The government
in the Gaza Strip recently set up a new police force tasked with “maintaining
security,” particularly to deal with gangs that have been given a “free hand”
by Israel, Palestinian sources told the Arabi21 outlet on 18 November.
The “special
police force,” named the Arrow Unit, has been tasked by the Interior Ministry
in Gaza “with maintaining security in the strip and monitoring prices in the
markets, in an attempt to alleviate the chaos caused by the occupation,” the
sources said.
The new force is
made up of elements from Gaza’s police and security forces, as well as
volunteers, the sources went on to say, adding that it was necessary to form
such a unit to deal with “gangs” and “thieves” who have been given a “free
hand” by Israel “to tamper with the security and livelihood of citizens.”
“The force moves
to maintain security on the main roads, especially those through which aid from
international organizations and commercial trucks loaded with goods pass, and
secures their arrival to the designated warehouses in preparation for their distribution
to those entitled to aid,” they said.
The Arrow Unit
has been helping regulate prices in the strip’s local markets.
Another source
cited by Arabi21 says the unit has been working undercover, with its members
dressing in civilian clothing; it uses light weapons and has recently helped
secure the passage of aid trucks to both northern and southern Gaza.
According to the
report, the unit also “dealt with” groups of bandits and gangs who steal aid
before it reaches international relief organizations operating in the Gaza
Strip.
The Arrow Unit
engaged in fierce clashes with these bandits on 18 November, killing over a
dozen in Gaza's southernmost city of Rafah.
At least one
member of the Arrow Unit was killed, as well as around 22 gang members,
according to Palestinian media reports. Around 15 bandits were killed in an
ambush laid by Arrow Unit fighters in the Kaf Miraj area in Rafah.
The clashes came
as part of an operation launched by the Arrow Unit against the bandits, who
have been consistently looting aid across the strip and worsening the dire
humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Other Palestinian reports said the Arrow Unit has
documented evidence of communication and collaboration between the bandits and
the Israeli military.
Haaretz
newspaper confirmed in a report last week that Israeli forces in Gaza have been
permitting gangs to loot aid upon their entry into the strip. These gangs have
been demanding protection money from international relief groups in exchange
for the aid, which “often ends up sitting in warehouses that are under Israeli
army control.”
“The armed
attacks take place just a few hundred meters away from Israeli troops. Some aid
groups say attacked truck drivers have even sought help from the IDF, but the
army has refused to intervene. Moreover, they say, the army bars them from
taking alternate roads that are considered safer,” Haaretz cited sources in
Gaza as saying.
Late last month,
the Government Media Office in Gaza confirmed that Israel was still preventing
the entry of hundreds of thousands of humanitarian aid trucks into the besieged
Gaza Strip.
The Israeli army
has also repeatedly allowed settlers to intercept and vandalize aid trucks and
the contents they carry prior to their entry into Gaza.
Melvin
Goodman
The
results are in and the clear winner of the 2024 U.S. presidential election is
undeniably Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu is now freer than ever to pursue
his genocidal campaign against Palestinians; demolish Lebanon; create more
illegal settlements on the West Bank; and even annex the West Bank itself if he
chooses to do so.
There
is no better indication of the close relations between Donald Trump and
Netanyahu than the recent announcement of the exchange of ambassadors to their
two capitals. Netanyahu has named
Yechiel Leiter, a settler activist and a former aide who was Netanyahu’s chief
of staff when the prime minister served as finance minister years ago. They are very close. Leiter was also an aide to the late war hawk
Ariel Sharon, when Prime Minister Sharon served in the Knesset.
As
a young man, Leiter was a member of the Jewish Defense League, which was formed
by right-wing rabbi, Meir Kahane. The
group was designated a terrorist organization following the discovery of its
plan to bomb a mosque in Los Angeles.
Leiter himself founded a U.S.-based fund (the One Israel Fund) that
supplies security equipment and financial assistance to the illegal settlements
on the West Bank. Leiter is doing his
best to expand the West Bank settlements, and he and his family currently live
in one of them. At a funeral for one of
his sons, Leiter crudely denounced President Joe Biden for pursuing a
cease-fire.
Following
the Leiter appointment, Trump announced that former Arkansas Governor, Mike
Huckabee, would be his ambassador to Israel.
Huckabee opposes a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, and claims that “there’s really no such thing as a Palestinian.” Like Leiter, he favors permanent Israeli
control over the West Bank, a term he will not use, preferring the Israeli
terms “Judea” and “Samaria.”
During
a visit to Israel, Huckabee said that “there is no such thing as a West
Bank.” As for the illegal settlements,
Huckabee similarly says that “there is no such thing as a settlement.” He calls them “communities … cities … neighborhoods.” To cap it all off, Huckabee emphasizes
“there’s no such thing as an occupation.”
Huckabee, moreover, is a Christian evangelical, and Trump is a hero to
conservative Christians for ending Roe vs. Wade. Trump often referred to “my beautiful
Christians” at campaign rallies.
In
his first term, Trump’s ambassador to Israel was David Friedman, who infamously
referred to a liberal Jewish organization as “worse than kapos,” meaning Nazi
collaborators. Like Leiter, Friedman
wanted Israel to annex the West Bank. In
his second term, Trump will have real estate developer Steven Witkoff as a
special envoy to the Middle East.
Witkoff was a key fund raiser for the Trump campaign, raising
“six-figure and seven-figure donations” from Jewish donors.
With
Trump in the White House, Netanyahu will no longer have to worry about U.S.
efforts to get more humanitarian aid into Gaza.
The Biden administration sent a warning letter to Israel in October to
ensure the opening of more aid channels into Gaza, but the thirty-day deadline
was ignored, and humanitarian aid is at its lowest levels since the start of
the war. At the same time, the bombing
of civilian communities and civilian shelters has gotten worse. Israel has simply refused to comply with the
requests that were contained in the letter signed by Secretary of State Antony
Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.
In
addition to ignoring the U.S. demarche, the Netanyahu government went out of
its way to embarrass the Biden administration once again. Netanyahu sent a special envoy, Ron Dermer,
to the United States with a plan for a ceasefire in Lebanon. Before going to Washington, however, Dermer
flew to Mar-a-Lago to brief Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, on the
details of the plan. Netanyahu has
described the plan as a “gift” to Donald Trump.
Trump, for his part, has already told Netanyahu that he can “do what you
have to do” against Hezbollah and Hamas.
The
discussions in Mar-a-Lago appear to be a violation of the 1799 Logan Act, which
criminalizes negotiations between the United States and a foreign government by
an unauthorized American citizen. But no
one seems to care about the law these days.
Dermer, who like Leiter was born in the United States, has a very close
relationship with Kushner. Meanwhile,
the Israeli Defense Forces appear to be making plans to ramp up ground
operations in Lebanon.
The
White House and the Congress over the years have played to the worse sides
of Israeli prime ministers, but
Netanyahu has always gotten the best treatment that Washington has to offer. The catering to his militarism must stop, but
there is simply no chance of this as long as Trump and his acolytes form the
national security team in the White House.
Sondos Asem
One of the world’s leading scholars
on genocide, Willian Schabas, on Monday denounced British Prime Minister Keir
Starmer and Foreign Secretary David Lammy for refusing to label Israel's
actions in Gaza as genocide.
“These people are hypocrites. They
speak with a forked tongue. They do not interpret or apply the Genocide
Convention in a consistent manner,” Schabas told Middle East Eye.
“The statements of British
parliamentarians vary depending upon whether they are referring to their
friends or their enemies,” said Schabas, who is president of the International
Association of Genocide Scholars and the author of more than 20 books on genocide
and other international law topics.
Last week, Starmer was asked to
share his definition of genocide and to outline what action he was taking to
save the lives of people in Gaza.
In response, he said he was
"well aware of the definition of genocide" and that this explains why
he has "never described or referred to [the situation in Gaza] as
genocide".
His remarks followed similar denials
from Foreign Secretary Lammy, who suggested that Israel is not committing
genocide in Gaza because millions of people have not been killed.
Schabas noted that Lammy and Starmer
voted in favour of a House of Commons motion in 2021 condemning China for
genocide against the Uyghur minority.
“Although there is some evidence of
persecution of Uyghur in China, there is no serious evidence of killings. Not
millions. None. The treatment of Uyghur in China and that of Palestinian Arabs
cannot be compared,” Schabas told MEE.
Schabas also referred to Starmer’s
role as a lawyer representing Croatia in its genocide case against Serbia at
the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 2014, in which he argued that
Serbia had committed genocide in Croatia.
“Again, the acts of Serbia in
Croatia and those of Israel in Gaza bear no comparison,” said Schabas.
“If it is the UK's policy to leave
such determinations to the courts, why did Starmer and Lammy vote for the
resolution on the Uyghur?”
Additionally, Schabas noted that the
UK, in November 2023, intervened in the Gambia v Myanmar case before the ICJ,
supporting the claim that Myanmar committed genocide against the Rohingya.
“According to the UN reports on
Myanmar, approximately 10,000 Rohingya were killed out of a population of about
two million, in other words, one comparable in size to that of Gaza,” he
explained.
Schabas pointed out that the UK’s
position on genocide in different cases has varied depending on political
alliances.
For example, in the UK’s
intervention in the Myanmar case, which it submitted jointly with Canada,
Germany, France, Denmark, and the Netherlands, it argued for a less restrictive
approach to the definition of genocide than the one adopted in earlier cases.
However, Schabas added that in its
August intervention in Ukraine vs. Russia, the UK argued that the ICJ should
stick to its restrictive approach.
When approached by Middle East Eye
for comment, Starmer's office referred the request to the foreign office.
A spokesperson of the Foreign Office
reiterated the same remarks shared with MEE earlier this week, saying genocide
should be declared by a competent court after consideration of evidence in a
judicial process.
In an interview with MEE last week,
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian
territories, accused Lammy of being a "genocide denier" and said the
UK had done "nothing" to prevent the crime in Gaza.
On 29 October, Lammy suggested that
Israel was not committing genocide in Gaza because millions of people had not
been killed.
Terms like genocide, Lammy told
parliament, "were largely used when millions of people lost their lives in
crises like Rwanda, the Second World War, the Holocaust, and the way that they
are used now undermines the seriousness of that term".
In response to Albanese's remarks,
the Foreign Office said that Lammy didn’t specify that genocide required
“millions of people to be killed”.
“He simply observed that the term
has ‘largely’ applied to such cases,” a Foreign Office spokesperson told MEE.
“The UK‘s long-standing policy is
that any judgement as to whether genocide has occurred is a matter for a
competent national or international court, rather than for governments or
non-judicial bodies,” a spokesperson said.
'Flippant denial of genocide'
An ICJ interim ruling in January
said it was plausible that Israel had breached the 1948 Genocide Convention
during its military campaign in Gaza, which started in October 2023.
Albanese submitted two reports on
Gaza to the UN Human Rights Council this year. Her report “Anatomy of a
Genocide”, which was submitted in March, concluded: “Genocidal acts [in Gaza]
were approved and given effect following statements of genocidal intent issued
by senior military and government officials.”
Another report in October added that
genocidal acts in Gaza should be understood within the context of decades of
settler colonialism and that Israel should be held accountable for
orchestrating and failing to prevent such acts.
On Monday, an alliance of five
independent MPs, including former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, wrote to the
prime minister to ask whether he received any legal advice before declaring his
opinion about the situation in Gaza, where more than 43,000 Palestinians have
been killed.
They wrote that the government’s
“flippant denial of genocide egregiously downplays the suffering of
Palestinians and shows contempt for international law”.
The alliance also sent a letter to
the attorney general asking him whether he has offered any legal advice to
Starmer about the definition of genocide in this case.
They cited the three interim rulings
by the ICJ this year recognising the plausibility of genocide in Gaza and a UN
committee report on 14 November concluding that Israel's policies "are
consistent with the characteristics of genocide".
Stephen Millies
Donald Trump’s cabinet picks are a
declaration of war against the entire working class. These choices are a
domestic version of the Pentagon’s “shock and awe” invasion tactics and are
meant to smash any opposition.
Here’s a preliminary list of these
bigots:
Matt Gaetz
Trump’s selection for Attorney
General is the accused sexual predator and Florida congressperson Matt Gaetz.
This pig loves Florida’s “stand your ground” law, which was George Zimmerman’s
excuse to kill the Black teenager Trayvon Martin.
When the Black Lives Matter movement
swept the United States, Gaetz, like Trump, wanted to suppress it. Gaetz
offered to hire Kyle Rittenhouse–the killer of two anti-racist activists in
Kenosha, Wisconsin–as an intern.
He is also a fan of the fascist
Great Replacement theory, which claims white people are being “replaced.”
This lie was the rallying cry for
Nazis to march in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 and kill the anti-racist
Heather Heyer.
Gaetz is guaranteed, if confirmed as
Attorney General, to carry out a witch hunt against progressive organizations
and individuals, particularly those supporting Palestine. Even if individuals
are found not guilty, the legal costs will be steep, and activists tied up.
Pete Hegseth
Fox News bigot Pete Hegseth is
Trump’s choice to be Secretary of Defense. Hegseth’s body has tattoos
associated with white nationalism and Nazis.
At the Pentagon, Hegseth will carry
out racist, sexist, and homophobic attacks on GIs and civilian personnel. He
wants to purge all transgender members of the armed forces.
While Trump and Hegseth are
targeting Iran and China, they also want to shoot down protesters at home.
Marco Rubio
Florida Senator Marco Rubio is
slated to be Secretary of State. He’s a fanatical enemy of Cuba, Nicaragua,
Venezuela, and all other countries and movements that threaten Wall Street’s
rule in this hemisphere.
A cheerleader of genocide against
Palestinians, Rubio also threatens Iran and China. For anybody who believed
Trump’s phony anti-war noises, Rubio’s appointment should be a wake-up call.
Kristi Noem
Trump chose South Dakota Gov. Kristi
Noem to be Secretary of Homeland Security, a title that sounds like something
out of the Third Reich. She gave Trump a bust of Mount Rushmore with his face
on it.
(The tourist attraction, which
desecrated the sacred land of the Lakota Sioux nation, was sculpted by Ku Klux
Klan member Gutzon Borglum.)
Despite Noem’s gift, she was passed
over to be Trump’s vice-president pick, possibly because she wrote how she shot
her 14-month-old puppy Cricket because it was allegedly “untrainable.”
The classic song Mississippi Goddam
was written and performed by Nina Simone. What Mississippi has been
historically for Black people, South Dakota–where the Wounded Knee massacre
took place–is for Indigenous nations.
Noem pushed for legislation to
suppress water protectors, like those in North Dakota, who attempt to stop
dangerous pipelines. That’s one reason why the governor was barred from
entering the state’s nine Indigenous reservations.
The No. 1 job for Noem will be to
deport millions of immigrant workers and their families. Trump wants to cancel
Temporary Protected Status for immigrants from war-torn countries.
Assisting Noem in these fascist
roundups will be “border czar” Tom Homan, who, in the previous Trump
administration, had children separated from their immigrant parents.
Also helping to carry out these
raids will be Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff. The fascist
declared at the Oct. 27 hate rally held in New York City’s Madison Square
Garden that “America is for Americans and Americans only.”
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Kennedy, who hates vaccines that
have saved millions of lives, was picked to be Secretary of Health and Human
Services. The nut job claims that the COVID-19 virus was targeted so that
Chinese and Jewish people are more immune.
Michael Huckabee
The former Arkansas Governor, who
had 16 people executed, was appointed ambassador to the Zionist state occupying
Palestine. The Christian nationalist claimed, “There’s really no such thing as
a Palestinian.”
We need millions in the streets
As outrageous as these picks are,
nobody should think that Trump “can’t get away with it.” Behind Trump is a
battalion of billionaires. Only a massive struggle will stop them.
Like the police murders of George
Floyd and Breonna Taylor, Trump’s fascist program will be met with resistance.
Such a movement has to include unions, community groups, students, the
homeless, and more. The first job will be to fight Trump’s immigration raids.
¡No Pasarán! Trump shall not pass!
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