Labor organizers explain why they’re marching on DC for Palestine

Maximillian Alvarez

January 12, 2024

For these rank-and-file union members, solidarity with Palestine is a necessity for the labor movement.

 

Men lock arms and shout slogans during a demonstration of solidarity with Palestinians. Demonstrators gathered in Freedom Plaza for a rally supporting Palestinians in Washington, DC, on November 4, 2023. Photo by ALI KHALIGH/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

On Jan. 13, a second march on Washington in solidarity with Palestine will take place, following the record-breaking mobilization this past November. Conditions on the ground in Gaza have drastically deteriorated since the first national march, and the urgency of taking action has only increased. Input from labor has also only grown since last fall, with major unions like the UAW throwing its support behind a ceasefire. Yet for many, the question of solidarity with Palestinians remains a distinct issue from what some see as the core concerns of the labor movement. SEIU rank-and-file members Emma Mae Weber and Ryan Harvey speak with The Real News on why they’re attending the march on Washington, and why they think the voice of the labor movement is sorely needed on the issue of Palestine.

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Welcome everyone to The Real News Network podcast. My name is Maximillian Alvarez. I’m the editor-in-chief here at The Real News, and it’s so great to have you all with us. It has been three months since the October 7th Hamas-led attacks in Southern Israel culminated in the brutal killing of over 1100 people, including nearly 700 Israeli civilians, hundreds of security forces and dozens of foreigners. Hamas forces also captured around 250 hostages from Israel during the attack. Since then, however, over the past three months, Israel’s scorched-earth assault on the Gaza Strip has wrecked a kind of devastation unseen in the 21st century. According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, nearly 23,000 Palestinians have now been killed in Gaza since October 7th. The majority of them women and children with countless others still buried under the rubble. Nearly 90% of Gaza’s population have been displaced from their homes.

With each passing day, more Israeli bombs are falling on Gaza, more bodies are being blown apart and buried under the rubble. The world has borne witness to a genocidal military campaign and an ethnic cleansing happening in real time to clear out Gaza once and for all and every day, every hour, it feels like the chance to stop one of humanity’s most inhumane crimes is slipping through our fingers. This is prompting activists and people of conscience around the world to take direct action to try to disrupt the war machine themselves and to try to force a ceasefire and an end to the Israeli occupation. On November 4th of last year, for instance, the largest pro-Palestine rally in US history took place in the heart of Washington D.C. when over 100,000 people rallied to demand an immediate ceasefire and an end to the violent 75 years Israeli occupation of Palestine. I was actually there on the ground with my fellow journalist, Jaisal Noor, covering the demonstration for The Real News. And if you have not already, I highly recommend that you take a few minutes to watch our on-the-ground report from that demonstration, because it was really, really powerful.

And this Saturday, January 13th, 2024 demonstrators from across the country will once again descend on the nation’s capital for the March on Washington for Gaza. Co-organized and co-sponsored by Code Pink, the American Muslim Task Force for Palestine and many other organizations. And today we’re going to talk about labor’s role in this fight, and we’re actually going to talk with some of the workers and unionists who are going to the demonstration on Saturday as workers and unionists and people of conscience. Listen, as we’ve talked about many times here at The Real News Network, labor has a long and proud tradition of using worker power to fight against war, genocide and apartheid around the globe. Let us not forget the heroic actions taken by members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union who protested apartheid in South Africa and even refused to unload South African cargo at ports here in the United States.

Sadly, over the past three months, organized labor in the US has been moving slowly when it comes to taking an active stand against the destruction of Gaza and the slaughter of Palestinians. Now, that is not to discount the brave and necessary actions that certain national unions, local unions and rank-and-file groups have taken over the past three months and even before to stand against the violence of Israeli occupation like the United Electrical Workers, the United Auto Workers, Starbucks Workers United, and so on. But sadly, again, those groups are largely the exception than the rule, or at least that has been the case over the past three months but it hopefully looks like that is changing.

And again, I want to introduce our incredible guests today who are going to talk to us about their role in fighting the violence of occupation, ending the madness of the destruction of Gaza, and why they as workers and unionists feel compelled to attend the March on Washington for Gaza this Saturday. So I could not be more honored to be joined today on The Real News Network podcast by Emma Mae Weber. Emma is a Milwaukeean and a member of SEIU Local 500. That’s the Service Employees International Union Local 500, and she is also a union steward. We are also joined today by friend of The Real News and a previous guest on The Real News, Ryan Harvey. Ryan is a Baltimorean, an organizer, and a member of SEIU Local 500 as well. Emma Ryan, thank you both so much for joining me today on The Real News Network.

Ryan Harvey:

Thanks for having us.

Emma Mae Weber:

Yeah. Thank you.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Well, I really appreciate you guys making time for this. I know you’ve got a lot going on and we are recording this just a few days ahead of this big march planned for Washington on Saturday. And so I want to jump right into it here. And I want to go around the table and have y’all introduce yourselves in more depth than I was able to do just now. I wanted to ask if you could tell our audience a little more about yourselves as rank-and-file workers. What kind of work do you do in your day-to-day life? How have you yourself gotten involved in labor organizing and the labor movement? And also talk to us about how and when you got involved in the current fight for a ceasefire and the longer fight to end the Israeli occupation. And tell us about how those two sides of your lives have converged and come together at this moment.

Ryan Harvey:

Yeah. Well, I can start Max, and thanks for having us again, and shout out to The Real News. Shout out to Baltimore. So I work for Public Citizen, which is a progressive nonprofit founded by Ralph Nader many decades ago. And I work in global trade policy, so pushing for and developing progressive international trade policy and also fighting against neoliberal trade policies wherever it rears its head. I’m not speaking today on behalf of my employer, but I’m also a member of a union. Our staff is unionized through SEIU Local 500 as you said. And our union represents a lot of educators and a lot of nonprofit workers, some grad students, adjunct professors. We represent non-teaching staff at Montgomery County Public Schools. We represent adjunct professors and grad students at American University. We represent adjunct professors at Goucher College, McDaniel, Micah in Baltimore, at Howard University, Georgetown, and a bunch of other places, as well as places like Media Matters, Oxfam, Public Citizen, ActionAid, and a number of others. So that’s who we represent.

And before I pass it over Emma for your intro, I’ll just say that what we’ve been part of, we’ve formed a little group. I wouldn’t say little, there’s a lot of us called SEIU Local 500 Rank and File for Palestine. There’s a bunch of groups like this around the country from different unions who are I would say largely part of a generation who have been brought into the labor movement as young people or as young adults and who look to not only to our union leadership nationally and locally, but also to ourselves and our colleagues as members of unions. We see unions as being a lot bigger than just what’s in our contract and what the union means for us as workers. We also think about it as a venue of democratic … What’s the word? Like building democratic pressure.

These are organizations that represent people. They’re made up of members. They’re democratic bodies. And we live in a country and a world that’s sorely lacking in real democracy. We see these venues as things that we should be able to organize within and use as forums through which people can express and … Not just express their opinions, but actually impact policies where something like what’s happening in Gaza with the US role … I mean, it’s wildly unpopular. So these are venues through which that can be expressed and something can be done about it. So yeah, Emma Mae, what you got?

Emma Mae Weber:

Yeah. Wow. I feel like Ryan really summed up a lot of what we are working on as a rank and file group of SEIU Local 500. I am relatively young. I’m a young worker. I’m a young unionist. I’m 24. And I’m a media researcher. So part of what I think really activated me in all of this is part my job is seeing this on TV over and over again, and I know that I’m not the only one. I know most people are seeing this on their screens over and over again, and I’m not someone who can separate pieces of myself like worker or organizer or activist into separate categories. To me, those really all make up who I am.

So the natural progression of that is that my union organizing is going to be representative of the fact that workers should be standing with the people of Gaza because an attack to one of us is an attack to all of us in my eyes, and as workers, we stand with the working class people from across the world. I got into organizing union work relatively recently, I guess with my age. But as soon as I was able to join my union, I did and became a union steward and am also doing union organizing here in Milwaukee. Because I’m not East Coast, I am in the Midwest, and we do a lot of organizing work around a ceasefire here in Milwaukee as well and the calls coming from the labor movement here in the Midwest. So that’s a little background about where my union organizing comes from.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Oh, yeah. And I want to circle back to how this rank and file group within y’all’s own union came together and the kinds of conversations that y’all have been having about the group itself and about the upcoming demonstration in DC this Saturday. But before we get there, Emma Mae, I just wanted to follow up on that point that you made because that’s why I phrased the question the way that I did. But you put the answer so beautifully where you said, I’m a full person. I’ve got these different sides of me that I can’t just separate into these neat little boxes like worker, activist, or what have you. And I think that’s the case for all of us. And that’s why I find it so frustrating like when I go to the largest pro-Palestine march in US history back in November. And the way that mainstream media pundits and even a lot of politicians in DC talk about a demonstration of that size is they talk about the people who make up that massive crowd as if they’re all professional activists. As if we’ve all just come out of some Antifa basement or that we sit in an organizing circle and only come out when there’s a demonstration and then we go right back to where we were before.

But when I was there talking to people on the ground, I was like, these are just regular people. These are UAW union members, these are high school students, these are retired workers. These are just people who have come out to make their voices heard and to show their elected leaders and to show the world that they stand against the slaughter of Palestinians and the destruction of Gaza. But they’re just regular people like us. It’s not as easy to divide the sides of ourselves, worker and organizer, activist and so on and so forth into those neat little boxes. But I do still think that the ways that we’re trained to think about ourselves puts those barriers in place. And unions are a perfect example. People look at unions, they hear what Ryan’s saying about the importance of organized labor, and they may think, yeah, that all sounds great. But they should only be focused on the working conditions in their given shop or the conditions of their members. Getting involved in “politics” is beyond the scope of what organized labor should be and workers and union members should concern themselves with as workers and union members. Maybe they can concern themselves with that stuff on the weekends.

That’s what I was trying to get at. I just wanted to toss it back to you both and ask if you had any more to say on that front, like how we can talk to people out there about how and why our status as people who work for a living laboring in the gut of empire, how that is in fact connected to the struggle for the liberation and health and safety of all working people around the world and an end to war and the destruction of other people.

Ryan Harvey:

Yeah. Look, if your yard keeps flooding because the river keeps flooding and you keep cleaning the water out of your yard, at some point you’re going to ask why does it keep flooding? Everyone’s yards are getting flooded. No one’s going to be like, “Hey, hey, whoa. Stay in your lane.” You don’t have to do acrobatics to connect these things. The conditions that most people are fighting for in their lives, often through a union, sadly too often not through a union, is for a life of dignity. It’s for enough money to be able to go to the grocery store and not have to check your bank account. To have healthcare, to own a home. To not have your car breakdown become a crisis that could significantly change your life. These are basic things. They involve money, they involve resources. And the thing underlying all of that is the drastically unequal distribution of the wealth that our society generates.

And it’s very, very public right now. The Biden administration was saying, “Oh, don’t worry. We can definitely afford two wars.” At this time when food costs are skyrocketing. Again, there’s no acrobatics involved. It’s directly connected. Our government prioritizes going to war and making sure that arms contractors make huge profits, that their friends in power are protected around the world through the mass killing of civilians if need be, and the basic needs of people at home and especially around the world just go unmet for generation and generation and generation. And then when people are angry about it, we are baffled at how unprecedented it is. Why are all these people so upset? So that’s the context that we’re in. In terms of as union members, the language we use matters. I try to avoid using the words like activist when describing groups of people doing something. I try to use words that describe them as regular people. Because I’ll let you all in on a secret, activists are also regular people.

I’ve been in many an Antifa basement in my musical career. I believe that’s my most frequented venue.

Maximillian Alvarez:

I think Ryan and I met in an Antifa basement.

Ryan Harvey:

And I’ll let you in on another secret, those people are regular people too. I have friends I grew up with in the punk scene who became engineers, electricians, nurses and doctors and teachers and folks who work in the food industry, bartenders, whatever. People you interact with every day. Postal workers, etc. But the words we use do matter, and the ways we identify do matter. With what we did through our local is we were all really frustrated about this and trying to think where are ways that we can put pressure on our government to stop supporting Israel’s genocide in Palestine. We have an obligation to do it. So we started looking for different ways, and one of those ways was through our union.

So we realized that our local hadn’t signed on to the national petition for a ceasefire. Folks at my organization started talking about it. We heard that folks at other organizations were talking about it within our local, and so we all started talking about it together. We sent a big letter signed by over 100 members of our local to our leadership. We did some organizing and our local signed onto the ceasefire, which is awesome. We’re very appreciative of that. And now we’ve are keeping the ball rolling so we’ve put out a call for a labor contingent to join together this Saturday in DC at the big March. 12:00 noon at the Navy Memorial on Pennsylvania Avenue right by the rally site. Because want to network with other unions and other rank and file caucuses like we’ve built so that we have a stronger voice, especially on the issue of Palestine, but also on other issues that overlap with that. So yeah, Emma Mae?

Emma Mae Weber:

Yeah. You stole a lot of what I was going to say right out of my mouth, so that was really great. But I guess thinking a lot about the terms, going back to the idea around the words that we use and how we identify ourselves, I think what you all were talking about before of the way that we get identified, especially with the term is activist is meant to isolate us and is meant to make people who might not be sure if they should join in, if those are their people, because it’s like, oh, it’s this other group doing this thing instead of the people who I can identify with. My fellow neighbors, my coworkers. And that’s what’s so important I think in showing up as workers, especially with this action, is because we’re not marching as specific titles in our accomplishments or what we stand for specifically with a political identity, but necessarily just standing within our identity as workers and as community members. But if they just said that a large group of community members was outraged instead of a large group of activists, I think people would probably be a little bit more interested in what’s going on because maybe they would identify more with us then.

Maximillian Alvarez:

I think that’s very powerfully put and should be a lesson learned to all of us about the words that we’re choosing to describe these kinds of things. And the ways that we are preventing ourselves from identifying with our fellow human beings and fellow workers because of those categories. We don’t have time to get into a whole large discussion about that, but obviously that is playing a huge role here in many respects. What are the psychological and emotional and existential barriers that we have been conditioned to put in place to prevent us from seeing a Palestinian murdered in their homes, their families displaced as anything other than a fellow human being, a neighbor, a fellow worker. Someone who is flesh and blood like you. That is enough. That’s all you need to know. The nationality, the religion, the gender. So many of these other categories that have been used through mainstream media coverage, through the political discourse about Israel-Palestine, the cumulative effect is giving people innumerable excuses to not empathize with their fellow man.

And for that reason alone, we should be intensely critical of the ways we are taught to see others and ourselves, whether we’re talking about labor struggles happening here in our own country or humanitarian crises happening across the world that we ourselves as taxpaying Americans, as working Americans are directly implicated in because as has already been mentioned, the United States is endlessly and unconditionally funding and supporting and abetting this genocidal violence. But in that vein, I want to … Because I know I only have about 10 minutes left with y’all. Ryan, you started to pick up on this already, but I just wanted to ask in case there were any additional details that y’all wanted to share about how the rank and file group of Local 500 members of which y’all are a part, this contingent that is going to Washington D.C. This Saturday to take part in the March on Washington for Gaza. How did this group come together? What kinds of conversations were y’all having as fellow union members about why you needed to take a stand and how this was something that you all wanted to do as a group?

Ryan Harvey:

Yeah. It’s nothing out of the ordinary. To keep in line with the conversation we’ve been having, it was a very normal thing. We just talked to people and said, “Hey, do you know anybody over at Oxfam? Hey, do you know anybody over at Georgetown? We’re all in the same union.” It’s like organizing 101. It’s about relationship building. It’s about connecting with people and finding people who are … I don’t want to say it like the tip of a spear, but people who have a network. So for anyone listening who’s like, whether you’re at a workplace that isn’t unionized and you’re thinking about maybe building a union, same principles. If you’re in a union and you want to organize your colleagues and fellow union members to get a better contract or on something like what we’re doing like a caucus on a particular issue or whatever, same exact fundamental stuff. Talk to folks, get a sense of where people are at, come up with an idea.

I think having what we call a vehicle in the nonprofit world. Having a vehicle, like a sign-on letter. Something that you’re asking people to do. A first step. An excuse to open that conversation. A survey. Anything like that. Sometimes we start way too big when we start things and then we inevitably fail. So figure out an entry-level thing, a big umbrella that you can form through which you can have those conversations, then you have them and you are up front with people about what you’re trying to do. I think we did that. And I think that it worked really well and we’re connected now. And so you keep the ball rolling. That’s what it is. The end goal of organizing is not to win your campaign, it’s to stay organized as people, wherever that is in the society. The more organized people are, the more power we can exert on those who have power over us, and the more we can then negotiate power, which, let you in on another little secret, that’s democracy. That’s what the country’s supposed to be all about, so it shouldn’t be that controversial.

Emma Mae Weber:

Yeah. I guess I’ll say this is actually the first time Ryan and I have really worked together and really the first time that I’ve been in contact with different units from across our local in general. And of course the main focus of what we’re doing right now is about calling for a ceasefire. But because we’re all organizing around that, the other cool thing that’s coming out of this is that we’re building those pathways and those connections with each other that we’re going to be able to continue to lean on as we continue to organize with each other. And so I’m in a group here in Milwaukee of a whole bunch of young workers and young unionists, and I spoke about this with them and how when you start a campaign like this, it is about the focus of that campaign, but it’s also getting those wheels turning on connection and relationship building. And those are things you can continue to use and fall back on as more things come up, as your contract needs to be strengthened, as you’re facing bigger and bigger issues at your workplaces. So it’s twofold, and it’s been great working with Ryan. It’s been great working and meeting all these other people in my local. And it’s all because we realized that something needed to be said from our union, which is great. I am really proud of the people I get to call my union siblings.

Ryan Harvey:

And it doesn’t need to be a hostile … The thing about being organized is that when you have power, whether it’s a small degree of power like what we might have or a larger degree, you can have different kinds of conversations with people with different amounts of power, and it’s not as awkward. When we pushed on our union leadership, yeah, there was an uncomfortableness about it because this is my union leadership. I want them to come to bat for me when we’re negotiating contract. We’re in a relationship. But our perspective is not we’re trying to be a pain in the ass. It’s like we’re trying to strengthen our union. Actually, we are members of the union and according to the polls, a lot of people think that what’s happening is really, really wrong and want something done about it. So we have to think of ourselves like actually, we’re helping. We’re trying to help. We’re trying to make our union something that more people want to be part of, to see a reflection of themselves in. And also union colleagues of ours who are Palestinian, who have family in the Middle East, et cetera, who are feeling abandoned, we’re also helping make this a place that folks feel comfortable wearing that button and turning out to rallies and whatnot.

So there is an uncomfortableness when you organize, especially when the people that you’re going up against might even be people you respect. They’re friends or whatever. But that’s what organizing to build power does. It allows you to say, look, we can still be cool, but all these people that are with me, they want something in particular and I’m telling you what it is and what are we going to do about it here? So I think that’s a very important thing for people to understand. You don’t have to hate the people that you’re organizing in proximity to. Sometimes you do, and that’s fine as well if that’s how it is. But we’re trying to act in a democratic fashion and we’re contesting things that are very important in our life, and sometimes those conversations are hard, and we have to be prepared for those.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Yeah. Well, again, I think both of you very beautifully, powerfully put. And I know I got to let you both go in a few minutes here, so I just wanted to build on that, turn it into a final question here. For other workers, unionists, regular people who are listening to this right now, this is going to be published on Friday, January 12th ahead of the march on Washington for Gaza. So folks are listening to this considering going to the march itself on Saturday, or if they can’t make this march, but are considering taking a more active role in this through their union or beyond, I just wanted to ask what your message would be as members of this rank and file contingent of Local 500 members who are taking that step, who are organizing amongst your union siblings to make something happen here and to use your power as workers and union members to fight for good, to fight for peace and justice.

What would your message be to folks out there who are listening to this about why they should do the same, even amidst a McCarthyite scary situation that we’ve got here in the United States where people are being repressed, people are being fired from their jobs, people are being ostracized within certain social circles. If you could speak directly to folks about that, what would your parting message to them be? And any final thoughts you have on the role that workers and organized labor in general can and should be taking in fighting for peace and ending this madness?

Emma Mae Weber:

Yeah. This is going to sound very Gen Z of me, but don’t let them gaslight you into thinking that you are the only one who cares about a ceasefire, you’re the only one who cares about unionizing, and you’re the only one who wants X, Y, or Z. The biggest thing is identifying the folks that are on the same page as you and making sure you hang onto those connections because the pushback they want … Using the ominous they. But a lot of folks in power want people who are trying to take back their power or trying to reclaim their worker power to feel as if they’re alone. And the whole point of a union, the whole point of organizing is to really rely on the community and the connections we’re building. So you’re not alone. We’re doing this work together and just continue to try and remind yourself that you are not the only person who feels the way you do in your workplace.

Ryan Harvey:

And in terms of speaking to the situation in Gaza and in Palestine, I’ve heard people say … Not a lot of people, but saying like, “Oh, what, so you guys want Trump?” It’s like, dude, we may be very angry at Biden right now, we absolutely do not want Donald Trump to be the president again. What we are trying to do is hold this administration and these politicians to their standard that they set out when they said this is going to be the most progressive administration in history. Whatever. It’s like, okay, well then freaking act like it. If your approval rating is tanking and you’re losing young voters and you’re losing Arab and Muslim voters, it’s because of your policies. It’s not because of the rhetoric that we’re using out on the streets. Get out there. If the unions and union leadership are concerned about the political situation, then speak about Gaza and support a ceasefire.

We are trying to put the Democratic Party onto the right track on this and not on the wrong track where they are. And I’m not speaking for everyone in my crew or anything, but unions are largely supporting Democratic Party candidates. We’re trying to change what the Democratic Party’s position is on this because they’re in power right now in the White House. And there’s people who seem to be very aloof to what’s happening on the street, on the ground where the voters are in relation to what’s happening in Gaza. And it’s very serious. The implications domestically and internationally are very serious. But they’re nowhere near as serious as the implications of what’s actually happening on the ground in Gaza. This will have repercussions for a very, very long time. It will involve the US military, it will involve US money. It will involve a whole bunch of militaries around the world for decades if this isn’t righted soon, in a very honest way. And if you want any proof of that, just look at Afghanistan or Iraq for the last 40 years and what the wreckage of these kinds of conflicts that go unresolved that are often tied to U.S. geopolitical interests and the cowardice of politicians and other power brokers, including union leadership in the United States who failed to do something effective about it when it needed to happen. It’s a gift that keeps giving and it’s not a good gift.

Maximillian Alvarez:

So that is Ryan Harvey. Ryan is a Baltimorean, a longtime political community and labor organizer, and a member of SEIU Local 500. And Emma Mae Weber. Emma is a Milwaukeean and a member of SEIU Local 500, as well as a union steward. They are both members of the rank and file labor contingent of SEIU local 500 members that will be attending the March on Washington for Gaza, which once again will take place in Washington D.C. this Saturday, January 13th, 2024 in Freedom Plaza. The march begins at 1:00 PM Eastern Time and is scheduled to go until 3:00 PM Eastern Time. And Ryan, Emma, just one more time, can you give our listeners the details about where the labor contingent will be meeting on Saturday as well?

Ryan Harvey:

Yeah. It’ll be at 12:00 noon. It’s going to be at the Navy Memorial. There’s an Archives Navy Memorial Metro stop right there. It’s on Pennsylvania Avenue. It’s just a couple of blocks southeast of the main rally. So we’ll be there at noon and we’ll march up to the rally together around one.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Ryan and Emma Mae for joining us today on The Real News Network. I really, really appreciate it. And thank you to you all for listening. Thank you for caring. As we say all the time here at The Real News Network, no one can do everything, but everyone can do something and you can do something to stop this. So please, whatever it is, keep doing what you got to do, bring more folks into the fight and keep supporting the work that we are doing here to cover those who are fighting that good fight. Because we need your support to keep doing this work and to keep bringing y’all more important coverage and conversations just like this. So please, before you go, head on over to therealnews.com/donate and become a supporter of our work today. It really makes a difference. For The Real News Network, this is Maximillian Alvarez signing off. Take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. Solidarity forever.

 

All Israelis are Jews; All Jews are Israelis: Israel’s False Tautology

Stephen F. Eisenman

 

 Ephraim Moses Lilien, Theodor Herzl in Basel during Fifth Zionist Congress, December 1901 (detail from postcard).

Israeli leaders have begun to implement a plan they have long been preparing: Gaining complete control of the Land of Israel, “Eretz Yisrael” (אֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל), including Gaza and the West Bank. I won’t detail here the early political and military milestones in the project, except to note that Israel’s expropriation of Arab land has been well documented by U.N. agencies, Palestinian and other scholars, and human rights organizations. That history includes seizures following wars in 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973 and settlement activity up until the present. In the last few weeks alone, there has been a major expansion of “wildcat settlement outposts” in the West Bank, according to an investigation by the Israeli group Peace Now, as reported in The New York Times.

On December 25, 2023, Israeli Prime Minister, Netanyahu told Israeli Knesset member Shani Danon that he was developing a plan to facilitate the “voluntary” transfer of Gazans to other countries. “Our problem,” he said, “is finding countries that are ready to absorb [them] and we are working on it.” A few days later, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said: “The solution in Gaza requires…encouraging voluntary migration and full security control including the renewal of [Jewish] settlement.” Israeli officials have reportedly held talks with several countries on the subject, including Congo, which however have denied any such negotiations. If Netanyahu, Smotrich, and others accomplish their goal of ridding Gaza of Gazans and extending the Jewish state “from the river to the sea,” it will be the bloody culmination of Theodore Herzl’s dream of a Heimstatte (a homeland) for the Jews in all of Palestine; it will also be a second nakba (catastrophe) for the Palestinians.

Whether or not Israel succeeds in its ethnic cleansing will depend in large measure on the response of the Biden administration, the U.S. Congress, and to a lesser degree, the American people. Since about 1970, the U.S. has provided Israel with some $4 billion annually, most of it used to purchase advanced American weapons and aircraft. (U.S. support comprises almost 20% of Israel’s defense budget.) After the October 7 Hamas attack, Biden requested an additional $14 billion in aid and quickly flew to Israel to embrace Netanyahu. The U.S. has in addition provided Israel a global, political backstop by repeatedly vetoing U.N. Security Council resolutions calling for a ceasefire; it even abstained from one supporting increased humanitarian aid to Gaza. Though Biden, in an unguarded moment, described Israeli bombing as “indiscriminate,” he has failed so far to do enough to end the slaughter.

Democrats generally vie with Republicans to see who is the stronger supporter of Israel. Both political parties receive significant financial support from the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), with the leading beneficiary last year being Democrat Robert Menendez, until recently chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In exchange for a cool million bucks, he supported the expansion of the Iron Dome missile defense system for Israel (and every other defense procurement request) and condemned U.S. talks with Iran over reviving the Obama negotiated anti-nuclear pact. (Israel scorns any U.S. rapprochement with Iran.) However, since his indictment for receiving bribes from Egypt, Qatar and U.S. businessmen, the senator’s influence has been sidelined.

Menendez’s friend, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, ranking minority member on the Senate Appropriations Committee, is an equally ardent supporter of Israel and recipient of funds from Israeli lobbyists and conservative Jewish organizations. When asked about the high civilian death toll in Gaza he stated “there is no limit…to what Israel should do to the people who are trying to slaughter the Jews.” The AR-15 toting senator from South Carolina made no distinction between Hamas militants and Palestinian civilians. Many other Republicans rival Graham in bellicosity, including former South Carolinian governor and presidential candidate Nikki Haley. Taking her cue from Netanyahu and Smotrich, she said that “the Palestinians need to move to pro-Hamas countries such as Qatar, Iran and Turkey.” In truth, few if any elected Republicans are supportive of Palestinian rights to life or liberty.

Public support for Israel has diminished somewhat in recent years, though it remains firm. According to the latest Gallup poll, 36% of Americans think the U.S. is giving too much aid to Israel, 38% say it’s the right amount, and 24% say too little. Democrats are far more wary than Republicans of continued support for Israel, and “very unsatisfied” (49%) with the low level of aid to Palestine. Most Jewish American voters support President Biden’s policy toward Israel, with some 80% approving the proposed $14 billion aid package. Younger Jews are less enthusiastic, with approval and disapproval evenly divided. Other polls present a still more complex picture. Opinion surveys by JStreet and the Jewish Electoral Institute, for example, indicate strong Jewish support for imposing restrictions on U.S. aid to prevent it being used to support settlement activity in the West Bank or elsewhere. Still, the majority of Jews appears to support Israel’s war against Hamas and the Palestinians, regardless of its high cost in civilian lives. What’s the basis of that support and can it be reduced?

The false tautology

The government of Israel has for decades argued that “Eretz Yisrael” – the total territory of historic Palestine – should be the homeland of Jews alone. That was implicit from the nation’s founding but became explicit with the passage in 2018 of the “Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People.” The chairman of the committee that drafted the bill and shepherded it through the Knesset, Amir Ohana stated: “This is the law of all laws. It is the most important law in the history of the State of Israel, which says that everyone has human rights, but national rights in Israel belong only to the Jewish people. That is the founding principle on which the state was established”. Though the bill was watered down somewhat from its original version, “it still permitted,” according to the Israeli Attorney General’s office, “harming a person because of his nationality or religion. That is blatant discrimination.”  The law also affirms the right of diasporic Jews to emigrate (aliya — עליה) to Israel, but not Arabs or Palestinians living in the West Bank, Gaza or elsewhere, even if they are related to Israeli Arabs.

Preservation of the Jewish right-of return is essential to maintaining Israel’s appeal to American and other diasporic Jews. The U.S. has nearly as many Jews – just under 6 million — as Israel, together comprising ¾ of the global population. By making them de facto Israelis, the right of return expands Eretz Yisrael far beyond existing boundaries and implicates the diaspora in Israeli government policy. The underlying ideology of Palestinian exclusion and Jewish inclusion is expressed by the following, implicit (and false) tautology: All (true) Israelis are Jews; all Jews are Israelis.

Of course, not all Israelis are Jews. 21% are Arabs (Palestinian, Druze, Christians, Circassian and others), denied full recognition in accord with Israel’s Basic Law. If you consider the wider region to which Netanyahu’s far-right coalition lays claim, including Gaza and the West Bank, the population is divided roughly 50/50 Jews and non-Jews – the latter mostly Sunni Muslims. (Recent demographic analysis suggests that Jews are now a minority in Israel and the occupied or administered territories.) Neither are “all Jews Israeli.” The Right of Return is an invitation, not a mandate, and only about 3,000 Americans per year accept it. In fact, more than twice as many Israeli Jews migrate to the U.S. every year, as American Jews to Israel.

It’s unclear how significant Jewish support for Israel is to maintaining the current level of U.S. military aid. For decades, American foreign policy was predicated on maintaining a strong, military and diplomatic presence in the Middle East in order to protect its oil interests. The 1967 war greatly increased Jewish-American support of Israel, as Eric Alterman has recently noted, and ramped up the apparatus of political lobbying and campaign contributions. For decades until its merger in 1999 with the Jewish Federations of North America, the well-known charity United Jewish Appeal had as its slogan, “we are one” indicating the idealized unity of American Jews, Israeli Jews and the global diaspora.

But today, U.S. strategic interests are different than they were even a decade ago. The U.S. is the leading oil producer in the world and has recently overtaken Qatar as the largest exporter of Liquified Natural Gas. Mideast oil diplomacy – really gunboat diplomacy — is mostly a thing of the past, and the U.S. has lately been trying to bring together former rivals Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other petro-states to form a pro-Western alliance. That would allow the U.S. to continue to re-orient its power-projection toward central Eurasia and China. Given this context, the current Israeli war against Palestine is a fiasco, threatening to ignite a regional conflagration and weaken U.S. prerogatives even as they are tested (in its view) by the Russian/Chinese liaison. That why the strong support of Israel by the American President, and to a lesser extent Congress, is so baffling. Is U.S. aid to Israel simply a vestige of former politics – a reflexive response – that will soon run its course? Is it a matter of ideology – and AIPAC donations – temporarily trumping geopolitics?

In the last few weeks, opposition to the war among young Democratic voters has moved the Biden administration away from unstinting support for the war and toward a policy of de-escalation, though far too slowly to protect the Palestinian population of Gaza. What’s needed now is for American liberals and progressives — Jewish and non-Jewish, but especially Jewish — to demand that continued U.S. support for Israel be conditioned upon an end to the killing, and rapid commencement of negotiations for a long-term peace, along the lines of either a two-state or one-state solution. The slogans for that mass movement have already been deployed by courageous students and faculty, union workers, anti-war activists, and progressive Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives They are: “Not in My Name,” “Never Again, Anywhere,” and “Peace Now.”

 

‘It’s like living in a mortuary, waiting for someone to bury you’

Mahmpid Mushtaha

 

 Palestinians line up to buy bread at a bakery in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, January 4, 2024. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)

The struggle for survival has morphed into a haunting and totalizing reality for Palestinian residents here in Gaza City, as it has for Palestinians across the entire Strip. Against the backdrop of intensified Israeli military attacks, the deprivation of food and water under a tightened siege, and the pervasive threat of epidemics with no medical aid, the city’s remaining inhabitants — even as they fight to stay alive — feel as if they have been left with no choice but to wait for their death.

Israeli forces are persisting in their air-and-ground offensive on Gaza, marking nearly 100 consecutive days of this devastating war. The plight is particularly dire in the northern Strip, where a severe drought and the spread of infectious diseases are exacerbating the already harrowing situation.

Israel’s deliberate isolation of the north from the south of the Strip is further preventing the transport of essential humanitarian aid, adding yet another layer of hardship in the precarious effort to survive in the north. And here in Gaza City, Palestinians — the vast majority of whom are now concentrated in shelters in the western part of the city — are voicing their growing desperation, grappling not only with the immediate perils of the war but also with its ensuing terrors.

Adel Ammar, or Abu Ismail, 43, is from the Al-Zarqa neighborhood of Gaza City. He was first displaced to several schools in the city serving as shelters during the war, and later fled to the campus of Al-Azhar University, which itself was bombed by the Israeli army. “Life here is unbearable — garbage everywhere, no food, and no water,” he said.

Economic hardship, which was difficult enough before the war, has now been exacerbated to unbearable degrees, leaving many Palestinian families desperate to meet basic needs. “For the past two weeks, my children haven’t had a single piece of bread,” Ammar said, tearfully. “Every morning, I evade their questions about breakfast and the news. Literally, I have no food, and I don’t have money to buy rice.

“I can’t endure life here anymore,” he continued. “I watch my hungry children right in front of me, and I can’t do anything for them. Every day, their mother heats water on the fire and feeds them watery soup — a soup that satisfies nothing. It’s just hot water.”

Ammar’s wife, Umm Ismail, 40, also spoke through tears: “I have a newborn son who cries incessantly every day. Breast milk doesn’t satisfy him because there’s no food for me. If some rice is available, I feed it to my other children, even though my son needs me to eat in order to breastfeed. But the infant can’t speak and ask for food, while my other children do speak and ask for it. It’s like a knife stabbing me.”

‘A bag of flour has become a matter of life and death’

For many Palestinians in Gaza, the fear of Israeli airstrikes has become secondary to the slow, agonizing threat of starvation. “I wish I had stayed in my home to die instead of enduring the humiliation of displacement and misery here,” said Rami Fares, 39, a displaced father of seven.

Fares and his family are currently sheltering at the overcrowded Islamic University in northern Gaza, along with thousands of others seeking refuge (one humanitarian volunteer estimated about 11,000 Palestinians, mostly displaced from Jabalia and Beit Hanoun, were sheltering at the university).

“Don’t ask about food, hygiene, or life here,” said Fares. “It’s like living in a mortuary, waiting for someone to bury you. No food, no drinking water. Even getting saline water is a struggle. I have three daughters, and all I think about is trying to feed them anything to alleviate their hunger.

“We wait for days, and they keep saying ‘Tomorrow flour will be transported from southern Gaza to northern Gaza,’” Iyad Nasr, another displaced resident, explained with deep sorrow. “A bag of flour has become a matter of life and death for us. There is little available flour, and its price is high — we can’t afford to buy it.

“Since last month, our house ran out of flour, and everyone around us is in the same situation,” Nasr continued. “We looked for alternatives like rice, but rice prices have also significantly risen. My siblings and I endure hunger because our elderly diabetic father needs the food for his health, and even so, he experiences a diabetic episode [such as seizures] every two days.”

The scarcity of food staples in Gaza like rice, chickpeas, and lentils has indeed led to sharp price hikes across the board, reaching up to five times their usual cost. One kilogram of rice, for example, cost between NIS 5 to NIS 9 before the war; now, it can cost NIS 20. This economic crisis is made worse by the fact that the isolation of northern Gaza has also entailed the halting of all financial and banking transactions in the area, making it extremely difficult for Palestinians to access their own money.

The result of all this, according to the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, is that “71 percent of Gaza’s population is suffering from severe levels of hunger, as Israel uses starvation as a weapon to punish Palestinian civilians.” Such a catastrophic condition, the group warned, threatened an impending, slow death for tens of thousands of Palestinians in northern Gaza.

“We are living in a famine and an epidemic,” said Ahmed Jundiya, who was displaced to Al-Ramal School in western Gaza City. “No one is helping us, and no one seems to be paying any attention to our situation. Relief organizations in northern Gaza have halted their operations and cannot fulfill their roles. I swear, children sleep without eating.

“If the war continues for another week, we will all die of hunger,” Jundiya warned. “And if we don’t die of hunger, we will die from the polluted water we’re forced to drink.”

 

South Africa’s Proof of Israel’s Genocide in Gaza

Gareth Porter

When the International Court of Justice opens its consideration of the case against Israel’s genocidal policy towards Palestinians living in Gaza on Thursday it will have before it a petition from South Africa, which initiated the case. In legal terms it is a request that the court decides on “provisional measures” to protect the Gazan people from “imminent and irreparable loss,” in other words, to stop Israel’s assault on Gaza.

But in political terms the 84-page document that South Africa submitted to the Court represents the most powerful indictment of Israeli genocide that has been available to the public thus far.

It not only documents the genocidal consequences of the Israeli massive bombing and siege of Gaza, but presents a complete file of official Israeli professions of determination to carry out genocide against the Palestinians population of the Gaza strip.

The latter evidence comes directly from the mouths of Prime Benjamin Netanyahu himself, the president of Israel, the minister of defense, the minister of national security, five other government ministers and several leading Israeli military figures.

It is a heart-rending document that can leave no one who reads it in doubt about the explicitly genocidal motive of the Israeli government in ordering indiscriminate bombing and the deliberate denial of food, water, energy and medical care and supplies to the Palestinian population with the explicit intention of making it impossible for Palestinians to sustain life in Gaza.

The terrible human toll of the Israeli assault on the population of Gaza in terms of death and injury from Israeli bombing is well known.  What is not generally known to the U.S. public is evidence provided in the South African document that Israelis have deliberately chosen the most indiscriminate way of bombing possible.

Gaza is one of the most densely populated areas of the world, so indiscriminate weapons are far more lethal there than in normal situations. Yet despite the availability of precision guided weapons, as the South African document points out, Israel has been dropping completely unguided “dumb bombs” and 2,000 pound munitions that have a lethal radius of up to 360m and cause serious injuries for 800m in all directions.

Primary victims of the Israeli strategy, counting for 40 percent of the casualties, are children, with more than 115 Palestinian children in Gaza killed every day.  The document cites a study by Save the Children showing that the 3,195 Palestinian children killed in the first three weeks in Gaza alone is more than total number of children killed each year since 2019 across all the world’s conflict zones.

And because of the close-knit character of Palestinian families and the prolonged war, the document reveals that this bombing strategy has taken a tragic toll on entire extended families, with mothers, fathers, children, siblings, grandparents, aunts and cousins frequently killed simultaneously with no remaining survivors. As many as 312 Palestinian families in Gaza lost over 10 members each in just the first month of the bombing alone.

The Israeli campaign has forced Palestinian families to choose between remaining in their homes and facing the very high risk of death or abandoning their homes without any idea where they can find safety. At the beginning of December, the Israelis published a map supposedly intended to advise Palestinians of areas from which they were had to move.

But as the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) observed at the time, they provided no information about where they could move to be safe from the bombing. And given the Israeli cutoff of electricity in Gaza, few families had the means to even know they were about to be targeted.

By destroying 355,000 homes and reducing most of Gaza’s housing stock to rubble, especially in the North, the Israelis were seeking to make the survivors’ homelessness more permanent.

For the past few weeks, however, a most serious threat to Gaza’s population has not been the direct consequence of the bombing but the “complete siege on Gaza” that Israel imposed on Oct. 9: no food, no water, no electricity, no fuel has been allowed into Gaza since then except for a few trucks that delivered paltry amounts of humanitarian aid.

That siege, which reflects the Israeli position that the entire population of Gaza must be punished for the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, has brought massive numbers of Palestinians to the brink of starvation.

World Food Program executive director, Carl Skau, warned in mid-December that most Gazans were already starving, and that the level was rising every day. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a public-private project that tracks starvation across the globe, has estimated that more than a million people — half of Gaza’s population — are already in the “catastrophic” phase of starvation — a condition in which people have almost no food and are at risk of death.

The South African submission cites more than 360,000 cases of communicable diseases already reported in UNRWA shelters alone. This is the result of unsanitary conditions and lack of clean water, part of the catastrophic situation facing the Gazan population as a result of Israeli policy.

The most revealing — and most shocking part — of the South African document, however, is its complete file of the statements of senior Israeli government officials about the Zionist state’s real objective in launching the assault on Gaza.

As it is brought before the World Court, the international community now faces the issue of whether Israel violated the Genocide Convention. Israeli officials will of course continue to deny vehemently that Israel has any such intention, and claim that harm to civilians was incidental to its need to eliminate Hamas.

But the South African document systematically catalogues a large number of the most explicit statements of genocidal intent imaginable from the part of top officials of the Israeli government and military.

Far from being secretive about the intention, these officials were eager to tell their own people and the world that that they were going eliminate the Palestinians by force, and do so in a way that was thorough and complete.

The Palestinians were dehumanized and demonized by Netanyahu and other top officials as enemies that could and should be dealt with as animals rather than as humans, reflecting a long-time popular Zionist theme that has surfaced increasingly in recent years. But Oct. 7 presented the opportunity for the civilian and military leadership to encourage an orgy of genocidal hatred for the Palestinians.

Most of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s statements on Israeli war aims were carefully coded messages about “a struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and the law of the jungle”, and a “war between sons of light and sons of darkness.”

But on Oct. 28 and again on Nov. 3, he invoked the biblical story of the Israelites’ total destruction of “Amalek”, by which he was referring to an ancient nomadic tribe or group of tribes, said in the Old Testament to be longtime enemies of “Israel.”

In the first of those references Netanyahu said: “You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our holy Bible. And we do remember.”

He again referred to Amalek in a letter to Israeli soldiers on Nov. 3. He was referring to a biblical passage that said:

“Now go, attack Amalek, and proscribe all that belongs to him. Spare no one, but kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings, oxen and sheep, camels and asses.”

The message could hardly be clearer to the Israelis: the war was not just targeting Hamas; the target was the Palestinian population.

President Isaac Herzog, on the other hand, was quite direct: on Oct. 12, he declared:

“It’s an entire nation out there, that is responsible. It’s not true this rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true. … and we will fight until we break their backbone.”

Similarly, on Oct. 9, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declared, “Gaza won’t return to what it was before. We will eliminate everything. If it doesn’t take one day, it will take a week. It will take weeks or even months, we will reach all places.”

In a televised address on Nov. 10, Minister for National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir declared:

“When we say that Hamas should be destroyed, it also means those who celebrate, those who support, and those who hand out candy — they’re all terrorists, and they should also be destroyed.”

Israeli Minister of Heritage Amichai Eliyahu posted on Facebook Nov. 1:

“The north of the Gaza Strip, more beautiful than ever. Everything is blown up and flattened, simply a pleasure for the eyes ….”

In a statement at a meeting of the Israeli Cabinet on Oct. 8, Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich declared, “We need to deal a blow that hasn’t been seen in 50 years and take down Gaza.”

The document includes half a dozen more examples of clear-cut expressions of genocidal intentions from military officials, but the message from Netanyahu and his ministers is unmistakably clear: the Israeli government intends to destroy the Palestinian society of Gaza and make it impossible for them live there.

 

Horror After Horror Laid Bare: Remember Us

Abby Zimet

 

 Ahmed al-Kholi wears the bloodied headband of his cousin Yousef, 22, killed by Israeli forces in Tulkarem

In their historic case against "the ongoing slaughter of the people of Gaza,” South Africa opened its presentation at the Hague with what rights experts deemed "chilling" and "devastating" evidence of Israel's genocidal intent in "an exceptionally brutal military campaign" - from vast civilian deaths of mostly women and children to massive infrastructure destruction to looming starvation. A grim reminder: As they spoke, and today, and tomorrow, the atrocities - bolstered by U.S. funds - fester unchecked.

In "compellingly argued and powerfully presented" arguments, South African jurists at the International Court of Justice laid out what the U.K.'s Jeremy Corbyn called "horror after horror, laid out in plain sight for all to see," in their case accusing Israel of violating the landmark Genocide Convention - incongruously enacted the same year Israel was born through the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Seeking an emergency order to halt Israel's savage three-month assault on Gaza, South Africa's 84-page filing offered a comprehensive account of "textbook genocide," by definition acts intended "to destroy (a) national, ethnic, racial or religious group." In such a case, intent is critical; fortuitously, the chutzpah of Israeli leaders bent on revenge was on full, damning display. "Let the Prime Minister's words speak for themselves," said attorney Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, who cited nine pages of genocidal statements by Israeli officials, from a Knesset member's vow to "burn Gaza to the ground" to Netanyahu's, "Remember what Amalek has done to you - spare no one." As a result, "The evidence of genocidal intent (is) overwhelming and incontrovertible."

Lawyers also noted that, once Israeli officials "systematically and in explicit terms declared their genocidal intent," their goals were inevitably taken up by soldiers on the ground; evidence of that murderous cycle included unsettling video of IDF soldiers in Gaza dancing and chanting there are "no uninvolved civilians." "What state would admit to genocidal intent?" rhetorically asked one jurist. "Yet the distinctive feature of this case is not silence, but the reiteration and repetition of genocidal speech." At least part of Israel's shameless, bloody audacity, notes Jeremy Scahill, stems from a sense of invincibility born of decades of well-funded complicity by a United States they know will shield them from accountability. "South Africa laid out a meticulous case detailing Israel’s genocidal intent," he writes. "The U.S. supported it all." Given the U.S. role as "ultimate overlord" of Israeli abuses - and its "macabre ritual" of feigning sorrow for the deaths of children while circumventing Congress to expedite them - it was unsurprising, if still shocking, to hear fucking Anthony Blinken blithely dismiss the exhaustively documented charge of Israeli genocide as "meritless." Color us speechless with rage.

Oxfam estimates Israel kills 250 Palestinians a day, including 48 mothers and 118 children, many blown to pieces; Gaza's 90,000-plus dead, wounded, missing make it the deadliest conflict of the century. In wrenching, closing arguments at the Hague, Irish lawyer Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh offered more grievous facts: "Entire multigenerational families obliterated," "huge swaths of Gaza wiped from the map," the daily death of at least 3 medics, 2 teachers, one journalist and UN worker and, every other day, a first responder who's spent months digging dead or wounded from the rubble with bare hands. Each day, 10 children will have one or both legs amputated, often without anaesthetic; more will earn the acronym WCNSF - Wounded Child, No Surviving Family. She ended her speech with two photos of a Gazan hospital whiteboard that health workers, inundated by casualties early in the war, had wiped clean of previously scheduled surgeries. The first image shows a messag written by MSF Dr. Mahmoud Abu Nujaila: "We did what we could. Remember Us"; the second shows the board shattered in an Israeli strike that killed Abu Nujaila and two other doctors.

And still it goes on. CAIR regularly documents Israel's "war crimes of the day": the summary executions of unarmed Palestinians in front of their families,.the shelling of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital that killed or wounded 40 people, the bulldozing of bodies in cemeteries and medical tents with injured Palestinians inside, the killing of four members of a Red Crescent ambulance crew in Deir al-Balah, the targeted executions of at least 77 journalists including Hamza Al-Dahdouh, 27, son of Al Jazeera's Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh, who's now lost five family members. Mourned Wael of Hamza, "He was the soul of my soul." Hundreds more Gazan civilians have been detained at Israeli "torture camps" for the "crime" of not leaving their homes, which soldiers then burned. In interviews, those released say they were beaten, punched, spat on, electric shocked, burned with cigarettes, tied handcuffed and blindfolded to fences, denied food, water and bathrooms, "treated like chickens or sheep," and "tortured all day." Pleading with IDF soldiers they are innocent civilians, they are told, "You are Hamas. Everyone who remains in Gaza is Hamas."

Since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, mass arrests, military raids and killings have also soared in the occupied West Bank, where at least 340 Palestinians have died. This week, Israeli forces stormed Tulkarem refugee camp, blasting so indiscriminately into residential areas even a Palestinian fighter called the heavy gunfire "delusional - they assassinate innocents." After IDF soldiers surrounded the al-Kholi family home, video shows a long, loud barrage as six young men try to flee; three are caught and shot dead - Yousef Ali Al-Kholi, 22, Ahed Mousa, 23, and Tareq Shahin, 24. One soldier keeps firing into a still-moving body; then a jeep runs over another body. Relatives called the deaths "assassinations." "The soldiers could have just surrounded and arrested them," said Al-Kholi’s aunt. "The Occupation, they always kill." Al-Kholi’s 12-year-old cousin Ahmad said he hid nearby; he could hear Yousef screaming but "soldiers were everywhere." Once they left, Ahmad went to his body, took off the headband Yousef had given him, and dipped it in his blood "because he is my cousin. I love him. I love him as much as the sea." And yes, he will remember him.

 

Israel Dismisses Genocidal Intent as ‘Random Assertions’

Joe Lauria

 

 Barrister Malcolm Shaw arguing for Israel before the World Court on Friday. (UN TV Screenshot)

A barrister for Israel argued that Israeli prime minister and cabinet members’ statements of intent to commit genocide were mere “random assertions,” and he instead accused South Africa of complicity in genocide, reports Joe Lauria.

In its defense against allegations by South Africa that it is committing genocide in Gaza, a British barrister arguing at the World Court on Friday for Israel downplayed numerous statements by senior Israeli officials of genocidal intent against Palestinians as mere “random assertions” that prove nothing.

Instead, the barrister turned the tables, accusing South Africa itself of complicity in genocide.

Kings Counselor Malcolm Shaw, for Israel, told the Court on the second day of a two-day hearing:

“As far as acts are concerned in this case, there is little beyond random assertions to demonstrate that Israel has or has had the specific intent to destroy in whole or in part the Palestinian people as such.”

 

Without proving intent, Shaw argued, a genocide case is impossible. “It is like Hamlet without the prince, a car without an engine,” he said.  As Shaw himself pointed out, lawyers for South Africa on Thursday thus “placed considerable emphasis upon intent.”

They laid out in great detail the “genocidal rhetoric” of Israeli officials and how it has influenced Israeli soldiers and airmen attacking Gaza. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu twice referred to an Old Testament genocide implying the same was needed for Gaza, argued attorney Tembeka Ngcukaitobi.

“The genocidal invocation to Amalek was anything but idle,” Ngcukaitobi said.  He then showed a video of Israeli soldiers singing in celebration of a victory in Gaza, in which they mention Amalek.

On Oct. 9, Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, Ngcukaitobi,  went on:

“gave a situation update to the Army where he said that as Israel was imposing a complete siege on Gaza, there would be ‘no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel,’ everything would be closed because Israel is fighting human animals. Speaking to troops on the Gaza border, he instructed them that he has released all the restraints and that Gaza won’t return to what it was before.

‘We will eliminate everything. We will reach all places. Eliminate everything there, reach all places without any restraints.’

Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu said that Israel must find ways for Gazans that are more painful than death. It is no answer to say that neither are in command of the army. They are ministers in the Israeli government. They vote in the Knesset and are in a position to shape state policy. The intent to destroy Gaza has been nurtured at the highest levels of state. …

Senior political and military officials encouraged without censure, the 95 year old Israeli army reservist Ezra Yachin, a veteran of the Deir Yassin massacre against the Palestinians in 1948, to speak to the soldiers ahead of the ground invasion in Gaza. In his talk, he echoed the same sentiment while being driven around in an official Israeli army vehicle dressed in Israeli army fatigue.

‘I quote the triumphant and finish them off and don’t leave anyone behind. Erase the memory of them. Erase them, their families, mothers and children. These animals can no longer live. If you have an Arab neighbor, don’t wait. Go to his home and shoot him. We want to invade. Not like before. We want to enter and destroy what’s in front of us and destroy houses.'”

These are some of what Shaw dismissed on Friday as “random assertions.” The barrister said that only Israel’s ministerial committee on national security and the war cabinet can make decisions on policy and intent in Gaza. “To produce random quotes that are not in conformity with government policy is misleading at best,” he said.

However, both Netanyahu and Gallant, whose “genocidal” statements were quoted by the South African lawyers, are members of the war cabinet. Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich are on the national security committee, and both have made numerous statements about Palestinians that can be construed as genocidal in intent.

Shaw only mentioned the South Africans quoting the heritage minister who is not on either committee and ignored reference to those ministers who are.  

And in response to South Africa on Thursday linking ministers’ “genocidal” statements to that of Israeli combatants, Shaw said “remarks or actions of a soldier do not and cannot reflect policy.”

Shaw contended that Israel’s intent is not genocide, but instead to “deal with Hamas” in response to its Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which he called itself “genocidal.” He said: “The truth is that if there has been any genocidal activity in this situation, it was the events of seventh of October.” 

Shaw ridiculed South Africa’s argument on Thursday of the need for historical context to place Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack in a 75-year history of Israeli dispossession and abuse of Palestinians.

Shaw asked why not go back to the 1922 decision of the League of Nations to create the British mandate in Palestine, or the 1917 Balfour Declaration that demonstrated Britain’s intent to create a Jewish homeland in Palestine or even to mention the Israelite tribes there 3,000 years ago?

Israel Turns Tables, Accuses South Africa of ‘Complicity’ With Genocide

Shaw went further, alleging that indeed “complicity in genocide is in play” in the case. But he was not referring to the United States, Britain, Germany or any other ally of Israel that continues to supply weapons, ammunition, funding and two U.S. carrier groups in the region to deter any nation that dares intervene to stop Israel’s slaughter, as the U.S. did against Yemen on Thursday.

No, Shaw was referring to “states that supported, condoned, praised or glorified the events of the seventh of October both at the time, and later, ” who he said “stand guilty of a violation of Article 3e of the Convention as being complicit in genocide and indeed of the duty to prevent genocide under Article 1.”  

And then Shaw said: “South Africa has given succor and support to Hamas, at the least.”

Tal Becker, a legal adviser to the Israeli Foreign Ministry who addressed the court before Shaw, told the Court that “on October 7th, before any military response by Israel, South Africa issued an official statement blaming Israel for, quote, the recent conflagration.”

Becker then leveled his accusation that South Africa was complicit with a genocidal organization. He said:

“The absurd upshot of South Africa’s argument is under the guise of the allegation against Israel of genocide, this court is asked to call for an end to operations against the ongoing attacks of an organization that pursues an actual genocidal agenda.

That is an unconscionable request and it is respectfully submitted that it cannot stand. … The court is informed of the events of October 7th, because if there are any provisional measures that should appropriately be indicated here, they are indeed with respect to South Africa. It is a matter of public record that South Africa enjoys close relations with Hamas, despite its formal recognition as a terrorist organization by numerous states across the world.

South Africa has long hosted and celebrated its ties with Hamas figures, including a senior Hamas delegation that incredibly visited the country for, quote, solidarity just weeks after the massacre. In justifying instituting proceedings, South Africa makes much of its obligations under the Genocide Convention. It seems fitting, then, that it be instructed to comply with those obligations itself to end its own language of delegitimization, of Israel’s existence and its support for Hamas.”

Becker then blamed South Africa for “weaponizing”  genocide. He said:

“The attempt to weaponize the term genocide against Israel in the present context does more than tell the court a grossly distorted story. And it does more than empty the word of its unique force and special meaning. It subverts the object and purpose of the convention itself with ramifications for all states seeking to defend themselves against those who demonstrate total disdain for life and for the law.”

For good measure, Becker threw in this deceptive remark about Hamas, referring to “Hamas’s violent takeover in 2007.”  Hamas was elected in 2006. It later fought against Fatah to essentially defend its election. It is false to say Hamas took over Gaza violently.

In a similarly deceptive manner, lawyers for Israel tried to explain away the destruction of nearly half the buildings of Gaza in the past three months as a result of Hamas booby-traps and errant rockets.

Israel’s ‘Warnings’

Shaw arguing on Friday at World Court with South Africa delegation looking on. (UN TV Screenshot)

Shaw claimed that Israel warns civilians of impending attack through the “unprecedented and extensive use” of telephone calls and leafletting. Typically these calls give residents ten minutes to leave their buildings before they are bombed.  The leaflets told residents of northern Gaza to move south where they were then bombed enroute and repeatedly in the south once they arrived there.

But Shaw argued that these warnings, coupled with Israel’s “facilitation” of humanitarian aid all “demonstrate the precise opposite of any possible genocidal intent” by Israel.

The U.N. has repeatedly complained that Israel is severely restricting the amount of aid being allowed into Gaza compared to 500 trucks a day before its military operation began on Oct. 7. Gallants statement that there would be “‘no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel,” flies in the face of a contention that Israeli is “facilitating” humanitarian aid.

Malcolm argued that the World Court did not have jurisdiction to hear South Africa’s case because South Africa did not establish that there was a dispute between two states. Shaw said that South Africa did not wait for a reply to its note verbal before launching the case against it at the ICJ on Dec. 29.

The jurisdiction for any question of war crimes needed to be in Israel, Shaw said. If in the course of its action against Hamas Israel overstepped the laws of war it would “tackled at the appropriate time” by Israel’s “robust legal system,” he said.

Israel’s ‘Right to Self Defense’

Both Shaw and Becker sought to twist the argument of British barrister Vaughn Lowe, who on Thursday argued before the court that based on a past World Court ruling Israel had no right to self-defense on the occupied territory of Palestine.

He did not say they had no right to defend itself on Israeli territory. But this is what Shaw and Becker implied. Becker quoted from Lowe’s writing:

“The source of the attack, whether a state or non-state actor, is irrelevant to the existence of the right to defense force may be used to avert a threat because no one and no state is obliged by law passively to suffer the delivery of an attack.”

Neither Shaw nor Becker addressed the heart of the matter upon which the World Court had ruled, namely that Israel had no right to self-defense on a territory it occupies.

Lowe on Thursday referred to the 2004 World Court decision against the legality of Israel’s wall, which is built on occupied Palestinian territory.

“In its advisory opinion on the wall case, the court noted that the threat that Israel had argued justified the construction of the wall was not imputed to a foreign state, but emanated from the occupied Palestinian territory over which Israel itself exercises control,” Lowe said.

“For those reasons, the court decided, as a matter of international law, the right of self-defense under Article 51 of the charter, the U.N. Charter, had no relevance in such circumstances,” he said.

Just three weeks ago the U.N. Security Council reaffirmed that Gaza is occupied territory, he said. “The tightness of its grip may have varied, but no one can doubt the continuous reality of Israel’s grip on Gaza,” Lowe said.

“The court’s legal holding from 2004 holds good, and a similar point is to be made here what Israel is doing in Gaza, it is doing in territory under its own control. Its actions are enforcing its occupation. The law on self-defense under Article 51 of the U.N. Charter has no application,” he said.

Future of the Case

At this stage, the World Court is only considering whether there is a plausible case that Israel is committing genocide and whether it should then order Israel to cease its military operation until at a much later date the court decides the charge of genocide on the merits.

Given Israel’s history and that of its principal ally of ignoring World Court decisions against them that Israel would adhere to an order to stop the killing. The case could be taken up by the U.N. Security Council to enforce it through sanctions, and even military action, but the U.S. holds a veto on the council.