Initially there were some indications of not just some changes for the better but even of the possibility of a few big breakthroughs. However by and large these hopes have been belied.

The ceasefire in Gaza in January, while certainly welcome, appeared too fragile vulnerable to raise high or durable hopes, and the enduring aggressiveness of Netanyahu-led Israel, this leader’s own close identity and comfort with highly aggressive policy as well as the continuing support for this from leading western countries has led to the Palestinians again being faced with almost the same extremely high risks as before.

In the case of Ukraine-Russia war, the hopes that arose earlier this year for peace were of great significance as these also involved the increasing possibilities of more friendly and peaceful relations emerging at a wider level between the USA and Russia, as the Ukraine war had started against the background of the USA and some of its important NATO allies using Ukraine as a proxy against Russia to weaken Russia. However, at the time of writing this, these peace prospects have weakened somewhat although some hopes still remain. Ending this war as early as possible, preferably on a note of durable peace and goodwill, must remain one of the highest priorities of our deeply troubled world.

The overall humanitarian crisis in the world, which was a deeply worrying one at the end of 2024, appears to be worsening with the situation being particularly grim in the Democratic Republic of Congo and some neighbouring areas, Myanmar, Sudan and its neighbourhood.

In several countries in several important contexts the situation is deteriorating. However it is important to emphasize that often the change is not from good to bad, but from bad to worse. In the USA, for instance, criticism of ongoing onslaught on public welfare and civil liberties reflects a worsening situation, but the situation had been highly unsatisfactory and deteriorating for years or decades earlier too. The arbitrary and unjust resort to tariffs should be condemned, but we should not forget that the international trading system and the WTO regime as well as several bilateral and free trade agreements had been unjust earlier too. Germany’s resort to increasing militarism is deeply worrying but some of the country’s earlier policies too had raised troubling questions. Britain’s stand on international issues has been reflecting a growing distance from real needs, and this has increased further. The President of France likes to speak of things grand and great without having roots in reality, a tendency that has increased further in recent times.

Unfortunately, there is little to suggest that the big changes that we have been seeing in recent times are in any way taking us closer to resolving the most serious and significant problems of our world. These changes reflect the narrow thinking of world leadership based on narrow agendas. These have no vision of resolving the most important and threatening problems while there is still time to do so. If anything, the world appears to be moving further away from the most important objective of resolving the most serious, life-threatening problems in time.

The overwhelming and most important reality of the word today is that the basic life-nurturing conditions of the world are threatened at two levels—firstly the accumulation of weapons of mass destruction and secondly, a dozen or so serious environmental problems that, on their own and together with each other, can be very threatening.

Resolving these life-threatening problems in time requires increased cooperation of all the world’s people and nations for according top priority to this and then working together to resolve these as early as possible within a framework of justice, peace and democracy. Unfortunately the world as it is structured and governed today appears to be more and more incapable of achieving this highest priority task of great urgency for saving this and future generations, our children and grandchildren. Hence today a great mobilization of the world’s people who are committed to justice, peace, safety and environment protection is needed more than at any other point of history to save life on earth while working within a framework of justice, peace and democracy.

(The writer is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Protecting Earth for Children, Planet in Peril, A Day in 2071 and Earth without Borders)

The post 2025: While the world experiences cataclysmic changes, it remains far away from substantial solutions appeared first on SabrangIndia.

A young lady informed me that I had to queue outside the small arched gate in the wall. It would open at 6am and the first 15 members of the public would be admitted to the gallery. I asked where I should queue exactly. She said she doubted it was necessary, it should be fine to arrive at 6am on Thursday.

I am staying in a hotel just five minutes’ walk away, so at 10pm on Wednesday evening, with the temperature already at -4°C, I went to check if a queue had formed. Nobody was there. I returned to the hotel, but every hour went to check for a queue I should join. Nobody was there at midnight or 1am, but at 2am there were already 8 people, sat around in three very cold little groups. Everybody looked extremely cold, but everybody was friendly and talkative.

The first group, right next to the gate, consisted of three young Dutch women, who sat on a blanket and were well provided with flasks of hot coffee and boxes of baklava. The second group were three young students of international law, all of them Arabs, who had attended other cases and knew the ropes here. The third group were two young women, one Dutch and one Arab, sitting on a bench, looking cold and miserable.

We were soon all talking together and it was plain that every one of us was motivated by support for the Palestinians in their struggle against the relentless occupation. Shortly afterwards, another Arab gentleman arrived, older and authoritative, who rather incongruously had been schooled in Scotland at Gordonstoun. A tall Tunisian man kept walking back and forth making phone calls; he appeared pre-occupied and rather shy.

We had all been given similar information about the number of people who would be admitted, though some had been told 15, some 14 and some 13. Our numbers were stable at 12 for several hours. Then about 4.30am a car drew up and out jumped Varsha Gandikota-Nellutla of Progressive International. She had come as a place-keeper for Jeremy Corbyn and Jean-Luc Melenchon. Others of her organisation arrived bit by bit. Then as 6am approached, there started a small flood of people arriving, many with Palestinian flags and wearing keffiyehs.

It really was seriously cold. After four hours my toes had gone from very painful to having no feeling, and my fingers were becoming unresponsive. As so often, from 5am the cold grew more and more invasive. Melenchon and Corbyn had arrived at 5.30am to take their places in the queue, Melenchon as voluble as ever, wide awake, delighted to meet everybody, and lecturing on economics and the organisation of society to anybody who would listen. As my brain had by now frozen, that did not really include me. Jeremy was equally typically Jeremy, concerned that he did not want to take anybody’s position in the queue.

Then as preparations to open the gate began on the other side, things took an unpleasant turn. Those of us who had been there all night knew our order of arrival, but we began to be swamped by latecomers pushing past and around us to get to the gate. I had to be assertive and try to marshal the queue. Activists in the crowd challenged this, suggesting that the criterion for entry should not be time of arrival, but that Palestinians should be given the places.

It all became distressing. One Palestinian lady from Sweden who was just behind 14th in the queue became deeply distressed at the idea of not being admitted, and a couple of Palestinian gentlemen who had arrived after 6am started to determinedly push past the queue. I made a little counter speech explaining that we were all here to help the Palestinians, but none of us knew each other’s stories, and the question of what use someone’s attendance would be to the Palestinian cause was as important as gratifying individual feelings of the terribly aggrieved.

The diffident Tunisian was replaced in the queue by the former Tunisian President whose place he had been keeping – a really pleasant and diffident man, but the timing did not help the situation. In the end we were admitted in groups of five and processed. One of the Dutch ladies who had been the very first to arrive gave up her place to a Palestinian. I left clutching my pass, number 9, and returned to the hotel and straight into a hot bath. The pain from my toes and fingers as they thawed was really unpleasant.

Then it was quickly back for 9am and a lot of excessive security hassle and removal of deadly wallets and pens. Then we were escorted into the public gallery.

The Palace of Peace was built by Andrew Carnegie, the extraordinarily morally complex Fifer, a vicious and incredibly successful capitalist monopolist who also wished to end all war and to improve the lives of the poor everywhere. Its fairytale appearance, with its folly of a tower perched on a tower, belies its steel frame and concrete construction, and inside it could be any grand City Chambers in Scotland, with majolica tiling and solid Armitage Shanks in the toilets. Extraordinarily, the building is still owned and managed by the Carnegie Foundation.

For a building that was built as a world court, strangely it does not appear to contain a court room. The Grand Chamber is just a large empty hall, taking up one side-wing of the building. A comparatively modern, simple and gently curved dais has been inserted across the length of the hall and held a long table and seventeen chairs for the judges, but this structure looked temporary, as if it gets taken away and the building used for weddings. The parties to the case were seated on simple stacking chairs arranged in the body of the hall beneath the dais, again looking more like a wedding than a court. Above the judges spread a mighty stained-glass window, of garish colours and rather dubious quality.

I have written of my faith in the International Court of Justice, in its history of impartial judgment and in its system of election by the UN General Assembly. The ICJ has rather unfairly been tarnished by the reputation of its much younger sister the International Criminal Court. The ICC is rightly derided as a Western tool, but that really is not true of the ICJ. On Palestine alone, it has ruled that the Israeli “wall” in the West Bank is illegal and that Israel has no right of self-defence in the territory of which it is the occupying power. It ruled that the UK must decolonise the Chagos Islands, a cause close to my own heart.

There was every reason for those of us opposing the genocide to have travelled hopefully to the Hague.

In addition to the normal fifteen judges of the court, each of the parties to the dispute – South Africa and Israel – had exercised their right to nominate an additional judge. After the judges filed in to the court, proceedings started with these two judges taking an oath of impartiality, which gave us the first Israeli lie of the case before it had even started.

The nomination of Aharon Barak as the Israeli judge on the International Court of Justice is extraordinary, given that as President of Israel’s Supreme Court he refused to implement the ICJ judgment on the illegality of the wall, stating that he knew the facts of the matter better than the ICJ.

Barak has an extremely long history of accepting all forms of repression of Palestinians by the Israeli Defence Force as legal for “national security”, and in particular has repeatedly refused to rule against the longstanding Israeli programme of demolitions of Palestinian homes as collective punishment. That reads across directly to the destruction of civilian infrastructure in Gaza now.

Barak is viewed as a “liberal” in Israel in the constitutional struggle between the judiciary and executive. But that is about the ability of Netanyahu’s corruption to go unchallenged, not about Palestinian rights. By appointing his apparent opponent Barak to the ICJ, Netanyahu has exhibited typical cunning. If Barak rules against Israel, Netanyahu can claim his domestic opponents are traitors to national security. If Barak rules in favour of Israel, Netanyahu can claim Israeli liberals support the destruction of Gaza.

I expect it is the latter claim we shall be seeing.

I was seated in the public gallery, and watching the seventeen judges occupied much of my time throughout the hearing. Acres have been written about which way who will jump. There is a too-easy assumption they will be swayed by their domestic governments. That varies from judge to judge.

The President of the court, Joan Donoghue, is a US State Department, Clinton hack who has never formed an original idea in her life, and I should be astonished if she starts now. I half-expected her strings to actually be visible, emerging from holes in the hall’s magnificent deep relief-panelled wooden ceiling. But others are more puzzling.

There has been no more rabidly anti-Palestinian national elite than that of Germany. Rather than channel feelings of inherited guilt into opposition to genocide in general, they seem to have concluded that they need to promote alternative genocides to make amends. Added to which, the German judge on the ICJ, Nolte, does not come preceded by a liberal reputation. But friends in Munich tell me that Nolte has a particular interest in the law of armed conflict, and is a stickler for intellectual rigour. Their view is that his professional self-esteem will be the key factor, and that only points one way with regard to what the Israeli Defence Force has done so blatantly to the civilian population in Gaza.

On the other hand, there is a Ugandan judge on the ICJ who you might assume would align with South Africa. But Uganda, for reasons which frankly I do not fathom, joined the United States and Israel in opposing Palestine’s membership of the International Criminal Court, on the grounds Palestine is not a real state. Similarly India you might expect to support South Africa as a key member of BRICS. But India also has a Hindu Nationalist government prone to hideous Islamophobia. I haven’t found any evidence of Judge Bhandari’s domestic record on inter-communal issues.

But it has been suggested to me that in this case before the World Court now, the UN General Assembly may have shot itself in the foot in replacing a particular British judge with the Indian, an election viewed at the time as a triumph in the UN for the developing world. My point is this: that these questions are very complicated, and much of the analysis I have seen, including from some dear colleagues, has been simplistic mince.

Not only is the Great Hall of Justice not fitted out as a courtroom, for a World Court the public gallery is minuscule. Running along one side of the hall, high enough to kill you if you fell over the balcony edge, it is just two seats deep. Furthermore the fitted theatre-style seats are a hundred years old and in a state of near collapse. Your arse is eight inches off the ground and the seats now tilt so your thighs are four inches off the ground and the whole contraption is throwing you forward and over the edge. Rather than fix the seats, the Carnegie Foundation have fixed a strong cable from wall to wall above the balcony rail, acting in effect as a second rail giving six inches more protection.

With one third of the public gallery screened off to house the audio-visual projection and webcasting facility, there were just 24 available seats in the public gallery. There were us 14 from the queue and the rest were for representatives of key NGOs and UN organisations, such as Human Rights Watch and the World Health Organisation. They were allowed pens, obviously being judged respectable enough not to kill anybody with them. I may in fact have acquired a pen from one of them at some stage, purely of course to assist them. Or I may not – it is very difficult to know what counts as terrorism these days.

South Africa opened with statements from their Ambassador and their Minister of Justice Ronald Lamola, and they opened with a bang. I rather expected South Africa to start with some soft soap about how much they had condemned Hamas and sympathised with Israel over 7 October, but no. Within the first thirty seconds South Africa had launched both the word “Nakba” and the phrase “apartheid state” at Israel. We had to hang on to our collapsing seats. This was going to be something.

Minister of Justice Lamola came out with the first memorable phrase of the case. Palestinians had suffered “75 years of apartheid, 56 years of occupation, 13 years of blockade”. It was very well done. Before handing over to the legal team, the “agents” of the South African state, in terms of the Court’s statute, were framing the argument. This injustice, and history itself, did not start on October 7.

There was a second important point of framing. South Africa stressed that in order for the request for “provisional measures” to be granted, it did not need at this stage to be proven that Israel was committing genocide. It only had to be shown that actions of Israel were prima facie capable of falling as genocide within the terms of the Genocide Convention.

The legal team then led off with Dr. Adila Hassim. She outlined that Israel was in breach of the Genocide Convention Article II a), b), c) and d).

On a), killing of Palestinians, she outlined the simple facts without embellishment. 23,200 Palestinians were killed, 70% of them women and children. Over 7,000 were missing presumed dead under the rubble. Over 200 times, Israel had dropped 2,000lb bombs into the very residential areas in southern Gaza into which Palestinians had been ordered to evacuate.

60,000 people were seriously wounded. 355,000 homes had been damaged or destroyed. What could be observed was a substantial pattern of conduct indicating a genocidal intent.

Dr Hassim was notably calm and measured in her words and delivery. But on occasion when detailing atrocities, particularly against children, her voice trembled a little with emotion. The judges, who were generally fidgety (on which much more to follow), looked up and paid closer attention at that.

The next lawyer, Tembeka Ngcukaitobi (only South Africa spoke today) addressed the question of genocidal intent. He had perhaps the easiest task, because he could relate numerous instances of senior Israeli ministers, senior officials and military officers referring to Palestinians as “animals” and calling for their complete destruction and that of Gaza itself, emphasising that there are no innocent Palestinian civilians.

What Ngcukaitobi did particularly well was emphasise the effective transmission of these genocidal ideas from senior government to the troops on the ground, who quoted the same phrases and genocidal ideas in filming themselves committing and justifying atrocities. He emphasises that the Israeli government had ignored its obligation to prevent and act against incitement to genocide in both official and popular culture.

He concentrated particularly on Netanyahu’s invocation of the fate of Amalek and the demonstrable effect of that move on the opinions and actions of Israeli soldiers. Israeli ministers, he said, could not now deny the genocidal intent of their plain words. If they did not mean it, they should not have said it.

The venerable and eminent Professor John Dugard, a striking figure in his bright scarlet gown, then addressed questions of jurisdiction of the court and of the status of South Africa to bring the case – it is likely that Israel will rely heavily on technical argument to try to give the judges an escape route. Dugard pointed out the obligations of all state parties under the Genocide Convention to act to prevent Genocide, and the judgment of the court.

Dugard quoted Article VIII of the Genocide Convention and read out in full Paragraph 431 of the court’s judgment in Bosnia vs Serbia,

This obviously does not mean that the obligation to prevent genocide only comes into being when perpetration of genocide commences ; that would be absurd, since the whole point of the obligation is to prevent, or attempt to prevent, the occurrence of the act. In fact, a State’s obligation to prevent, and the corresponding duty to act, arise at the instant that the State learns of, or should normally have learned of, the existence of a serious risk that genocide will be committed. From that moment onwards, if the State has available to it means likely to have a deterrent effect on those suspected of preparing genocide, or reasonably suspected of harbouring specific intent (dolus specialis), it is under a duty to make such use of these means as the circumstances permit.

I must confess I was very gratified. Dugard’s argument was precisely the same, and quoted the exact same passages and paragraphs, as my article of 7 December explaining why the Genocide Convention should be invoked.

The judges particularly enjoyed Dugard’s points, enthusiastically rustling through documents and underlining things. Dealing with thousands of dead children was a bit difficult for them, but give them a nice jurisdictional point and they were in their element.

Next was Professor Max du Plessis, whose particularly straightforward manner and plainness of speech brought a new energy to proceedings. He said that Palestinians were asking the court to protect the most basic of their rights – they had the right to exist.

Palestinians had suffered 50 years of oppression, and Israel had for decades considered itself above and beyond the reach of the law, ignoring both ICJ judgments and security council resolutions. That context is important. Palestinian individuals have rights to exist protected as members of a group in terms of the Genocide Convention.

South Africa’s case was founded on respect for international law and was based on law and on fact. They had taken the decision not to show the court atrocity videos and photos, of which there were many thousands. Their case was of law and fact, they did not need to introduce shock and emotion and turn the court into a theatre.

This was a shrewd blow by Du Plessis. The hearings were originally scheduled for two hours each side. The South Africans had been told, very late, that was increased to three because the Israelis insist on showing their hour long October 7 atrocity video. But in fact the court’s guidelines reflect a longstanding resistance to this sort of material which must be used “sparsely”. If 23,000 people are dead it does not add intellectual force to show the bodies, and the same is true of the 1,000 dead from 7 October.

Du Plessis concluded that the destruction of Palestine’s infrastructure that supports human life, the displacement of 85% of residents into ever smaller areas where they were still bombed – all were plain examples of genocidal intent.

But undoubtedly the highlight of the entire morning was the astonishing presentation by Irish KC Blinne Ni Ghràlaigh. Her job was to demonstrate that if the Court did not order “provisional measures”, then irreparable damage would be done.

There are times when a writer must admit defeat. I cannot adequately convey to you the impression she made in that courtroom. Like the rest of the team she eschewed atrocity porn and set out the simple facts plainly but elegantly. She adopted the ploy used by all the South African team, of not using emotional language herself but quoting at length deeply emotional language from senior UN officials. Her outline of daily deaths by type was devastating.

I simply urge you to listen to her. “Each day over ten Palestinians will have one or more limbs amputated, many without anaesthetic …”

I should write more now about the court. The South African delegation sat beside their lawyers on the right of the court, the Israeli delegation on their left, each of about 40 people. The South Africans were colourful with South African flag scarves and keffiyehs draped over shoulders. There was a mixture of South Africans and Palestinians, with Deputy Foreign Minister of the Palestinian Authority Amaar Hijazi prominent, which I was glad to see.

The South African delegation was buoyant and mutually supporting, with a lot of inclusive body language and comparative animation. The Israeli delegation was the opposite of animated. It appeared severe and disdainful – it was as though the members were all under instruction to get on with some work and not particularly notice the proceedings were happening at all. They were generally youthful, and I think cocksure would be a fair description. When Blinne was speaking they seemed particularly keen to ensure everyone could see they were not listening.

You would not think from the body language it was Israel that stands accused. In fact the only people in the court whose demeanour was particularly dodgy and guilty were the judges. They absolutely looked like they really did not want to be there. They seemed deeply uncomfortable, fidgeted and fumbled papers a lot, and seldom looked directly at the lawyers speaking.

It occurred to me that the people who really did not want to be in the Court at all were the judges, because it is in fact the judges and the Court itself on trial. The fact of genocide is incontrovertible and had been plainly set out. But several of the judges are desperate to find a way to please the USA and Israel and avoid countering the current Zionist narrative, the adoption of which is necessary to keep your feet comfortably under the table of the elite.

What counts more for them, personal comfort, the urgings of NATO, future wealthy sinecures? Are they prepared to ditch any real notion of international law for those things?

That is the real question before the court. The International Court of Justice is on trial.

During Blinne’s talk, the President of the court suddenly took an intense interest in her startling red iPad, the colour of a particularly bright nail varnish. This came out several times during the hearing, and I could never put these iPad appearances together with what had just been discussed – it was not that cases or documents had just been cited to look up, for example.

The final speaker for the South African legal team was Vaughn Lowe, and he had the delicate task of countering Israel’s defence, which they have kept secret from the court until it is made. Countering arguments you have not seen yet is a tricky proposition, and for me this was the legal tour de force of the entire morning. Vaughn Lowe’s performance was outstanding.

He started by asserting that South Africa did have standing to bring the case, repeating Durand’s points about the duty of states to act to prevent genocide under the Genocide Convention. He said there was a dispute in the terms of the Convention, over whether or not genocide had occurred. South Africa had framed this dispute in a series of Diplomatic Notes Verbale sent to the Israeli government and not satisfactorily replied to.

Lowe said it was acknowledged that a series of individual incidents were being investigated by the International Criminal Court as war crimes, but the existence of other crimes did not preclude their being part of a wider genocide. Genocide was a crime which by its nature tends to come along with other war crimes committed in furtherance of the Genocide.

Finally Lowe said that genocide is never justified. It is absolute, a crime in itself. No matter how appalling the atrocities committed by Hamas against Israel or Israeli citizens, a genocidal response was not appropriate and never could be.

Vaughn Lowe stated that South Africa asked for action against Israel and not against Hamas, simply because Hamas was not a state and thus not subject to the jurisdiction of the court. But the fact that the court could not act against Hamas must not prevent it from acting against Israel to prevent the current urgent danger of genocide. Nor must the court be swayed by Israeli offers of voluntary restraint. Israel’s failure to acknowledge any wrongdoing whatsoever in its actions in “grinding Gaza into the dust” showed Israel could not be trusted in any assurances to adjust behaviour, as it believed it had done no wrong.

The session ended with the South African Ambassador reiterating the provisional measures South Africa now wished the court to impose. These are:

(1) The State of Israel shall immediately suspend its military operations in and against Gaza.

(2) The State of Israel shall ensure that any military or irregular armed units which may be directed, supported or influenced by it, as well as any organisations and persons which may be subject to its control, direction or influence, take no steps in furtherance of the military operations referred to point (1) above.

(3) The Republic of South Africa and the State of Israel shall each, in accordance with their obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, in relation to the Palestinian people, take all reasonable measures within their power to prevent genocide.

(4) The State of Israel shall, in accordance with its obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, in relation to the Palestinian people as group protected by the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, desist from the commission of any and all acts within the scope of Article II of the Convention, in particular:
(a) killing members of the group;
(b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to the members of the group;
(c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; and
(d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.

(5) The State of Israel shall, pursuant to point (4)(c) above, in relation to Palestinians, desist from, and take all measures within its power including the rescinding of relevant orders, of restrictions and/or of prohibitions to prevent:
(a) the expulsion and forced displacement from their homes;
(b) the deprivation of:
(i) access to adequate food and water;
(ii) access to humanitarian assistance, including access to adequate fuel, shelter, clothes, hygiene and sanitation;
(iii) medical supplies and assistance; and
(c) the destruction of Palestinian life in Gaza.

(6) The State of Israel shall, in relation to Palestinians, ensure that its military, as well as any irregular armed units or individuals which may be directed, supported or otherwise influenced by it and any organizations and persons which may be subject to its control, direction or influence, do not commit any acts described in (4) and (5) above, or engage in direct and public incitement to commit genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, attempt to commit genocide, or complicity in genocide, and insofar as they do engage therein, that steps are taken towards their punishment pursuant to Articles I, II, III and IV of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

(7) The State of Israel shall take effective measures to prevent the destruction and ensure the preservation of evidence related to allegations of acts within the scope of Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide; to that end, the State of Israel shall not act to deny or otherwise restrict access by fact-finding missions, international mandates and other bodies to Gaza to assist in ensuring the preservation and retention of said evidence.

(8) The State of Israel shall submit a report to the Court on all measures taken to give effect to this Order within one week, as from the date of this Order, and thereafter at such regular intervals as the Court shall order, until a final decision on the case is rendered by the Court.

(9) The State of Israel shall refrain from any action and shall ensure that no action is taken which might aggravate or extend the dispute before the Court or make it more difficult to resolve it.

With that, we closed the argument. Next, Israel responds.

Courtesy: www.craigmurray.org.uk

The post Your Man in the Hague (in a Good Way) appeared first on SabrangIndia.

With the strewn blood and bones

Of thousands born but

yesteryear

For slaughter at the Zionist altar

Lies bespattered the politic

Conscience of a world

Bought and sold by Wall Street.

Oh, the evil, unspeakable  evil of it.

Those that do not capitulate

To   the   brute  usurper,

With  Sam’s  license to kill,

Face  a holocaust fate.

Those that were persecuted

Persecute with  redoubled hate.

Honour  to the hoi polloi of the world

Who come out in  masses

Even in Tel a Viv,

To   protest  and to grieve.

 Woe to governments

Who count their  gain

And loss were they

To   stand  on two legs

Or  crawl  beneath Biden.

But, O Palestine,

Yet again I salute your spine,

Bolstered by unbending intellect,

That you   die in droves for justice

But never whine.

How many are the nations now

Oppressed who could take

A leaf from your book,

And  to  their tormentors say

 “we  too  will stand,   not bow.”

The post Gaza 2023 appeared first on SabrangIndia.

It’s a match made in heaven (or do we mean hell?), because the two nations have similar “problems” they’re trying to “solve.” Israel has long been engaged in the violent suppression of Palestinians whose lands they occupy (including the current devastation of Gaza, an assault that 34 U.N. experts have labeled a “genocide in the making”). Meanwhile, India’s Hindu nationalist government continues the harsh oppression of its non-Hindu minorities: Muslims, Christians, Dalits, and indigenous people.

About the time Zionist settlers were beginning their occupation of Palestine in the early 1920s, an Indian right-wing figure, V.D. Savarkar, fashioned the ideology of Hindutva (Hindu-ness). Today, right-wing Hindu nationalists employ Hindutva and physical violence to further its vision of India as a nation for Hindus and Hindus only. Similarly, Zionism views historic Palestine as a land for Jews and Jews only. These parallel visions, along with the two governments’ increasingly authoritarian tendencies and ready use of violence, have drawn them into a dark alliance the consequences of which are unpredictable.

India Makes New Friends

The Republic of India and the State of Israel were born nine months apart in 1947 and 1948, each an offspring of partition. The British-ruled Indian subcontinent was then split into Muslim-majority Pakistan and Hindu-majority India, while Israel was carved out of a portion of the British Mandate Palestine.

Throughout the Cold War, India would be a leader of what came to be known as the nonaligned movement — formerly colonized nations that sought to develop independently of both American and Soviet influence. In the 1980s, it also became the first non-Arab nation to recognize the state of Palestine. A similar recognition of Israel didn’t come until 1992, around the time India was shifting away from its nonaligned social-democratic stance toward its current adherence to neoliberalism.

In recent decades, India and Israel have established strong trading relationships, especially in the military sphere. In fact, given the massive militarization of its borders with China and Pakistan and its suppression of occupied Kashmir and its people, India has become the top importer of weapons and surveillance equipment from Israel. In 2014, the Hindu-supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won power and its leader, Narendra Modi, became prime minister. In the process, India and Israel grew ever closer.

By 2016, as the Washington Post reported, “after Indian commandos carried out a raid inside Pakistan-controlled Kashmir in response to an attack by militants on an Indian army post, Modi trumpeted the action, saying: ‘Earlier, we used to hear of Israel having done something like this. But the country has seen that the Indian army is no less than anyone else.’”

Today, the Israeli weapons-robotics firm Elbit Systems has even established a drone factory in India and now has a $300 million contract to supply drones to the Indian army occupying Kashmir. Meanwhile, Modi and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have established a mutual-admiration society, dubbed by the media of both countries the “Modi-Bibi bromance.” And New Delhi has all but abandoned the Palestinians.

Economic Alliances

When, on October 27th, the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution calling for an “immediate, durable, and sustained humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities” in Gaza, only the U.S., Israel, and a handful of small nations voted “no.” India abstained. (Apparently, the Modi-Bibi bromance wasn’t quite enough to sustain a “no” vote.) Modi, however, immediately responded to the measure’s passage by declaring his “solidarity” with Israel.

Economic, political, and diplomatic relations between New Delhi, Tel Aviv, and Washington (all nuclear powers, by the way) had been strengthening even before the current conflict. Last year, for instance, India, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States formed the “I2U2 Group” to attract corporate investment for their mutual benefit. Projects now underway include “food parks across India” with “climate-smart technologies” and a “unique space-based tool for policymakers, institutions, and entrepreneurs” (whatever in — or out of — the world “food parks” and “space-based tools” might be).

Then, in September, the G-20 summit of the group of 20 major nations, meeting in New Delhi, approved an India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor which, according to Voice of America, would “establish a rail and shipping network linking the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan to the Israeli port of Haifa on the Mediterranean Sea.” And guess who now operates that very port? A company led by Gautam Adani, India’s richest person and (naturally!) a Modi buddy. Foreign Policy notes, “It is also palatable for the Middle East to have India as a major energy market to diversify its exports and offset Chinese influence over critical commodities such as oil and gas.”

But not surprisingly, the war in Gaza has thrown plans for such a new Indian-oriented economic corridor through the Middle East into limbo.

High-, Medium-, and Low-Tech Warfare

Militarily, the conflicts in occupied Palestine and occupied Kashmir are both lopsided mismatches. In each, a powerful nation-state is assaulting resource-poor populations, though the scale of slaughter, displacement, immiseration, and death wrought by the Indian regime doesn’t faintly approach what’s currently being done by Israel in the Gaza Strip — at least not yet. While the cases have similarities, magnitude isn’t one of them.

In Gaza, you have the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), a massive high-tech killing machine financed in large part by the world’s richest nation, facing off against Palestinian resistance groups, including the Qassam Brigade, whose most effective weapons are homemade Yassin antitank grenades and whose defenses largely consist of a network of fortified tunnels. Instead of engaging in face-to-face subterranean combat with the Qassam fighters — something that could turn out badly indeed for the IDF — the Israelis have been carrying out an industrial-scale bombardment of densely populated areas. As of late November, the result was approximately 15,000 civilians killed (including more than 6,000 children) and the displacement of 1.6 million people, or two-thirds of Gaza’s population.

In India, the Hindu nationalists’ onslaught against non-Hindu minorities has not been carried out by the Indian Army itself, but by a paramilitary organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), in partnership with the BJP. That unofficial army, founded almost a century ago and modeled on Italian fascist Benito Mussolini’s “blackshirts” and Adolph Hitler’s Nazi stormtroopers, has a membership of five to six million and holds daily meetings in more than 36,000 different locales across India. Its shock troops rarely even carry firearms; their weapons are low-tech, crude, and exceptionally cruel, and their targets are unarmed, unsuspecting civilians. They kill or maim using batons, machetes, strangulation, sulfuric acid to the face, and rape, among other horrors.

Such attacks by Hindu-nationalist gangs, different as they are from the military assault on Gaza, do have parallels in the occupied West Bank. There, Israeli settlers, some carrying government-supplied small arms, maraud through parts of that area (where they live illegally), beating, torturing, and killing Palestinians, including ethnic Bedouin families. They have expelled people from their homes, stolen their money and possessions, including livestock, and destroyed houses and schools. It is now olive harvest season and Jewish settlers have attacked Palestinians in their olive groves, sometimes forcing them off their ancestors’ land, perhaps permanently. More than 200 Palestinians have been killed this way since October.

Common Language

One of the worst atrocities perpetrated against Muslims since India’s partition occurred in 2002 in the western state of Gujarat. (Not coincidentally, that state’s chief minister at the time was Narendra Modi.) Following the alleged torching of a train compartment in which 58 Hindu nationalist “volunteers” were traveling, Hindu mobs inflicted state-sponsored terrorism on the Muslim community across Gujarat. More than 2,000 Muslims were killed. Speaking in the aftermath of that horror, then-prime minister A.B. Vajpayee offered a perfunctory admission of regret for the carnage, only to ask rhetorically, “Lekin aag lagayi kisne?” (“But who lit the fire?”) The implication was that since some from their community were accused of committing the initial crime, all Gujarat Muslims were responsible and that, however regrettably, justified their slaughter.

Similar allegations of collective guilt and justifications for collective punishment have a long history in Israel, as in the current conflict. In October, Israeli President Isaac Herzog claimed that “there is an entire nation out there that is responsible.” That comment earned Herzog a place in a greatest-hits video of Israeli leaders attempting to defend atrocities inflicted on Gaza’s 2.3 million inhabitants. Similarly, a former Israeli ambassador to the U.N. told Sky News, “I am very puzzled by the constant concern which the world… is showing for the Palestinian people, and is actually showing for these horrible inhuman animals.”

Some of the language surrounding it can be similar. Allegations that, in their October 7th attack on Israel, Hamas fighters beheaded children and tore fetuses from women’s wombs — none of which have been substantiated — eerily echo the sexualized violence committed by Hindu mobs in Gujarat in 2002 (rape, mutilation, the killing of women and their babies, and other horrors). A report of attackers using a sword to cut a fetus out of a Muslim woman and burning the bodies of both fetus and mother has been told and retold countless times over the past two decades.

And within mere hours of the October 7th attack in Israel, BJP politicians and Hindu nationalists in India were spreading propaganda on social media, including accusations that Palestinians were “worse than animals” and were cutting fetuses from wombs, beheading children, and taking girls as “sex slaves.” This started in India before IDF spokespeople began spreading similar claims.

An Unnatural Disaster

Drawing a comparison to the ethnic cleansing of 1948, the Israeli agriculture minister, a member of the security cabinet, recently explained his government’s goal to a reporter for the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz this way: “We are now rolling out the Gaza Nakba.” (Nakba was a reference to Israel’s forcible expulsion of 800,000 Palestinians from large portions of their territory in 1948.) When the incredulous reporter tossed the minister a lifeline, asking if he really meant what he’d said, he doubled down: “Gaza Nakba 2023. That’s how it’ll end.”

As of now, it certainly looks that way. The IDF bombed apartment blocks, shelters, schools, and hospitals in northern Gaza to force the migration of the population there toward supposedly “safe” south Gaza. They then began bombing southbound car caravans and even ambulances in which refugees were fleeing. Large groups of other Gazans were forced to make the long journey south on foot through narrow IDF-designated corridors. As the Guardian reported in mid-November,

“Those walking south under the tense gaze of Israeli troops, through a hellscape of tangled rubble that had been buildings two months ago, along roads shattered by weapons and churned to mud by tanks, had little hope of rest when they reached the south. Shelters are crammed, food and water supplies are so low the UN has warned that Palestinians face the ‘immediate possibility’ of starvation, infectious diseases are spreading, and the war there is expected to intensify in coming days.”

Israel soon began bombing parts of South Gaza, too, clearly trying to drive the refugees further south, possibly even through the Raffah gate into Egypt. But Egypt has refused to participate in such an ethnic-cleansing campaign. So, figuratively speaking, millions of desperate Palestinians have their backs to the wall, or in this case, fence, with nowhere to run.

As economic and geopolitical ties among Israel, India, and the U.S. have only continued to strengthen, Joe Biden has chummed it up with both Netanyahu and Modi, averting his eyes from their antidemocratic and all-too-violent national visions. He has backed the assault on Gaza all the way and as late as November 18th was still arguing in the Washington Post against a ceasefire. At the same time, he called for increasing the flow of humanitarian assistance to Gaza to remedy critical staggering shortages of food, water, housing, and fuel. In other words, the Biden administration is treating the catastrophe there like a natural disaster, acting as if there’s something terrible happening, something beyond his (or anyone’s) power to prevent, so all that can be done is to aid the survivors.

In truth, administrations in Washington have been treating Israel’s occupation and immiseration of the West Bank and Gaza like a natural disaster for more than half a century now. Liz Theoharis, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, recently pointed out an incident that suggests just how disingenuous that claim is. In November, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant came under withering criticism for permitting a few small, wholly inadequate truckloads of humanitarian aid to enter Gaza from Egypt. As Theoharis noted, Gallant defended his decision to allow the aid this way: “The Americans insisted, and we are not in a place where we can refuse them. We rely on them for planes and military equipment. What are we supposed to do? Tell them no?” This puts the lie to the idea that Washington has no influence over the progress or outcome of this war. It does have influence over Israel — more than $3 billion worth in the form of military aid provided by Washington every year, not to speak of the $14 billion the Biden administration still wants to reward Israel with.

As we write this, we don’t know what will happen to the people of Gaza once the temporary ceasefire for prisoner exchanges expires. But rest assured that the governments of India and Israel will continue to feed off each other as they develop new strategies, tactics, and propaganda for their respective campaigns of occupation and oppression, campaigns the U.S. government, through both action and inaction, is endorsing. Consider them now three nations under god(s) of hell.

Priti Gulati Cox, (@PritiGCox), a TomDispatch regular, is an artist and writer. Her work has appeared in Countercurrents, CounterPunch, Salon, Truthout, Common Dreams, the Nation, AlterNet, and more. To see her art please visit occupiedplanet.com.

Stan Cox, a TomDispatch regular, is the author of The Path to a Livable Future: A New Politics to Fight Climate Change, Racism, and the Next Pandemic, The Green New Deal and Beyond: Ending the Climate Emergency While We Still Can, and the current In Real Time climate series at City Lights Books. Find him on Twitter at @CoxStan.

Originally published in TomDispatch.com

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This humanitarian truce also included a ceasefire on air sorties in the Southern part of Gaza. This development should not deter us from talking about the violations of International Humanitarian law since Benjamin Netanyahu already declared that they will not stop the war after the Ceasefire. A previous part on International Humanitarian Law can be read here.

This article will particularly talk about three issues – Human Shields, Chemical Weapons and Humanitarian Aid and their position in the Gaza Region as well as the International Humanitarian Law (IHL).

IHL is an internationally accepted code of law that governs the conduct of various sides (stares) during an armed conflict including in the subjects of journalist safety, civilian safety.

Human Shields

What are Human Shields?

Simply put- In a way, when the military uses civilians as a cover to prevent the other side from attacking them- the civilians are being used as Human Shields to protect the Military. Sometimes, civilians could also perform this activity voluntarily.

Why is a discussion on Human Shields Necessary now?

There have been reports out of the region, propounded by the Israeli army and politicians and later picked up by mainstream media, that Hamas has been using Palestinians in Gaza as shields from the attack by Israel, resulting in civilian casualties.

However, a more important question emerges on the responsibility on the side of the attacker when faced by a human shield. There is absolute certainty in international law that Human Shields cannot be used by any side but the discourse on the responsibility of a side when faced with human shields while conducting military operations is not as loud.

Human Shields and IHL

The IHL also deals with Human Shields. Geneva Convention, while being the main convention, Additional Protocols also deal with conflict and the law that should be followed during conflict. Additional Protocol I concerns international armed conflicts, that is, those involving at least two countries. Additional Protocol II is the first international treaty that applies solely to civil wars and sets restrictions on the use of force in those conflicts.

Article 51(7) of Additional Protocol-I stipulates that:

The presence or movements of the civilian population or individual civilians shall not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations, in particular in attempts to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield, favour or impede military operations. The Parties to the conflict shall not direct the movement of the civilian population or individual civilians in order to attempt to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield military operations.

The International Committee of Red Cross has defined human shields as “an intentional co-location of military objectives and civilians or persons hors de combat with the specific intent of trying to prevent the targeting of those military objectives.”

Gaza and Human Shields

A basic principle of International Law is the principle of proportionality. The principle means that incidental and involuntary damages caused to the civilian population during a military attack shall not be excessive in comparison to the direct military advantage obtained. This is one of the core principles of IHL. This principle should ideally guide the State of Israel when it attacks its enemies in Gaza. Added to this, the population in Gaza is very dense, this should have given Israel more responsibility while carrying out its attack. Although Israel dropped leaflets in Gaza asking the civilians to leave, it continued to attack the occupied territory leaving civilians in bewilderment and pain. In a study, it has been observed that civilians caught in the midst of armed conflicts are frequently labelled as human shields. This labelling serves two purposes: to deflect blame for civilian casualties from the perpetrators to those who “deployed” them, and to diminish the value of the “civilian-shields” who died.  

Chemical weapons

As the name suggests, the term refers to those chemicals that are used to inflict death and suffering on the other side, in a war.

Chemical Weapons and IHL

Weapons which cause injuries of various kinds and degrees to man and beast by the use of the asphyxiating, toxic, irritant, paralysing, growth-regulating, anti-lubricating or catalytic properties of a solid, liquid or gaseous chemical. Chemical weapons may also pollute food, beverages and materials. Their use, manufacture and stockpiling are prohibited.

The ill effects of using chemicals and different toxic gases in wars are well documented. However, the two nations – USA and USSR-maintained huge stockpiles of chemical weapons during the Cold War Era. After the Soviet Union’s collapse, the international political environment was more conducive for a multilateral level of regulation on chemical weapons. The Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction- otherwise known as the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) came into force in April 1997. The Convention has 193 state parties i.e., signatories and out of the 193 signatories, only Israel has not ratified the convention. Ratification refers to an approval of agreement by the state, internally. For example, India signed the convention, like Israel, but also ratified the convention by enacting the Chemical Weapons Convention Act, 2000 to give effect to the provisions of CWC.

The CWC prohibits the development, production, acquisition, stockpiling or retaining chemical weapons; the direct or indirect transfer of chemical weapons; Chemical Weapons use or military preparation for use; Assisting, encouraging, or inducing other states to engage in CWC- prohibited activity.

Gaza and Chemical Weapons

Human Rights Watch- an NGO- has stated that it had verified Israel’s use of white phosphorus munitions through interviews and videos, showing the chemical substance was fired on two locations along Israel-Lebanon Border and over the Gaza City port. White phosphorus is a wax-like, toxic substance that burns at more than 800 degrees Celsius (nearly 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit) – high enough to melt metal. Additionally, Israel’s usage has not attracted the attention it should have due to the disagreement in popular scholarship over whether White phosphorus is a chemical weapon or not.

However,  Peter Herby- the then head of the International Committee of Red Cross observed in 2009, use of white phosphorus as an incendiary weapon i.e. a weapon to set fire to military targets is subject to restrictions depending upon the concentration of civilians in the area. And air dropping of such weapons in civilian concentration areas is also prohibited. Irrespective of the status of the chemical, if any party in Gaza uses it in a densely populated area, it would violate IHL.

Humanitarian Aid

In the realm of International Humanitarian Law, there exists the acknowledgment that civilians residing in a State undergoing armed conflict have the entitlement to humanitarian assistance. This body of law meticulously oversees the parameters for delivering vital aid, encompassing necessities like food, medicines, medical equipment, and other indispensable supplies, to those civilians facing urgent requirements.

Article 23 of Convention IV (Geneva Convention (IV) on Civilians, 1949 imposes an obligation on belligerents during international armed conflicts to allow relief operations for the well-being of civilians, including those from the opposing side. This article specifically addresses relief assistance for vulnerable groups like children under fifteen and pregnant or nursing mothers. Additionally, it grants the involved States the authority to inspect and verify relief supplies and refuse passage if there are justified concerns about misuse in military efforts.

Furthermore, Article 70 of Protocol I expands the right to humanitarian assistance, requiring relief operations for the entire civilian population during a general shortage of essential supplies. However, this provision comes with a significant limitation—it mandates the consent of all parties involved, including the receiving State, for such assistance to be provided.

Humanitarian Aid and Gaza

There were credible reports that Gaza had shortage of essential supplies like medicines, fuel, food and water. This law also faced a limitation since Gaza is not a state in its entirety but an occupied territory. The application of this part of International Law becomes questionable on the basis of technicality. However, the basic principles of IHL of proportionality and Humanity comes to the rescue here too. If the fuel and water does not go into the occupied Gaza territory, the impact of population is immensely devastating and therefore, the correct application of IHL should result in better transportation of essential supplies into Gaza.

Conclusion

In the realm of international relations, International Humanitarian Law (IHL) is often considered a form of “soft law,” lacking the same enforceability mechanisms as domestic laws. Despite this, the ongoing discourse surrounding IHL remains crucial, particularly in the context of contemporary conflicts such as that between Israel and Palestine. The intricacies of this legal framework provide a vital foundation for addressing humanitarian concerns amid armed conflicts. Picture IHL as an ever surviving instrument in an ever changing geopolitical world—one that refuses to fade into the background. The conflict’s ever-shifting scenes, marked by the clash of historical grievances and contemporary complexities, call for a continuous exploration of the legal and ethical boundaries that IHL sketches. It becomes a script that demands revisiting, a narrative that necessitates reflection and revision to harmonize with the evolving dynamics of conflict.​

(The author is a legal researcher with the organisation) 

Related:

How Does International Humanitarian Law Apply in Israel and Gaza?

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Ghalib could equally have been describing the situation in Gaza today, where the ongoing violence– both the brutal attack by Hamas on Israeli communities and the genocidal response by Israel – have strong parallels to this dark chapter from the colonial past.

What began as a mutiny by Hindu and Muslim soldiers of the East India Company over cartridges greased with cow and pig fat, which hurt their religious sentiments, soon erupted into extreme violence. Indian civilians and sepoys vented their rage on indignities suffered under exploitative Company Raj by targeting  British settlements and garrisons.

From Kanpur to Jhansi and Delhi, rebels enacted horrific slaughter of British civilians and prisoners, including women and children, throughout the summer of 1857. Tales of rebels gang-raping English governesses and violating high-born British ladies dominated the British press.

In the Times, a letter stated that “our ladies have been dragged naked through the streets by the rabble of Delhi. Quiet ministers of the gospel have been murdered. Their daughters have been cut into snippets and sold piecemeal about the bazaar”. The Illustrated London News painted “a ghastly picture of rapine, murder, and loathsome cruelty worse than death”.

Britain reacted in May 1857 towards its colonized Indians much as Israel has done in October 2023 to the Palestinians– with fury and extreme overreaction. After the British put down the rebellion, soldiers and officers were allowed days of reprisals and retribution against any Indians suspected of collaboration.

Eyewitness accounts and historians estimate thousands were shot dead in bazaars, civilians used for target practice, and villages were burnt to the ground. No mercy was shown to innocent Indian commoners for the uprising as they were slaughtered in their homes regardless of age or gender. Bodies lay rotting for days in the streets of the ruined cities.

“Delhi meant the Fort, the Chandni Chowk, the daily bazaar near Jama Masjid, the weekly trip to the Jamuna bridge, the annual Fair of the Flower-sellers. These five things are no more. Where is Delhi now? Yes, there used to be a city of this name in the land of India”, wrote Ghalib. Today, after relentless Israeli bombing, one can say in similar vein – ‘Yes, there used to be once a place called Gaza in the land of Palestine’.

Apart from quenching a thirst for revenge, the larger aim of the British colonial rulers was to render entire populations too terrified to ever rebel again. However, if the aftermath of 1857 in India offers any lessons, it is that such brutal retaliation almost always fails in fully breaking the resistance.

By all accounts, the ferocity of the British crackdown on Indian cities left smouldering hatred against the foreign rulers. Within a generation, Indians were gearing up for the rise of the Indian Independence movement under Gandhi and others.

Similarly, Israel’s vengeful attempt to ‘eliminate’ Hamas is only bound to fail as the latter is less an organization and more the expression of desperation of the Palestinian population. Until Palestinian demands are addressed meaningfully, future rounds of violence remain almost inevitable.

If this potentially endless war without any winners is to be resolved, there will have to be a shift in paradigms on both sides of the divide. Israel, for example, will have to realize it can never live in peace and protect its citizens as long as the Palestinians are not given a full state of their own to run and live in as a free people.

On the Palestinian side too, it is time to recognize that they cannot win as long as they consider military means as the only way to liberation. After seven decades of armed struggle they have little to show in terms of gains in territory, freedom, resources, or power, while losing thousands of their own to brutal Israeli reprisals.

The extreme asymmetry in power makes it impossible for Hamas or any other militant group to outright defeat Israel through violent attacks. Israel possesses one of the most powerful professional militaries globally, equipped with cutting-edge weapons, sophisticated defence systems, and clear battlefield dominance.

What the experience of the Indian struggle for independence from British rule after 1857 indicates is that perhaps the Palestinians too need their own Gandhi today. While Gandhi described the rebels of 1857 as ‘true patriots’ he also correctly recognized that, when faced with a vastly superior military power,  the moral authority of non-violent movements can successfully challenge oppressive regimes.

Gandhi demonstrated how mass non-cooperation, civil disobedience and willingness to abstain from violent retaliation can build enormous global opinion and internal pressure for change.

While adopting Gandhian methods looks incredibly difficult under the harsh apartheid-like reality of Israeli rule, organized non-violent protests perhaps offer Palestinians their best hope to erode the foundations of Israeli occupation in the longer term. It denies the occupier any ethical grounds or political/national security justifications to continue subjugation, while mobilising worldwide support for the struggle.

Given its different historical trajectory as well as cultural and political milieu obviously it is very unlikely that a Gandhi-like figure will emerge in Gaza any time soon. However – at a minimum – it is certainly possible to reimagine the Palestinian freedom movement.

Into one that that is far less dependent on support from countries like Iran or Qatar with their own geo-political axes to grind and more in sync with millions of nameless people worldwide, who passionately support the Palestinian cause for reasons of justice and anti-colonialism.

And into a movement that harnesses a much wider range of Palestinian skills and political processes than those required for digging tunnels or using hostages to win small concessions. And surely one that is far more democratic and inclusive and not so dominated by conservative, hot-headed, bearded men obsessed with the cult of martyrdom.

Who knows? Maybe someday the women and children of Palestine – who have suffered the most all these decades from the violence-  could collectively turn out to be the ‘Gandhi’ that the Palestinian movement needs? Imagine that, an all-female leadership – with solidarity action from across the globe – winning freedom for Palestine!

Wishful thinking? Perhaps yes, but in the nightmare that Gaza is today, a dream – even the wildest one –  could be the spark for meaningful change.

As Ghalib himself would have said:

“ham ko maalūm hai jannat kī haqīqat lekin
dil ke ḳhush rakhne ko ‘ġhālib’ ye ḳhayāl achchhā hai”

“I know very well the reality of heaven, but Ghalib,
The very thought keeps the heart content”

Satya Sagar is a journalist and public health worker. He can be reached at sagarnama@gmail.com

Courtesy: https://countercurrents.org

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Celebrating anything might seem odd or even inappropriate in the face of so much devastation – and in the middle of what many are calling genocide.

However, in the research of refugees that I’ve conducted with interdisciplinary artist and scholar Devora Neumark, we’ve found that the urge to beautify one’s surroundings is widespread and profoundly beneficial – particularly so in the harrowing circumstances of loss, displacement and danger.

When people find themselves displaced from their homes, finding or creating beauty can be just as vital as food, water and shelter.

Gaza today

In the first six weeks of the Israel-Hamas war, 70% of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have had to leave or have lost their homes.

Over half crowd into some type of emergency shelter, while others squeeze into relatives’ and neighbors’ homes. Food is scarce and increasingly expensive. According to the U.N., people are getting only 3% of the water they need each day. Much of the water they do have is polluted.

Crops are dying. Moms are not producing breast milk. People are getting sick. There are severe shortages of baby formula, as well as anesthesia for those needing surgery. The lack of space and overwhelming stress and fear add sleep to the list of things that are hard to come by.

These needs are urgent and essential. Without them people will die. Too many already have, while the conditions for those who live are horrific. They make it hard to see much else.

But the endless images of bombs and blood hide the story of the life, color and creativity that existed in Gaza. And they hide the beauty that persists despite war.

Beauty is often viewed as a luxury. But this isn’t the case. It’s the opposite.

A human impulse

Beauty has been a hallmark of every human civilization. Art philosopher Arthur Danto wrote that beauty, while optional for art, is not an option for life. Neuroscientists have shown that our brains are biologically wired for beauty: The neural mechanisms that influence attention and perception have adapted to notice color, form, proportion and pattern.

We’ve found that refugees worldwide, often with limited or no legal rights, still invest considerable effort in beautifying their surroundings. Whether they’re staying in shelters or makeshift apartments, they paint walls, hang pictures, add wallpaper and carpet the floors. They transform plain and seemingly temporary accommodations into personalized spaces – into semblances of home.

Refugees rearrange spaces to share meals, celebrate holidays and host parties – to greet friends, hold dances and say goodbyes. They burn incense, serve tea in decorative porcelain and recite prayers on ornate mats. These simple acts carry profound significance, even amid challenges.

Urban studies scholars Layla Zibar, Nurhan Abujidi and Bruno de Meulder have told the story of Um Ibrahim, a Syrian refugee. When she was pregnant, she and her husband transformed the tent they were issued at a refugee camp in the Kurdistan region of Iraq into home. They built brick walls. She planned paint colors and furniture. Around her, neighbors potted plants and set up chairs to create front porches on their temporary shelters to be able to gather with friends. They turned roads into places for celebrating special occasions. They painted a flag at the entrance of the camp.

They made a new home, but they also made it feel like it “used to in Syria.”

Creating hope in a hopeless place

The benefits of beauty are both practical and transformative, especially for refugees.

Many refugees experience trauma. All experience loss. Beautifying is a way to exert agency, grieve and heal.

Simple acts – rearranging a home, sweeping the floor or intentionally placing an object – allow refugees to infuse an area with their own identity and taste. They provide a way to cope when one has little control over anything else. Often, once someone is labeled a refugee, all their other identities are overshadowed or disappear.

Devora Neumark’s study of over 200 individuals who experienced forced displacement found that beautifying the home helped heal intergenerational trauma caused by forced displacement.

Neumark observed that as children participated in efforts to beautify their home, it seemed to positively influence their own coping mechanisms and well-being.

Furthermore, if children could imagine their homes prior to displacement through the stories and images shared with them – what scholar Marianne Hirsch calls “postmemories” – then the actions taken to beautify their present-day homes could be transformative. They served as a bridge connecting the past with the present and facilitated the ongoing process of healing and preserving identity.

Ultimately, making a space feel more comfortable, secure and personalized is a tangible expression of hope for a future.

Cultivating love and life

Even prior to the start of the Israel-Hamas war, Palestinians lived in the face of immense injustice and violence.

Our Palestinian research partner, who must remain anonymous for security reasons, described that their home in the refugee camp feels like living in jail, but that they still make it a beautiful place to live.

Prior to the start of the latest war, neighborhoods featured striking murals and embellished walls. Intricate mosaics adorned buildings, and paint livened the facades of homes. Neighbors would gather to pray, putting on new clothes, spraying perfume and burning incense to prepare for the rituals. As Christmas approached, Palestinian Christians, along with some Muslims, would decorate their homes. Both faiths would gather for annual tree lightings.

Geographer David Marshall described how youth living in a Palestinian refugee camp used beauty to focus on the positives in their environment and dream about a future beyond their camp – and the walls that constrained their lives.

In our community-based storytelling project in a Palestinian refugee camp this past summer, we witnessed the commitment to making homes beautiful in the thriving gardens that were created within very crowded quarters. Neighbors shared how their gardens calm them, provide a place to gather with friends and serve as a reminder of fields they once tended.

In her 2021 research, Corinne Van Emmerick, a Ph.D. candidate in sociology, described Fatena, a Palestinian who was living in a refugee camp. She had flowers on everything – the roof, walls and windowsills. They were expensive and needed “lots of love.” But, Fatena added, they gave her “love back.”

A form of resistance and resilience

One Guinean refugee interviewed as part of Neumark’s study said, “As refugees we lose our sense of beauty, and when that happens, we lose our sense of everything, of life itself.”

If the opposite of this is true, then clearly beauty cannot be thought of as superficial or an afterthought. One study of Bosnian refugees found that their ability to notice beauty was a sign of improved mental health.

Creating, witnessing and experiencing beauty offers a connection to the familiar, works to preserve cultural identity and fosters belonging.

It’s what ensures that a little girl in Gaza not only has her birthday celebrated, but that it is also made as beautiful as possible.

Devora Neumark, an interdisciplinary artist and researcher whose trauma-informed work explores the intersections between a home beautification and the human experience in the context of displacement, contributed to writing this article.

Stephanie Acker, Visiting Scholar of International Development, Community and Environment, Clark University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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“It appears that several persons attended the peaceful prayer gathering on the Juhu beach. However, after the prayer gathering ended and the participants had dispersed, the Juhu police picked up 17 individuals around 10.30 a.m. [November 14]. They were taken to the police station and illegally detained there until 7 p.m. after which they were released,” said the statement, adding that four among those picked up by the police were minors who had been allowed to leave only at 4 p.m. after their parents were called.

The PUCL has stated that the detained individuals had gone immediately after the prayer gathering ended to collect posters that they had earlier voluntarily kept in the police cabin near the Juhu beach as it had been decided that the gathering was meant to be ‘silent’, without any posters or banners.

“The police present there, however, started questioning them and asked them to pose with the posters and placards and then photographed them. The police then told them they would escort them to the bus stop to ensure they leave safely. As they proceeded, they suddenly found that a police van had arrived. They were forcibly pushed into the van, detained and taken to the Juhu police station. The youngsters were frightened and many were crying,” said the PUCL statement, laying down the sequence of events.

According to PUCL, none of those detained were allowed to contact their parents or seek any legal help and call up a lawyer, condemning the police’s “gross violation of basic rights.”

“The 17th person to be picked up by the Juhu police was social activist Feroze Mithiborwala. He was picked up after the prayer gathering had ended and was made to remove posters from his bag, though he had never displayed any posters at the prayer gathering,” said the PUCL statement.

Condemning the police action as “excessive and arbitrary,” the statement said it was “a clear case of harassment.”

“Disturbingly, the attitude of the police was also intimidatory towards the young members of the minority community, especially the young girls, who had peacefully participated in a prayer gathering,” said the statement.

It censured the “arbitrary police action” which, in effect, had resulted in a complete restriction in Mumbai on public protests and peace gatherings “against the unprecedented violence and suffering faced by Palestinians, for which daily protests were taking place globally.”

The entire text of the statement may be read here:

Democracy demands that right to protest be protected not punished!

“People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) Maharashtra expresses grave alarm and concern at the increasing trend of criminalising public protest or any form of public expression on social issues and deplores the manner in which police in Mumbai speedily lodge cases against those participating in such democratic events. Especially in the context of the ongoing Israeli war on Palestine resulting in civilian deaths, the Mumbai police has in effect imposed a de facto ban on any form of peaceful public protest by citizens demanding an end to the violence, including the holding of peace gatherings and prayer meetings, even candlelight vigils in public places like the Azad Maidan. In no other part of India do we see this sort of obstruction to the right to protest, as is being seen in Mumbai.

“The recent example of the First Information Report (FIR) lodged by Juhu police under sections 37 (1), 37 (3) and 135 of the Maharashtra Police Act (MPA) against 13 individuals, 11 of whom are students, on November 14, 2023, for alleged violation of prohibitory orders, is a case in point. All of them were picked up on November 14, 2023, after they responded to a multi-city call emanating from an Instagram account ‘solidarity movement’, to observe Children’s Day in India with a quiet prayer recital of the names of children who were killed in Palestine. It appears that several persons attended the peaceful prayer gathering at Juhu beach. However, after the prayer gathering ended and participants had dispersed, Juhu police picked up 17 individuals at around 10.30 a.m. They were taken to Juhu police station and illegally detained there until 7.00 pm when they were released. 4 of them who were underage youth (2 boys and 2 girls), were allowed to leave only at 4 p.m. and their parents were called. PUCL Maharashtra has learnt that of the 17 individuals – all from the minority community, picked up by the Juhu Police, 16 individuals being 4 minors, 11 students and 1 mother of a student, had gone immediately after the prayer gathering ended to collect the posters that they had earlier voluntarily kept in the police cabin near the beach as it was decided that the gathering was meant to be silent i.e. without any posters or banners. The police present there however started questioning them and asked them to pose with the posters and placards and photographed them.

“The police then told them they will escort them to the Bus Stop to ensure they leave safely. As they proceeded under the directions of the police, suddenly they found a police van had arrived and they were forcibly pushed into the van, detained and taken to the Juhu Police Station. The youth were frightened and many were crying. At the police station, none of them were allowed to contact their parents or seek any legal help and call up a lawyer. All this is in clear gross violation of their basic legal rights. The 17th person picked up by the Juhu Police was social activist Firoz Mithiborwala. He too was picked up by Juhu police after the prayer gathering had ended and was also made to remove posters from his bag, though he had never displayed any posters at the prayer gathering. But the police were not willing to listen to any reason.

“In this manner, the 13 people illegally detained were finally released only at 7.00 pm on November 14, 2023, after being served with notices. They were asked to return the next day i.e. on November 15, 2023 at 11.00 am to submit their Aadhar Card xerox copy and 2 photographs. Then, on that day, the rest were allowed to leave by around 1.00 pm, but Feroze Mithiborwala was detained there till 6.30pm once again, when he was extensively questioned. Clearly, the police action was excessive and arbitrary, and this is a clear case of police harassment. Disturbingly, the attitude of the police was also intimidatory towards the young members of the minority community, especially the young girls, who had peacefully participated in a prayer gathering for peace.

“The youth were asked to provide all their personal details and their parents were later summoned to the police station. Activist Firoz Mithiborwala was repeatedly questioned whether he had organised the meeting, despite his repeated denial that he had only come in response to an online call and knew none of the youth involved. Even a copy of the FIR was only provided to them after an application from their lawyers. There was no occasion or ground for the police to file an FIR, that too selectively against the 13 people after the peaceful gathering had dispersed and when there was no disturbance to public order or violation of law. Moreover, in any event, none of the 13 people were involved in organizing the event but had only responded to a humane call on social media for the prayer gathering.

“Right to protest is a fundamental right of citizens guaranteed under the Indian Constitution and essential to our democracy. However, the increasing number of such instances show that the right to protest of citizens is not only being infringed upon, but even attempting to assemble peacefully in Mumbai is being met with harsh and intimidatory police action and criminal sanctions, creating an atmosphere of fear in which democracy cannot thrive or find expression.

“There has been continuous imposition of prohibitory orders under Section 37 (1) and (3) of the MPA, thereby providing ground to the police to criminalise peaceful gatherings and protests, and to selectively restrict protests. Meanwhile, most applications / intimations to the police for holding protests by citizens’ groups and civil society organisations are being denied and met with sanctions, including the peace gatherings and anti-war public protests on the ongoing Israeli war on Palestine. The police has been serving notices under Section 149 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 (CrPC) to the applicants/organisers while denying permission to protest and the applicants/organisers have also on occasion been put under preventive detention under Section 151 of the CrPC. Just last month, the Mankhurd Police had arrested two young Mumbai activists and charged them under Section 353 and 332 of the Indian Penal Code, among other offences for violation of prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the CrPC and Section 37 of the MPA, and also detained 4 persons under Section 151 of the CrPC, in connection with a protest against the Israeli government’s ongoing violent attacks impacting civilians in Palestine. It is unfathomable that the arbitrary police action has in effect resulted in a complete restriction in Mumbai on public protests and peace gatherings against the unprecedented violence and suffering faced by Palestinians, for which daily protests are taking place globally and even in other states in the country calling for ceasefire. Infact, it is even more shocking that public demonstrations calling for an end to the ongoing violence in Palestine are being penalized in such fashion, considering India’s own history of freedom struggle from colonial rule and its long-standing recognition of the statehood of Palestine and the self-determination struggle of Palestinians.

“PUCL Maharashtra expresses concern on the misuse of penal law against peaceful protestors, thereby criminalizing and silencing voices of democratic expression and dissent. PUCL Maharashtra demands that the FIR lodged against the 13 civilians by Juhu police on November 14, 2023 be dropped forthwith and that the constitutional right of citizens to protest and to give peaceful expression to their views or feelings be protected.

“Besides, PUCL Maharashtra notes with distress, that there appears to be a concerted attempt to silence peaceful protests against war and violence. PUCL Maharashtra demands an end to the excessive, continuous and restrictive imposition of prohibitory orders under Sec 144 of the CrPC and Section 37 of the MPA. These orders, ostensibly issued to maintain public order, actually result in a curb on the constitutional right to public protest or gatherings and instead facilitate the criminalization of peaceful and democratic protests. This creates a chilling effect, amounts to censorship and is against the fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression, association and assembly. PUCL Maharashtra reiterates its demand that the legitimate right of citizens to protest be protected fiercly in the interest of our nation which is built on the fulcrum of that very right.*

The statement has been issued by Mihir Desai, President Lara Jesani, General Secretary PUCL Maharashtra.

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The post Mumbai police’s FIR against individuals at prayer gathering commemorating children killed in Palestine condemned: PUCL appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Unsurprisingly, the trio of the United States, Russia and Britain, who are council veto-powers, abstained from Wednesday’s vote on the resolution drafted by Malta. The remaining 12 members voted in favour of pausing the warfire.

The stalemate in the UNSC has been centered on whether to call for a humanitarian pause or a ceasefire. A pause is generally considered less formal and shorter than a ceasefire, which has to be agreed by the warring parties. The United States has only backed pauses, while Russia has pushed for a ceasefire.

Russia failed in a last minute bid to amend the resolution to call for a truce leading to a complete cessation of hostilities. Russia abstained because there was no call for an immediate ceasefire, Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the council.

The resolution was the fifth attempt by the UNSC to take action since Israel says Hamas militants killed 1,200 people and took about 240 hostage in a surprise assault on Oct. 7. The text also does not condemn the Hamas attack – a point of contention for Israel’s ally, the U.S., and Britain.

 Ultimately, the United States could not vote ‘yes’ on a text that did not condemn Hamas – or reaffirm the right of all member states to protect their citizens from terrorist attacks,” U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the council after the vote.

Britain also held back (abstained) because there was no condemnation of the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas.

“The barbarity of those attacks should be clear to us all,” Britain’s U.N. Ambassador Barbara Woodward told the council. “But let me be absolutely clear, it was vital and overdue for the council to speak on this crisis and we strongly support the resolution’s purpose: to get aid in, and hostages out.”

The council called “for urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors throughout the Gaza Strip for a sufficient number of days to enable … the full, rapid, safe, and unhindered humanitarian access.”

Following the attacj by Hamas on October 7, Israel has vowed to wipe out Hamas, which rules Gaza, striking the enclave of 2.3 million from the air, imposing a siege and invading with soldiers and tanks. Gaza health officials, considered reliable by the United Nations, say about 11,500 Palestinians are confirmed killed.

“Hamas has deeply embedded itself within the civilian population in Gaza,” Thomas-Greenfield said. “But we have been clear at the highest levels: Hamas’s actions do not lessen Israel’s responsibility to protect innocent people in Gaza.”

The Security Council attempted four times in two weeks in October to act. Russia failed twice to get the minimum votes needed, the United States vetoed a Brazilian-drafted resolution and Russia and China vetoed a U.S.-drafted resolution.

Finally, the resolution adopted on Wednesday articulates demands for a compliance with international law, most especially the protection of civilians, especially children. It also calls on all parties to the ongoing not to deprive civilians in Gaza of basic services and humanitarian aid needed for their survival, welcomes the initial, limited deliveries of aid, but calls for that to be increased.

After the UN Security Council deadlock last month, the 193-member U.N. General Assembly

adopted on Oct. 28 – with 121 votes in favour – a resolution drafted by Arab states that called for an immediate humanitarian truce and demanded aid access to the Gaza Strip and protection of civilians.

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The post UN Security Council calls for stop in Gaza fighting for aid appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Bahujan Samaj Party MP Danish Ali, All India Muslim Personal Law Board spokesperson and Welfare Party of India national president Syed Qasim Rasool Ilyas, and lawyer MR Shamshad have denounced the police notice, asserting that the police action is completely wrong and the praying for the victims is an integral part of worship in Islam stated Maqtoob Media.

Muslim leaders have argued that the directive infringes upon both freedom of expression and religious freedom, Articles 19 and 25 of the Indian Constitution. This development occurs as mosques worldwide join in Palestine solidarity, with Friday prayers witnessed speeches and prayers dedicated to the Palestinian cause.The Inquilab also reported that the cops intervened during prayers at a mosque in Old Delhi, pressuring an imam not to mention Palestine.

Yesterday, November 14, a peaceful protest by women’s groups called nationwide, was sought to be prevented in Mumbai, it is reported.

Related:

Withdraw FIRs filed against protestors for participating in pro-Palestine protests: PUCL

The post “Don’t pray for Palestine,” Delhi Police reportedly warns mosque imams appeared first on SabrangIndia.