Headlines
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 21, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/11/21/headlines
ICC Issues Arrest Warrants for Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, Ex-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant
Nov 21, 2024
The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during Israel’s assault on Gaza. In a statement, the ICC said the Israeli leaders had “intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water, and medicine and medical supplies, as well as fuel and electricity.” The ICC also issued an arrest warrant for Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif, though Israel’s military claims it killed Deif in a July airstrike.
Sanders’s Senate Resolutions Blocking Arms Transfers to Israel Fail But Gain Unprecedented Support
Nov 21, 2024
Here in the U.S., 19 senators on Wednesday voted against sending Israel more offensive weapons, over Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and its gross human rights violations. Though the joint resolutions of disapproval, introduced by Bernie Sanders, failed to pass, it was the largest such rebuke of the United States’ policy of unconditional military support for Israel. We’ll have more on the Senate vote after headlines.
The vote came as Israel continues its slaughter in Gaza, killing at least 88 Palestinians over the past day in attacks on Beit Lahia and the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City.
Israeli Soldiers and Settlers Continue Assault on West Bank Palestinians
Nov 21, 2024
Israeli forces are continuing to attack the occupied West Bank, with deadly raids in Jenin, as well as assaults in Hebron, Ramallah and elsewhere. Illegal Jewish settlers on Wednesday attacked the Palestinian town of al-Mazra’a al-Qibliya, near Ramallah, setting cars ablaze. This is Hilda Sandouka, a Palestinian mother who survived the attack.
Hilda Sandouka: “We were afraid and terrified. My daughters started to scream and cry. Thank God that they only burned the vehicles. They could have set fire inside the house while we were sleeping. We are far away from the downtown. If something happens here, they may not help us. Thank God, neighbors helped out.”
Israeli Strikes Kill 36 in Syria, 9 in Lebanon as Hezbollah Responds to U.S.-Led Ceasefire Proposal
Nov 21, 2024
Syria state media reports Israeli attacks killed 36 people in Palmyra. At least nine people were killed by Israel in the Lebanese city of Tyre.
Hezbollah’s leader Naim Qassem says he has reviewed a U.S.-led ceasefire proposal and told negotiators the group rejects language allowing Israel to breach Lebanese sovereignty by attacking within its borders.
U.S. Stands Alone in Vetoing Gaza Ceasefire Resolution at U.N. Security Council for Fourth Time
Nov 21, 2024
At the U.N. Security Council in New York, the U.S. on Wednesday vetoed its fourth ceasefire resolution since Israel began its war on Gaza over 13 months ago. The 14 other members of the Security Council voted in favor. China’s U.N. Ambassador Fu Cong slammed the U.S. veto.
Fu Cong: “The U.S.'s long use of the veto has dashed the hopes of the people of Gaza for survival, pushing them further into darkness and desperation. I said during the council's debate on Monday that every moment will be recorded in history and will be judged by history.”
Palestine’s deputy U.N. envoy Majed Bamya also addressed the Security Council, condemning the U.S. veto, for which he said there is “no justification.”
Majed Bamya: “There is no right to mass killing of civilians. There is no right to starve an entire civilian population. There is no right to forcibly displace a people. And there is no right to annexation. This is what Israel is doing in Gaza. These are its war objectives. This is what the absence of a ceasefire is allowing it to continue doing.”
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Wanted for War Crimes: ICC Issues Arrest Warrants for Netanyahu & Gallant over Gaza
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 21, 2024
The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during Israel’s assault on Gaza. The court also issued a warrant for Hamas’s military chief Mohammed Deif, whom Israel said they killed in August. This is a major development on the international stage, says HuffPost correspondent Akbar Shahid Ahmed, particularly in its implications for U.S. culpability in Israeli war crimes. The Biden administration, as Netanyahu’s “ultimate enabler,” is visibly “totally alone” in its refusal to recognize Israel’s crossing of “red lines,” as even its ally nations who are party to the ICC are now legally required to cooperate with the court’s decision.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: In The Hague, the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during Israel’s assault on Gaza. In a statement, the ICC said the Israeli leaders had, quote, “intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water, and medicine and medical supplies, as well as fuel and electricity.”
The ICC also issued an arrest warrant for Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif, though Israel’s military claims it killed Deif in a July airstrike.
The ICC arrest warrants come a week after a U.N. special committee found Israel’s actions in Gaza since October 2023 are, quote, “consistent with genocide,” including using starvation as a weapon of war and recklessly inflicting civilian casualties.
AMY GOODMAN: In related news, on Wednesday, the United States vetoed a Gaza ceasefire resolution at the U.N. Security Council for the fourth time, and the U.S. Senate rejected a resolution brought by Senator Bernie Sanders that sought to block the sale of U.S. tank rounds, bomb kits and other lethal weapons to Israel. Nineteen senators supported blocking the arms.
For more on all of this, we’re joined by Akbar Shahid Ahmed, senior diplomatic correspondent for HuffPost. His latest piece is “Exclusive: White House Says Democrats Who Oppose Weapons to Israel Are Aiding Hamas.”
Ahmed, thank you so much for being with us. As you write your book on the Biden administration in Gaza called Crossing the Red Line, clearly the ICC has ruled that today by issuing arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as the former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Can you talk about the significance of this move?
AKBAR SHAHID AHMED: Yeah, Amy. This is just an absolutely huge development, and it’s significant for a number of reasons. It’s significant because the ICC has come out and amplified and affirmed the allegations of crimes against humanity, of war crimes. This is one more international body. These are [inaudible] international charges with a great deal of respect. This is a court that most of the world is a member of. And they’re coming out and saying, “Look, we think there are reasonable grounds to believe that these major international red lines have been crossed by the Israelis.”
What’s really important to remember is that this isn’t just a decision about Israel. By extension, it fundamentally is a decision about the United States, which has been the ultimate enabler of Israel’s offensives in Gaza and Lebanon, which are under consideration by the ICC. And even in this ICC statement today, they point out that in the situations where Israel has addressed concerns over what it describes as starvation as a method of warfare — right? — depriving civilians, Palestinians, of food, water and medical equipment, Israel has really only done so in an extremely arbitrary and, what the ICC judges call, conditional way in response to the U.S. So, fundamentally, Amy, what we’re seeing is the ICC is saying yet again that Israel and the U.S., as its major enabler and backer, are in the dark and will continue to be in the dark for years to come.
This kind of adds to a broader picture in which there are now ICC warrants for the sitting Israeli prime minister and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who remains a significant politician in Israel. Simultaneously, there’s the genocide case at the ICJ, the International Court of Justice, which is ongoing and will be ongoing for years to come. And there’s the Geneva Conventions conference underway next year regarding kind of similar issues — right? — violations of international law, laws of war and the Israeli grave abuses that are alleged. So, the U.S. and Israel will be kind of on trial on the international stage for years to come.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Akbar, would you say that this move is mostly a symbolic one? Because, as you pointed out, of course, most countries are members of the International Criminal Court, but in this instance, perhaps most importantly, neither Israel nor the U.S. are.
AKBAR SHAHID AHMED: Right, Nermeen. And that’s something that the ICC judges did get into today — right? — because Israel said, “Look, the International Criminal Court doesn’t have jurisdiction over us.” That said, the state of Palestine is a member of the court, and that’s why this becomes a relevant and interesting thing, because you’ve seen European nations recognize Palestine as a state. You’ve seen Palestine join the United Nations General Assembly over just last year. So, yes, while the U.S. and Israel continue to reject international scrutiny by the ICC, by the ICJ of Israel’s conduct in Gaza and the occupied West Bank and Lebanon, there’s a growing international push to kind of challenge that, right?
And I think you will see the Biden administration and the incoming Trump administration assertively push back against the ICC. The Trump administration did actually target the ICC directly when President Trump was last in office, threatening to put sanctions on ICC officials. And we also know from reporting that the Israelis have spied on and threatened the ICC themselves, according to reporting by The Guardian. So, yes, there will be increased pressure.
But I think we’re really in a place that no one thought we would be even a few months ago, right? I think even the prospect of the ICC prosecutor successfully getting these warrants issued, it was initially thought that would be quite quick. It’s taken a long time. The fact that judges were able to issue those warrants suggests that even though it’s an uphill battle to get this international scrutiny, there’s a real determination and clear will. And we’ve seen a lot of states turn around and say over 13 months, right? Since the October 7 attack by Hamas within Israel that did spark this current round of fighting, there have been calls to say, “We don’t want this to escalate,” right? The U.S.'s allies, Western countries have said, “We want to resolve this. We don't want you on trial. Can the U.S. and Israel please change course?” And what you’ve seen is a defiance from Tel Aviv and from Washington to say, “Actually, no, we’re continuing these wars.” So, that does take it to a different forum to kind of change the policy.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Akbar, could you also — while we’re looking at the way in which international organizations, multilateral ones, are responding to this, what about the latest vote at the Security Council and the fact that the U.S. blocked it for the fourth time, a ceasefire vote?
AKBAR SHAHID AHMED: It’s really striking at this point — right? — to see the Biden administration totally alone. And you see how this develops over the course of the war. Initially, the U.S. was able to get Britain, even France, kind of abstaining, standing with them. And now, 13 months in, where conduct hasn’t changed, and you still have daily strikes that are killing dozens, sometimes over a hundred civilians, you have a mounting death toll of mostly women and children, the U.S. is totally alone, where it’s shielding Israel on the world stage diplomatically.
And this is really important to see in the context of the Biden administration as an outlier even among American presidents and administrations. When President Barack Obama was in office, after he was in the lame-duck period that Biden is in now, he actually did abstain at the United Nations Security Council and said, “You know what? Go ahead and pass a resolution that Israel doesn’t like,” because tacitly the U.S. acknowledged there was a basis, there were credible grounds for that resolution, which in that instance was about Israeli settlement activity.
Here, what you’re seeing from the Biden administration, even in their dying days — right? — two months to go, there’s an obstinacy, a defiance, and a real commitment to shielding Israel, even if they are totally alone against now their closest allies — Britain, France and everyone else on the Security Council. So, I think the context of that veto kind of presages whatever may come in the next two months in terms of the Biden administration allowing any U.N. scrutiny of the wars.
AMY GOODMAN: Akbar, I wanted to play Palestine’s envoy to the United Nations, Majed Bamya, speaking yesterday.
MAJED BAMYA: There is no right to mass killing of civilians. There is no right to starve an entire civilian population. There is no right to forcibly displace a people. And there is no right to annexation. This is what Israel is doing in Gaza. …
Maybe for some, we have the wrong nationality, the wrong faith, the wrong skin color. But we are humans! And we should be treated as such. Is there a U.N. Charter for Israel that is different from the charter we all have? Tell us. Is there an international law for them, an international law for us? Do they have the right to kill, and the only right we have is to die?
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Despite White House Pressure, 19 U.S. Senators Back Bernie Sanders’s Bills to Block Arms Sales to Israel
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 21, 2024
Just hours after the United States vetoed yet another U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in Gaza, the U.S. Senate on Wednesday rejected three resolutions supported by less than two dozen Democratic senators that sought to block the sale of U.S. tank rounds, bomb kits and other lethal weapons to Israel. HuffPost correspondent Akbar Shahid Ahmed reveals that the White House lobbied against the Senate resolutions and suggested that lawmakers who support blocking arms sales to Israel were aiding Hamas. In the face of such stringent opposition from Democratic leadership, even partial support from party members is “historic and symbolic.” As the Biden administration continues “working hand in glove” to provide weapons and rhetorical cover for Israel’s genocidal war, says Ahmed, such willingness to buck the status quo proves dissatisfaction with the U.S.’s role is “not going away.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: And I want to go right over to what happened on the Senate floor, independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders speaking ahead of Wednesday’s Senate vote to block the sale of U.S. tank rounds, bomb kits and other lethal weapons to Israel. The measure did fail, but 18 other senators joined Sanders to stop arming Israel.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: I have heard members of the U.S. Senate come to this floor to denounce human rights violations taking place around the world. I have heard well-founded concerns about China’s brutal reception of the Uyghur ethnic minority. I’ve heard rightful outrage about Putin’s brutal attacks against Ukraine and bombing of civilian installations. I’ve heard genuine concern about Iran’s outrageous crackdown on peaceful protesters. I’ve heard repeated condemnations of Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia’s terrible treatment of women and political dissidents. And on and on it goes. A lot of folks come to the floor to talk about human rights and what’s going on around the world.
But what I want to say to all those folks: Nobody is going to take anything you say with a grain of seriousness. You cannot condemn human rights around the world and then turn a blind eye to what the United States government is now funding in Israel. People will laugh in your face. They will say to you, “You’re concerned about China? You’re concerned about Russia? You’re concerned about Iran? Well, why are you funding the starvation of children in Gaza right now?”
AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s Senator Bernie Sanders. While this move did fail, it was the largest grouping of senators to vote against arming Israel. Akbar Shahid Ahmed, if you can talk about the significance of this and the latest piece you did on what happened in the White House and how they were threatening these senators, your “Exclusive: White House Says Democrats Who Oppose Weapons to Israel Are Aiding Hamas”?
AKBAR SHAHID AHMED: Absolutely, Amy. And I’ll just start by noting that what Ambassador Bamya and Senator Sanders said, that really speaks to the salience of this issue — right? — and why it’s not going away, is something that the Biden administration has failed to grapple with. In their thinking, they think, “Well, people will get over this like they’ve gotten over foreign policies slights and missteps by the U.S. before.” I think this is a fundamentally different issue. And what the Biden administration tried to do to kind of not just tackle and continue support for Israel, but to reject scrutiny and kind of threaten senators, was really striking yesterday.
So, the exclusive I got that you’re talking about was a document from the White House that they prepared and sent to Capitol Hill on Tuesday, 24 hours before the vote, where essentially they said, “If you vote against weapons for Israel, you, as United States senators, are supporting Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran.” Now, that’s the kind of accusation and rhetoric that observers say is reminiscent of the Bush administration, right? You’re with us, or you’re against us. And that’s the kind of thinking with which the Biden administration continues to approach critics of their policy, despite the really clear consequences of their policy and the fact that they’re on their way out, right? They are not the future of the Democratic Party. It is now not just on Senator Sanders, but really on those who remain in the Senate, on Democrats kind of up and down the country, to craft a different legacy given that there is popular dissatisfaction.
And what I heard in terms of the White House document and talking points that they were pushing privately to senators was that this fueled just deep kind of resentment among senators who heard it. And folks were saying, “Look, the White House won’t even put their name on these arguments while they’re calling us kind of terrorist sympathizers,” which is a huge claim about U.S. lawmakers.
Simultaneously, Amy, the context of this is that hard-line pro-Israel forces, chief among them AIPAC, which is the biggest pro-Israel lobby in the country, were also pushing against this vote, were also telling senators, “If you vote with Sanders, we’re going to come after you. We see this as a betrayal of Israel, a close United States partner.” So, you saw the Biden administration working hand in glove with forces that are not just ardently pro-Israel, but have been against Democrats, often against Biden, against President Barack Obama. But that’s the way they’ve aligned themselves politically.
The fact that after all of that you still had close to a fifth of members of the U.S. Senate stand up and vote against weapons for Israel at a time of war, at a time when AIPAC and pro-Israel forces have indicated their political strength yet again, that’s huge. This is historic and symbolic. And while I think antiwar advocates were, to a degree, disappointed — they had wanted to get at least half of Senate Democrats — the amount of intense pressure that you saw from the Biden administration to try to suppress this vote, including up to sending Secretary of State Tony Blinken to Capitol Hill yesterday, that shows you they were up against a lot, and they still managed to get 19 senators, which was quite a mental strike.
AMY GOODMAN: Akbar Shahid Ahmed, we want to thank you so much for being with us, senior diplomatic correspondent for HuffPost. We’ll link to your newest piece, which is an exclusive, “White House Says Democrats Who Oppose Weapons to Israel Are Aiding Hamas.”
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Defund Genocide: Activists at COP29 Link Climate Fight to Militarism, Gaza, Lebanon & Sudan
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow
November 21, 2024
At COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, civil society members held a People’s Plenary called “Pay Up, Stand Up: Finance Climate Action, Not Genocide” outside negotiation rooms in which U.N. member states attempted to hammer out a global climate finance deal. In the face of the conference’s restrictions on protest, civil society members unfurled the names of Palestinians who have been killed, reading out the names of those killed by Israel’s military aggression and calling for an end to ecocidal violence worldwide. We hear from three people who participated in the action, including Palestinian activist Jana Rashed and Sudanese activist Leena Eisa — both of whom call on nations to stop providing fuel for genocides being perpetrated against Palestinian, Lebanese and Sudanese people — and the plenary’s co-chair Lidy Nacpil, who calls the gathering a “celebration” of marginalized voices at the climate summit.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re also joined by other members of civil society from around the world. I’m going to get up right now. They have just come from across this broad room from the Caspian Plenary Hall, where they held a People’s Summit. One of the co-chairs of that summit, which is called “Pay Up, Stand Up: Finance Climate Action, Not Genocide,” where civil society unfurled the names of Palestinians who have been killed, and prayed for the dead — we’re joined right now by co-chair. The co-chair is Lidy Nacpil, who is a longtime Filipina climate activist and coordinator with the Asia Peoples’ Summit on Debt and Development and the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice.
Lidy, it’s so great to have you with us today. If you can talk about what the point of this plenary was? Hundreds of people packed in.
LIDY NACPIL: Well, we wanted first to feel our power of solidarity together, so it was a really great opportunity for us to come together in big numbers, such as we’ve not had in this COP because of the whole layout and the rules. So, this was a great celebration of our power together as a movement.
AMY GOODMAN: I think you should explain more. What is the issue here? Why are there so many silent protests? And explain the rules, where you cannot mention a country name. You can’t even say where you’re from.
LIDY NACPIL: Yes, that is one of the rules of the security and the UNFCCC secretariat, in order to protect, they say, the dignity and to protect respect for the different countries and governments of the countries. So we’re not allowed to mention governments. There is a policy that we can’t name and shame, but apparently that also applies to we can’t praise particular governments. So we just can’t name any government, and we can’t even say where we’re from.
But we have been doing our best to use this space to raise our voices on the critical issues that are being discussed here that affects our lives. And one of that is the genocide that’s happening in this world. It’s very much a climate issue, as it is an issue of justice, and also the issue of climate finance, which is supposed to be part of the reparations for the climate debt that is owed to our people in the Global South.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re also joined by Jana Rashed. Jana Rashed is a climate advocate, a Palestinian based in London.
JANA RASHED: Lebanon.
AMY GOODMAN: In?
JANA RASHED: Lebanon.
AMY GOODMAN: In Lebanon.
JANA RASHED: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: You are wearing a keffiyeh.
JANA RASHED: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Inside, it was very moving at the beginning of the session, where the names of hundreds, if not thousands, of Palestinians and Lebanese were put on sheets, and people unfurled them. Talk about why you’re here today and what your message is.
JANA RASHED: Like, I am here today, first of all, to amplify the voices of my people in Palestine and Lebanon, to talk about the genocides that are happening, because we can’t be here talking about climate justice without mentioning the injustices around the world, because it’s also linked with the environment, it’s also linked with the ecocides that is happening. Because of the genocide that is currently happening in both Lebanon and Palestine, the soil are being contaminated because of the bombing. The sea is being contaminated also because of the bombing. So, we can’t be, like — we can’t have this hypocrisy in the world and be here talking about just transition and climate justice without mentioning these injustices.
And we are here as collective Palestinians. There are collective Palestinians that came up with a campaign called Global Energy Embargo for Palestine, where they call — where they are calling countries, such as Brazil, South Africa and Turkey — these countries that claim to support Palestinians, but, on the other hand, they are fueling the genocide, and they are making — like, the fuels come out from their countries to the occupation. So, yeah, we are here demanding to stop fueling genocide, demanding to stop the transportation of the fuel from these countries to the occupation.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re also joined by another climate activist. We’re joined right now by Leena Eisa, who is a climate justice advocate from Sudan. If you can talk about why you’re here today, what you’re trying to accomplish and what Sudan is facing?
LEENA EISA: I’m basically here to speak about Sudan, because no one here talking about Sudan. We are so neglected. Families are separated. Women got raped. And a lot of children lose their lives, according to nothing literally. And the media is not covering us. No one is speaking about us. There’s a genocide happening in there. And my country are bloodying. And even like every region in Sudan are neglected, bloodying. And also, like, the media are blind from us, because no one really care about us. I don’t know why. Is it because we are Black people? But Black people’s lives matter.
And I’m here today to speak up about Sudan, to speak about the women, children, men, the families, all the families that are separated now. We need to stop this war. We need to defund this genocide right now. A lot of countries are supporting this genocide. But no one else — like, no one another is supporting the Sudanese themselves. Like, there is no safety, security and all of this. And we are all here calling, like, we — there’s no one here to — like, we are here not, like, to leave anyone behind. But, unfortunately Sudanese people are behind the table, and we are depending, and no one literally talking about us.
AMY GOODMAN: Leena, I want to thank you so much for standing here and speaking up for your country, for your people. Leena Eisa is a climate justice advocate from Sudan. And I want to thank Lidy Nacpil, longtime climate activist and co-chair of the People’s Plenary that just took place. She is a Filipina climate activist. And I want to thank Jana Rashed, a climate advocate, Palestinian based in Lebanon. We thank you all for being with us.
As we wrap up our show today, we only have a few seconds. We want to also thank Harjeet Singh, who came to this summit from New Delhi, India. Thousands of people have gathered. I think it’s something like 77,000 people are registered for this U.N. climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan. Next year, it will take place in Brazil, in the rainforest, right on the edge.