev – after one of Mount Sinai’s names – the last major battle of the War of Independence was significant for its military size and diplomatic fallout, but its most important consequence was its long-term impact on Israel’s strategic thought.
In terms of size, the seven-month-old IDF launched its first-ever divisional attack, deploying four infantry and mechanized brigades which crossed the border into the Sinai Desert, surprising the Egyptian Army from its southern rear while the navy and air force faked a northern attack by bombing Gaza, Khan Yunis, and Rafah.
Diplomatically, the invasion was reversed by foreign powers, after US president Harry Truman sent ambassador James McDonald to David Ben-Gurion, warning him that if the IDF did not immediately withdraw to the international border, Britain would attack Israel, as its defence pact with Egypt demanded.
Ben-Gurion complied, silencing protests from the invasion’s commander, Yigal Allon, but the brief invasion’s effect was remarkable: Egypt, realizing the depth and scope of the attack it faced, and fearing a grand siege of its entire expeditionary force, agreed to enter ceasefire talks.
That’s what happened diplomatically. Strategically, the episode shaped a defense doctrine that guided Israel for 75 years.
How are military doctrines expressed, how do they come to be?
MILITARY DOCTRINES reflect the threats countries think they face, the resources they wield, and the aims they seek. The US, for instance, invests in its naval forces a much larger share than other countries because it is positioned between two oceans and also wants to maintain a global military presence.
Israel’s situation was, of course, entirely different. Geographically miniscule, demographically inferior, economically impoverished, and militarily challenged by all its neighbours, Israel needed a doctrine that would minimize its wars’ number and length and at the same time maximize its resources.
Resources were maximized by the creation of the IDF’s elaborate system of reserve duty, which let one of the world’s smallest countries field one of the world’s largest armies.
The doctrine’s other part was inspired by Operation Horev: Transfer the war into enemy territory. This aim underscored the doctrine’s other pillars, namely, strategic deterrence and tactical pre-emption. That meant using a strong military to dissuade the enemy from attacking, but if the enemy still chooses war – attack before being attacked, and do so in the enemy’s land.
This is exactly what happened in the Sinai Campaign of 1956 and the Six Day War of 1967, when Israel attacked before being attacked (but after facing naval blockades), and also in 1973, when Israel failed to pre-empt but still managed to keep the war outside its internationally recognized borders.
This doctrine proved itself not only by producing military victories, but also diplomatically, as the IDF’s achievements convinced the largest Arab state, Egypt, to lay down its arms and strike a peace agreement with the Jewish state after four gruesome wars.
Understandably, Israel stuck to its defence doctrine for another 45 years, failing to understand the fundamental change in its strategic surroundings and the doctrinal adjustment it required.
BY THE most bizarre and frustrating coincidence, the same year that Egypt struck a peace deal with Israel, the shah of Iran was deposed by Ayatollah Khomeini. Had the shah not been toppled, and Egyptian president Anwar Sadat not been assassinated, the Tehran-Cairo-Jerusalem axis would have led the Middle East to a brave future of regional harmony.
Instead, both the shah and Sadat were removed by a force that until then was seen as a domestic problem of Muslim-majority lands: Islamism.
Fought not only by the shah and Sadat, but also by the latter’s predecessor Gamal Abdel Nasser, Syria’s Hafez Assad and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, no country outside the Muslim world saw jihadism as a strategic threat.
Neither did Israel, even after the Khomeini revolution. First, Jerusalem waited to see whether the Khomeini regime would last, then – for a whole decade – it indulged in the illusion that the Iran-Iraq War was sapping Tehran’s energies, and then, when Iran accelerated its nuclear activity, Jerusalem focused on that, belittling the rest of its strategic threat to the Jewish state.
That is how when Hezbollah arose in Lebanon, Israel’s old defence doctrine was activated, and effectively said: if a military threat mobilizes, attack it, but if what threatens you it isn’t a military – it isn’t a strategic threat.
A military, in this thinking, was what Israel saw in its previous wars – infantry divisions, armoured brigades, artillery batteries, and fighter jets. It is now a year since Israel learned, the hard way, that militias, despite lacking jets, tanks and corvettes, can also constitute a strategic threat.
Until 2023, Israeli strategists thought Israel could tolerate jihadist militias’ existence, because, like the Arab armies before them, they could be deterred. That was before an Islamist militia demonstrated its ability, and eagerness, to unleash thousands of riflemen on 32 communities along a 40-km. front.
Now Israel revised its doctrine: Neighbouring states’ armies should be deterred in peacetime and pre-empted in wartime, but jihadist militias should be fought anytime, because Israel cannot afford their presence anywhere along its borders.
Israel will therefore kill such militias’ leaders, storm their troops, bomb their hideouts, burn their money, and do anything it takes to chase them away from its borders. It’s a doctrine fully shared by the Right, Centre and Left, and it supersedes regional circumstances, international admonitions, and also allies’ cautions, even when delivered by an envoy of the president of the United States.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-825987
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The Long History Of Palestine: Why Palestinians Are Winning The Legitimacy War
By Dr Ramzy Baroud
October 25, 2024
Oddly, it was Israeli historian Benny Morris who got it right, when he offered a candid prediction of the future of his country and its war with the Palestinians.
“The Palestinians look at everything from a broad, long-term perspective,” he said in an interview with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz in 2019. “They see that, at the moment, there are five-six-seven million Jews here, surrounded by hundreds of millions of Arabs. They have no reason to give in, because the Jewish state can’t last. They are bound to win. In another 30 to 50 years they will overcome us, come what may.”
Morris is right. He is correct in the sense that Palestinians will not give up, that there can never be a situation where societies indefinitely survive and thrive within a permanent matrix of racial segregation, violence and exclusion – exclusion of the other, the Palestinians and the isolation of the self.
The very history of Palestine is a testament to such a truth. If the oppressed, the natives of the land, are not fully vanquished or decimated, they are likely to rise, fight and win back their freedom.
It must be utterly frustrating for Israel that all the killings and destruction underway in Gaza have not been enough to affect the overall outcomes of the war: the ‘total victory’ of which Netanyahu continues to speak.
Israel’s frustration is understandable because, like all military occupiers of the past, Tel Aviv continues to believe that the right quantity of violence should be enough to subdue colonised nations.
But Palestinians have a different intellectual trajectory that guides their collective behaviour.
Of the many classifications of history, modern French historians separate between ‘histoire événementielle’ – evental history – and ‘longue durée’ – long history. In short, the former believes that history is the result of the accumulation of consequential events over the course of time, while the latter sees history on a far more complex level.
Credible history can only be seen in its totality, not merely the total events of history, recent or old, but the sum of feelings, the culmination of ideas, the evolution of collective consciousness, identities, relationships and the subtle changes that occur to societies over the course of time.
Palestinians are the perfect example of history being shaped by ideas, not guns; memories, not politics; collective hope, not international relations. They will eventually win their freedom, because they have invested in a long-term trajectory of ideas, memories and communal aspirations, which often translate to spirituality or, rather, a deep, immovable faith that grows stronger, even during times of horrific wars.
In an interview I conducted with former United Nations Special Rapporteur, Professor Richard Falk in 2020, he summarised the struggle in Palestine as a war between those with arms and and those with legitimacy. He said that in the context of national liberation movements, there are two kinds of war: the actual war, as in soldiers carrying guns and the legitimacy war. The one who wins the latter will ultimately prevail.
Palestinians do, indeed, “look at everything from a broad, long-term perspective”. Agreeing with Morris’ statement may seem odd for, after all, societies are often driven by their own class struggles and socio-economic agendas instead of a unified and cohesive long-term vision.
This is where longue durée becomes most relevant in the Palestinian case. Even if Palestinians have not made a common agreement to wait for the invaders to leave, or for Palestine to, once again, become a place of social, racial and religious co-existence, they are driven, even if subconsciously, by the same energy that compelled their ancestors to push back against injustice in all its forms.
While many western politicians and academics are busy blaming Palestinians for their own oppression, Palestinian society continues to evolve based on entirely independent dynamics. For example, in Palestine, sumud, or resilience, is an ingrained culture, hardly subject to outside stimuli, political or academic. It is a culture that is as old as time. Innate. Intuitive. Generational.
This Palestinian saga started long before the war, long before Israel, long before modern colonialism. This truth demonstrates that history is not just moved by mere events, but by countless other factors; that, while ‘eventual history’ – the political, military and economic aspects that contribute to the making of history through short-term events – is important, long-term history offers a more profound understanding of the past, and its consequences.
This discussion should engage all of those who are concerned about the struggle in Palestine, and are keen to present a version of the truth that is not driven by future political interests, but a profound understanding of the past. Only then we can begin to slowly liberate the Palestinian narrative from all the convenient histories imposed on the Palestinian people.
This is not an easy task, but an unavoidable one as it is critical to break away from the confines of superimposed language, historical events, recurring dates, dehumanising statistics and outright deception.
Ultimately, it should be clear to any astute reader of history that, while fighter jets and bunker-buster bombs may impact short-term historical events, courage, faith and communal love determine long-term history. This is why Palestinians are winning the legitimacy war, and this is why freedom for the Palestinian people is only a matter of time.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20241025-the-long-history-of-palestine-why-palestinians-are-winning-the-legitimacy-war/
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