miércoles, 24 de enero de 2024

 

HACIA UNA GEOPOLITICA MAS MORAL

Desde hace ya más de treinta años hasta esta parte el mundo ha ido de mal en peor. La caída de la URSS como contrapeso geopolítico a las ambiciones hegemónicas de EEUU ayudo a ese desequilibrio. Ahora con el avance firme del BRICS+ el horizonte puede ser más positivo.


Por Charles H. Slim

El mundo está consciente de que es necesario un cambio y también sabe muy bien por qué y quiénes son los responsables de la gran inequidad, la inestabilidad global producto de las cruentas guerras que además de los intereses geopolíticos en el fondo representan fabulosos negocios para muchos funcionarios de gobiernos y corporaciones armamentísticas privadas.

A las potencias occidentales se les ha hecho muy difícil ocultar los cadáveres de decenas de miles no ya de personas sino de familias enteras que se han ido acumulando en los últimos treinta años (Irak, Libia, Siria, Afganistán, Yemen y hoy Palestina), producto de sus manipulaciones políticas y de sus cruentas intervenciones militares abiertas o disfrazadas bajo ropajes se impostadas revoluciones o con espantajos seudo-islamistas y que han tratado de minimizar con ese insultante argumento del “daño colateral”.

Eso que no es otra cosa que masacres colectivas sin término hizo que las víctimas pasaran a ser meras referencias numéricas en estadísticas con lo cual, se las deshumaniza impidiendo que puedan ser individualizadas y cada caso tratado como corresponde por la justicia. Es de esa masividad de donde provienen afirmaciones impunes tales como “matar árabes no trae consecuencias” proferidas por el ex ministro israelí Naftaly Bennet o, “sueño con levantarme una mañana y ver que el mar se tragó a los palestinos de Gaza” como alguna vez dijo otro funcionario sionista como Avigdor Lieberman.

Ese desprecio inmoral surgido de un odio racial visceral es compartido por los angloestadounidenses y los ejemplos bastan tanto dentro como fuera de sus fronteras. Con ese mismo razonamiento han manejado las relaciones económicas hasta tal punto que Washington ha perfeccionado el odioso sistema de “sanciones comerciales” que no es otra cosa que la implementación del terror mediante una simple extorsión mafiosa, una táctica que Rusia ha logrado vencer.

Hoy Europa sufre una incesante crisis migratoria producto de esas políticas que en los últimos meses se ha visto incrementada por la guerra en Eurasia y la actual situación en Palestina que impactan de forma distorsiva y altamente negativa en sus economías.

Eso ha ido horadando la credibilidad de los gobiernos anglosajones y poniendo sobre aviso a los países emergentes de que en el momento menos esperado, pueden ser los siguientes. La esperanza de una alternativa a ese mundo unipolar y signado por la hegemonía de Washington ya es palpable y hoy más que nunca Sudáfrica, miembro fundador de los BRICS ha demostrado tener la vocación de ser el faro moral para dar esa bocanada de aire puro que tanto necesita el mundo. 

El BRICS ya es más que una realidad, es una estructura afianzada que avanza incluyendo a nuevos socios y que desde el “sur global” se proyecta con fuerza para todo el mundo. Si bien este bloque comenzó para establecer tratados de carácter económicos-comerciales entre los países que buscan la independencia de los lineamientos financieros de EEUU, hoy ya apunta a desarrollar objetivos más ambiciosos que tan solo unos años antes eran considerados en Occidente como “ridículos”. El BRICS PAY como sistema de pagos alternativo a nivel global, parece ser uno de ellos con lo cual el dólar dejaría de ser la única moneda para el comercio internacional.

La adhesión a este sistema basado en el Blockchain, destinado para transacciones transfronterizas demuestra que los países del bloque se quieren alejar definitivamente de la influencia del dólar como moneda de cambio comercial y con ello del Sociedad para las Comunicaciones Interbancarias y Financieras Mundiales (SWIFT). Esto a su vez representa el desarrollo de un musculo político y jurídico que servirá para dar cobijo a aquellos países que se vean amenazados o incluso sancionados por las medidas unilaterales que el sistema financiero angloestadounidense suele usar para condicionar o simplemente pisar a los países emergentes.

El marco para que avance este bloque es ampliamente prometedor. China como parte fundamental de este, ofrece no solo un mercado amplio para el intercambio de bienes y servicios sino también, la provisión de mercancías terminadas, el factor tecnológico de su industria y el acceso a sus socios a mercados tan diversos como son América Latina, África y Oceanía.

Pero las relaciones del BRICS con estos continentes no se reducirán al mero intercambio comercial. Como vimos arriba el bloque provee soluciones financieras y respaldo político y jurídico para proteger a los futuros socios de cada uno de estos espacios geográficos que de constante están sometidos a las elegantes presiones de los lineamientos financieros que imponen organismos trasnacionales como el FMI, el Banco Mundial y las “sugerencias” que salen del G-7 que en última instancia responden a los lineamientos políticos de La Casa Blanca. Dentro de este esquema unilateral EEUU ha mantenido con engaños y puño de hierro sus políticas externas.

Los pueblos (que no suelen coincidir con el sentir de sus gobiernos) están hartos de esto y hace tiempo que entendieron que el globalismo solo buscaba beneficios para uno solo: EEUU. Con la alternativa de los BRICS+ eso cambia de forma radical ya que en este bloque no hay un manda más que impone reglas arbitrarias o se emplaza como “líder moral” del resto. A la ganancia maximizada a cualquier costo (incluida la vida) del liberalismo económico angloestadounidense se le opone el “ganar, ganar” del bloque reflejando una filosofía contrapuesta en la que “para que uno gane el otro no debe perder”.  

Obviamente que el despliegue de esta filosofía no solo es desagradable para los digitadores financieros en Wall Street y la City londinense, es una amenaza a sus negocios y enjuagues macro financieros con los cuales hunden a discreción las economías de países emergentes volviéndoles eternamente dependientes de programas, préstamos y ayudas de sus organismos internacionales que no son sino, parte de la misma cadena burocrática que retroalimenta al sistema. Y para aquellos que se resisten o amenazan con salirse, la conspiración política fabricando golpes de estado, revoluciones o directamente, invasiones para “imponer la democracia”.

El BRICS es además la plataforma para una nueva geopolítica en la cual se podrán hallar soluciones a problemas del mismo carácter tal como hemos venido viendo en los últimos 76 años con el caso de los palestinos y su continua privación al derecho a la autodeterminación política con un estado propio que brinde cobijo y protección a su población. Sobre esto Sudáfrica, con un doloroso y aleccionador pasado con el Apartheid (del cual Israel fue socio) ha dado un paso adelante y ha marcado un hito histórico impulsando ante el TIJ las investigaciones por crímenes de guerra y genocidio perpetrados por el estado de Israel en la Franja de Gaza, aun cuando sabemos de la inequívoca influencia del estado de Israel y sus partidarios alrededor del mundo.

Sin dudas que con estos antecedentes, hay esperanzas de una geopolítica más moral de la que ha imperado en el mundo en estos últimos treinta años.

 

domingo, 21 de enero de 2024

 

FROM BELFAST TO GAZA

Why is there so much in common between the Irish Catholic people and the Palestinian people? It is a point of view that coincidentally annoys oppressors on both sides equally.

 

By Sir Charlattam

What have we made of ourselves as humanity when we watch undaunted the bestialities such as we see today in various parts of the world? If the abominable crimes we see day by day in Gaza, which are only a magnification of what Israel has been carrying out for 76 years, it means that someone is allowing them.

It was the then British Empire that facilitated the access of these Zionist cells of Ashkenazi Jews back in the early 20th century to begin operating in a subjugated Palestine under Ottoman and then British rule.

Ireland and the Irish know only too well the fibre of the English and the advantages they have gained at the expense of the Irish betrayed by other corrupt Irish. It is centuries of fighting in which it has always been the corruption of Irish landowners or unscrupulous ones like Diarmait Mac Murchada (regarded as the King of traitors) who drove the wedge that betrayed the Catholic people for some bag of gold coins and a few leagues of land at the cost of starving everyone.

The list of traitors who turned their backs on their homeland and went to London is long but the true and pure Irish feeling that you read in writers like Wilde, Declan Hughes or Jane Casey, in the murals on the Falls Road in Belfast or in the songs of Dolores O' Riordan has always survived.

Today in Gaza, a Palestinian city demolished to dust by three times as many tons of explosives as have been used in the entire Russia-NATO-Ukraine war, we see similar wretches and heroes set against each other in the midst of a tragedy of epic proportions that thank heaven cannot be hidden. Just to see a woman or father weeping disconsolately with the shattered bodies of their young children or even babies being bombed or shot by Israeli soldiers, how do you think they might feel in the face of such brutality by the Zionist invaders?

How do you think the Zionists started in Palestine? By using the same formula and even setting up a shameless office to manage that dispossession against those “rats” as Winston Churchill's alcoholic swine used to call the Arabs. The British royal establishment was the cradle of such subjects. The so-called “Balfour Declaration” is the most obvious documentary evidence of this collusion. It is no coincidence that the English Protestants got on so well with the Zionists since both shared and still share, albeit in secret, this contempt for non-whites.

For King Edward III the Irish were like rats because of the large number of children a family could have. Similar sentiments were held by the likes of Moshe Dayan and “Bibi” Netanyahu himself.

As far as Ireland is concerned, it is a long road of hatred and bloodshed born of British ambitions to extend its dominions that stretched into the 20th century and after the Éiri Amach na Cásca with the massacre in April 1916 in North King Street in the city of Dublin, marked a turning point in the century that followed. Why couldn't the Irish create an independent republic? Thus the IRA was born in response to 800 years of British colonialism.

When we look at what is happening in Palestine and the suffering of its people there are several elements that touch on this and the Irish empathise with it. Also, although they had to tolerate British occupation disguised as a “protectorate” more briefly and were later betrayed by allowing Zionist gangs to take over their land by force, they are the victims of a colonial and racist state.

The litany for Irish independence has been long but the Palestinian one despite being only 76 years old has been monstrously brutal. There is no doubt that the overkill comes from considering the Arab-Palestinians inferior and different, which is why the Zionists have learned well from their British masters with a long history of oppressing and squeezing the colonies that the empire harvested.

For decades they tried to hide from public opinion the true nature of the Palestinian resistance, similar to what happened with the IRA and who better served those purposes than the journalists and media blatantly paid by MI5, as abominable as the traitors who wore the British uniform and pointed their guns or mercilessly tortured their own blood brothers.

From these quarters repeating day and night that the IRA was an Irish terrorist group that killed innocents for the sheer pleasure of doing so, resembles the same infamy and biased narrative that was also spread by the Irish media of the time against the Palestinians when that little man called Yasser Arafat in the 1960s organised the PLO precisely to liberate Palestine from Israeli occupation. These peculiarities were understandable since the then pro-British government of Northern Ireland had very good relations with the Israelis and, as a result, also with the Mossad, which became entrenched with the guidance of MI6 in its intelligence services.

Today, 25 years after the Good Friday Agreement, the Foreign Office and the entire British establishment represented by Rishi Sunak refuse to allow investigations into the long list of crimes that were committed during the 30 years of struggle, and if you sift through the rubbish of those who cooperated with London, you are sure to find many advisers or advisers of dual Irish-Israeli nationality.

In the end, in the case of Ireland, it was not “Operation Chiffon” that brought peace or restored dignity to the Irish. That was just an orchestrated fix by the British intelligence agencies presented with great fanfare by the BBC, the window to the world of disinformation and intoxication in the service of MI6 and the local parochialists with MI5.

For the plight of the Palestinians and their just and long overdue right to a state that shelters and protects them from an aggressor such as the Israeli usurper has long been, they must not fall into the same trap. Perhaps the most deceitful of all is the disgraceful Irishman called Joseph (Joe) Robinette Biden who now claims to be seeking a state for the Palestinians when he continues to feed arms to the Tel Aviv regime. But they should also keep a close eye on the close traitors and those organisations such as the Arab League, which by the results it has shown on the subject, (there is no doubt that they are fingered by Arab intelligence agencies which in turn are in league with the enemy) resembles any European prostitutionist parliament, starting, of course, with the British one.

sábado, 20 de enero de 2024

 

EL FILO DEL SABLE DE ALI

¿Por qué los ataques de Irán contra tres objetivos en tres países diferentes son una seria advertencia de las que EEUU e Israel deben tomar nota?

 

Por Charles H. Slim

La cadena de atentados contra importantes objetivos palestinos e iraníes realizados la semana pasada por las agencias de inteligencia israelíes y estadounidenses, lejos estuvo de amedrentar a la resistencia islámica palestina y a Teherán. Ha sido la gota que rebalso el vaso. El ataque terrorista realizado contra una manifestación popular en conmemoración del general Soleimani asesinado en enero del 2020 por un atentado terrorista ejecutado por la CIA y sus colegas israelíes, forman parte de los intentos de estos gobiernos por tratar de amedrentar a Irán para que a su vez, amoneste a los grupos de la resistencia islámica.

Las administraciones occidentales y en especial su socio israelí, parecen ignorar que “Ansar Allah” en Yemen, el “Hesbolá” libanés y las agrupaciones iraquíes no necesitan órdenes ni direccionamiento político de Teherán para operar. Mucho menos las agrupaciones armadas de la resistencia palestina que no dependen de ninguna decisión iraní. Si en realidad eso es lo que creen se han quedado atrasados en el tiempo y sus asesores desconocen cual es la dinámica ideológica que moviliza a la resistencia islámica. Todos están unidos en la “Moqawama” para frenar el genocidio palestino perpetrado por el estado sionista que goza de la impunidad provista por occidente y que no se detendrán hasta concretar el objetivo.

La represalia múltiple ejecutada contra tres objetivos ubicados en tres países ha dejado un mensaje alto y claro a Tel Aviv y Washington que se traduciría en que sus bases y sus agentes no están seguros. Esto en respuesta a los ataques israelíes contra los representantes de la resistencia palestina en Beirut, el asesinato en Siria de uno de sus oficiales de la Guardia Revolucionaria y obviamente, por la masacre en Kermán que pese a ser reivindicada por el “ISIS” se sabe que indirectamente implican a las agencias de inteligencia EEUU y a Israel.

El medio empleado por Teherán para ejecutar estas retaliaciones llama la atención y es por ello que vamos a ver con detenimiento los blancos y la motivación para ello.

Según se sabe, la Guardia Revolucionaria lanzo ataques con misiles a emplazamientos de un grupo armado anti iraní denominado “Jaysh Al Adl” que ubican del otro lado de la frontera en el Baluchistán, Pakistán. Desde Teherán se sospecha que dicho grupo es parte de los programas del “yihadismo” creados desde occidente para -mediante la instigación sectaria- desestabilizar el régimen político iraní y para ello cuentan con ayuda y financiamiento de las agencias de inteligencia paquistaníes (ISI) que es sabido, colabora en la región con las operaciones de la CIA y consiguientemente también con el Mossad.

El segundo objetivo fue contra un edificio en Irbil en el Kurdistán iraquí donde se ubicaba una base del Mossad israelí matando en el acto a un empresario kurdo vinculado a las operaciones de esta agencia. Según testigos fueron ocho las explosiones que se escucharon en la capital kurda y todas ellas se centraron sobre un edificio de apartamentos donde se hallarían oficinas que daban cobertura a las operaciones israelíes.

Pese a que el insulso gobierno iraquí que sigue siendo una sombra de la pasada ocupación angloestadounidense elevo una queja contra Teherán, sus fuerzas son totalmente ineficaces para controlar la región del norte por el simple hecho de que las peshmerga kurdas tienen el apoyo de los estadounidenses y de los israelíes.

Desde hace décadas es conocida la relación de los kurdos iraquíes dirigidos por el Clan Barzani con Israel. Precisamente fueron los kurdos los que le abrieron la puerta a los estadounidenses en 1991 y colaboraron en 2003 para facilitar las operaciones militares contra Iraq y se sospecha que participaron en 2014 en la operatividad del embuste denominado “Estado Islámico”. Desde la ocupación los israelíes pudieron profundizar su estancia en el Kurdistán ubicando bases fijas desde donde lanzan sus ataques terroristas tanto contra Irán, Siria o el mismo Bagdad.

No es la primera vez que Teherán golpea al Mossad en el Kurdistán iraquí.

El su tercer ataque dirigido a objetivos del “Estado Islámico” en suelo sirio, la Guardia Revolucionaria lanzó 13 misiles balísticos de fabricación nacional “Kheibar Shekan” que causaron varios muertos y heridos. Por la distancia recorrida y la precisión en los blancos alcanzados se deja en evidencia el poder con el que cuentan los iraníes para llegar a donde fuese necesario.

Más allá de los argumentos de Teherán para justificar cada uno de estos ataques, hay en el accionar mismo algo que no habíamos visto anteriormente (salvo tras el asesinato de Soleimani) y es precisamente la reacción transfronteriza para golpear objetivos del enemigo. Esto que EEUU e Israel han practicado con total impunidad durante décadas hoy es ejecutado por sus adversarios y en este caso Irán, comienzan a ejercitar la misma metodología que sin dudas, son agresivas y motivos suficientes para crear más guerras.

Sin lugar a dudas, Teherán ha aprendido de la valentía política y militar de Yemen, que siendo uno de los países árabes más pobres y sufridos de la península, no dudo en lanzarse sobre el estado de Israel para intentar frenar el genocidio que -con el apoyo de EEUU y la UE- está llevando a cabo contra la población civil árabe-palestina.

Esto a su vez demuestra que pese a la pobreza material de los yemenís y de la modestia del armamento con el que cuenta “Ansar Allah”, hay un capital espiritual invalorable que no se compra en ninguna corporación. Quien quizá haya inspirado este salto adelante no sea otro que el líder espiritual Alí Hoseiní Jamenei quien como erudito de las escrituras coránicas sabe que el comportamiento de los yemenís esta claramente inspirado en la solidaridad y el mandato de ir a la guerra contra los opresores a costa de tus bienes y de la vida de ser necesario.

Si los combatientes yemenís no dudaron en ir contra Israel y enfrentar directamente a los EEUU ¿Por qué Irán que es un estado con muchos más recursos y poder se debería quedar de brazos cruzados cuando es agredido por estos mismos actores? Sin dudas y para mal que les pese a los jerarcas en Washington, ha comenzado una nueva y cruenta era.

También refleja un claro hastío por esperar la intervención de mecanismos internaciones ineficaces y altamente sospechados de ser conniventes con Washington. La situación en los territorios ocupados palestinos y en particular de la población civil de la Franja de Gaza suma mayor irritación ante esa burocracia inútil y corrupta que solo sirve para alargar los plazos beneficiando a los agresores. Esto es el comienzo de una nueva y muy peligrosa espiral de violencia que no podemos predecir hasta donde podrá llegar.

miércoles, 17 de enero de 2024

 

THE RED SEA CRISIS

Thirty-four years after the Persian Gulf war against Iraq, Joe Biden and the War Party in Washington seek to draw the Union into another endless war. Will the American people tolerate it?

 

By Dany Smith

Why is the current crisis in the Red Sea different from the 1990 Persian Gulf crisis? This is one of the questions that crossed my mind when I saw what is happening in the waters of the Red Sea and especially at the entrance of the “Bab Al Mandeb” strait.

It is clear that all situations cannot be the same, although there may be factors that are similar and to some extent yield similar conclusions. In 1990, as a result of a settling of scores with its oil-rich neighbor Kuwait, Iraq, after talks distorted by Washington, led Saddam Hussein to take the bait and launch his invasion on August 2, 1990, which ended with the war that lasted from January 17 to February 28, 1991. It is now clear why this was in Washington's interest and inspired Baghdad to launch as it did.

What advantages did Washington gain from this? First, to justify its landing on the Arabian Peninsula, where the holy places of Islam are located, with all that that entailed. Second, to establish itself as the protector and regulator of the Middle East by making the Saudis the forced hosts of its military bases. Third, to establish the US CENTCOM operations center just a few kilometers from Iran. Fourth, the destruction of the most relevant Arab military and political force at the time (Iraq) that could rival Israel.

At that time the George H. Bush administration was in a US on the cusp of power given that with the USSR crumbling and no contenders to rival, it made it the only global superpower.

Under those circumstances it was easy for Washington to recruit and line up partners in the campaign we would come to know as “Desert Storm”. Candidates lined up to sign up. Thus a Coalition of countries was formed to support the war effort and operations against Iraq that were to be launched on January 16, 1991. But could that war have been avoided?

Of course, it could have been avoided, there were even proposals and negotiations for Iraq to withdraw its troops if previously (according to the Russian proposal) talks were held on the situation of the Palestinians under Israeli occupation, something that the US Secretary of State James Baker would not even take into consideration. Simply because the plans involved that war had already been planned and with 31 armies under the unified command of General Norman Schwarzkopf the adventure could not fail.

But today in the Red Sea, although the situation is different, the operational framework and the circumstances that have unleashed the hostilities there have some similarities and basically involve the same actors and the same causes.

Here the Yemenis have not invaded anyone and on the contrary, they are exercising their right to self-determination by supporting the Palestinian cause against an unjustifiable genocide that is today intolerable for all to see.

Unlike the Iraqis in 1990, the Yemenis of both the “Ansar Allah” resistance militias and the armed forces have opted for direct and decisive action just as Israel has been doing when it takes the liberty of launching air strikes or terrorist attacks against other countries. Obviously, the framework is different, although there are some similarities in terms of the characteristics of the theater of operations.

We have in this case a water space as in 1991, an Arab riverine state attacked by the USA and Great Britain who are allies of Israel and the most important thing for them is the control of the sea lane over the “Bab Al Mandeb” strait to prevent the Israelis from having any more economic losses due to Yemen's actions. As you can see, the same actors for different reasons.

When the “Ansar Allah” groups demonstrated that they could successfully retaliate against Israeli ships and those of other flags carrying goods to ports such as Eilat from occupied Palestine, Joe Biden raised a hue and cry and assured his old friend “Bibi” Netanyahu that he would do something to stop this. And so he did, effectively declaring war on Yemen.

Biden and his neocon colleagues (like Lindsey Graham) thought they could put together another Allied Coalition like Bush did in 1990 but they did not realize how wrong they were. Unlike then, the moderate Arab states, including the Gulf monarchists, especially Saudi Arabia, want nothing to do with this and even many of their European partners excused themselves from taking part in the adventure.

In addition to this, the massacres that Israel continues to commit, including the hostages, have created widespread popular rejection in countries under governments aligned with Washington. In Latin America, luck was no better and although there is a renaissance of pro-US liberal governments such as in Argentina (which participated in 1991), no one wants to put their head under the guillotine.

Another big difference from the Iraqis in 1990, is that the Yemenis did not wait to be pounded by the Americans or to swallow the whole diplomatic circus of talks at the United Nations. The missiles and drones of “Ansar Allah” went straight for their frigates threatening their operations and that is how the “USS Carney” trying to protect Israeli transport ships became a legitimate target for the arab resistance.

For Yemenis, the US and its Israeli partners, are two sides of the same coin representing a stage of pain and suffering. They supported since 2015 Saudi Arabia by providing weapons (especially 2000 lbs bombs), fuel and advisors. They were also the ones who imposed a maritime embargo against Yemen that deprived food, fuel and medicines that slowly killed thousands of Yemeni children, just as they did with the embargo imposed on Iraq from 1990 to 2003 killing in the same suffering way more than 500,000 Iraqi children.

As they have demonstrated, the Yemenis know how to use ballistic missiles and drones very well and they also know how to take advantage of the scenario especially in the strait area. The American and British frigates despite the advanced technology already figured it out, maybe Biden will ask them to go down to see what is down below.

Finally, there is another thing that is very clear my friends, and that is that this time there is no cannon fodder for a new “Desert Storm” and much less, generals willing to sink in this terrain. Those of us who were there in 1991 know that and I can assure you that I wouldn't go back for the world. But suppose Biden tried to pull out all the stops for his buddy Netanyahu and his club of Ashkenazi racists and decided to send in the US infantry or paratroopers, let this decrepit old fuck know that the “Seals” and other CIA special teams that tried to seed “Daesh” were made mincemeat of by the “Huties”.

 

martes, 16 de enero de 2024

WHERE IS JUSTICE?

Why are there reasons to be suspicious of the impartiality and institutional commitment of international judicial bodies in the case of the crimes that the state of Israel committed and continues to commit against the Palestinian population?


By Sidney Hey

 

Justice has two ways of intervening in criminal cases: ex officio or at the request of a party. Although this would be the general principle in some judicial systems, when it comes to the application of criminal law at the international level, things get complicated. When a country has been invaded and the invader removes its government, any crime perpetuated in the process will go unpunished.

As you can already guess, this is related to the so-called international law that US officials are trying to rename “a rules-based order”, which is nothing more than trying to impose their own rules in this field.

There is no codex of all international law and it would certainly be a bit difficult to compile, although if the will were there, nothing is impossible. We have treaties, protocols and conventions that we see how every day the great powers (which is not the same as great countries) trample on with impunity.

But there has been progress before the turn of the century. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court of 1998[1], on which the international body with its physical headquarters in the Netherlands was built, deals with nothing less than the most serious crimes committed against humanity, and seemed to be the beginning of an international justice system that was impervious to political influences and the pressures of the powerful states involved in the cases that were brought before it.

The situation of Palestine and its people is perhaps the one that most awaited such a judicial instance since, despite the media silence and the customary intoxication of the Israeli occupation and its consequences for decades, there is still the possibility of prosecuting not only the bestialities that have been committed in these three months of intervention in Gaza, but also the countless war crimes and crimes against humanity that Israel and its officials have had to their credit for decades.

Following South Africa's submission to the ICC denouncing crimes that fall within the scope of the Rome Statute and the 1948 Genocide Convention, there has been an uproar in Israeli circles and, of course, in Washington. On 11 January, at a hearing before the Court, South Africa presented the case requesting urgent interim measures (art. 41) that imply the immediate cessation of military action, based on the sense of urgency due to the certain risk to the lives of civilians in the Strip.

The submission also alludes to the assertion of Principle IV of the Nuremberg Charter, which basically entitles Israeli troops engaged in operations inside the Gaza Strip not to be exempted from responsibility for crimes committed against the civilian population on the grounds that they were carrying out superior orders. Or more bluntly, that they are not obliged to carry out immoral orders and leave the battlefield if pressed.

The danger to the Palestinian population is certain and the evidence for this is overwhelming. Israel has not only bombed flats and private homes, has demolished hospitals, schools, mosques, churches, refugee camps where it murdered dozens of UNWRA aid workers, doctors and some eighty Palestinian and other Arab journalists[2]. Such a monstrosity executed by some other underdeveloped state would have set in motion all the levers in the UN and the ICC, supported, of course, by the paid media, making a big melodrama out of it... But if the perpetrators are Israel and the USA, nothing works?

The state of Israel with a well documented colonial vocation is trying to make a people disappear from the face of its territory and this implies the commission of the crime of genocide that must be prevented in its continuation and therefore the request for the application of provisional measures.

Despite the fact that these legal measures are in force, there is no guarantee that Israel will comply with them, and this leads us to ask ourselves: What kind of justice can be expected then?

Reactions in Washington soon followed. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, who staunchly supports Tel Aviv by exposing - inappropriately his Jewishness-, called the lawsuit “unfounded and irritating”, showing once again that Washington is not an impartial actor in all this. How can it be when it provides arms and support on the ground for these crimes to be committed? Of course, that did not stop the outrage of the elite in Washington. The same outrage inflamed Israeli officials and their Zionist supporters around the world.

Tel Aviv's rejection and the disqualifications that followed were to be expected. As always, victimhood is a substantial part of its tantrums and in that plan among its arguments it accused South Africa of cooperating with Hamas making it clear to all that this is as false as it is dirty since at the time of the 7 October attack the South African government condemned the actions against Israeli civilians.

As of today, Israel in its veiled attempt to push the Palestinians to flee to Sinai and occupy the Strip has so far killed more than 29,000 civilians (including thousands of children) and maimed approximately 50,000 more. Certainly, in the absence of resistance from Palestinian armed groups and the latent second front with Lebanon, Israel would have swept through the strip without a word from the United Nations, let alone the European Union.

But what really bothers Israel is that South Africa could hinder its plans to drive the Palestinians out of the strip for good and annex it in order to develop real estate (linked to illegal settlements) and control the gas fields in Gaza's waters.

The judicial presentation is sufficient in itself with the background and the abundant documentary evidence that accompanies it, so that there is a solid case against the state of Israel and its political and military leaders. However, in reality, we know that this court was created at the behest of the EU and that means, through a political decision in which pro-Israeli supporters are intertwined. Added to this, the appointment of some of its members at the behest of US officials such as Hillary Clinton (although they never say so) conditions the functioning of a judicial body.

The precedents of corruption in the ICC were seen with NATO's aggression against Libya and the assassination of its president (which was managed by then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton) in 2011 and in which the then Argentine prosecutor Moreno Ocampo participated in a lamentable role to forget.

To this day, the ICC authorities do not give much hope that they have overcome these drawbacks, let alone have the will to prosecute Israeli crimes. Because there is evidence of their lack of impartiality and even the closeness of ICC president Piotr Hofmański to Benjamin Netanyahu, the mastermind and planner of the massacres in Palestine, casts doubt on their impartiality.

 

 

 



[2] ISRAEL BOMBED AN AL JAZEERA CAMERAMAN — AND BLOCKED EVACUATION EFFORTS AS HE BLED TO DEATH, https://theintercept.com/2024/01/12/al-jazeera-journalist-israel-gaza/