It May be Genocide, But it Won’t Be Stopped

The ruling by the International Court of Justice was a legal victory for South Africa and the Palestinians, but it will not halt the slaughter.

By Chris Hedges

Source: Scheer Post

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) refused to implement the most crucial demand made by South African jurists: “the State of Israel shall immediately suspend its military operations in and against Gaza.” But at the same time, it delivered a devastating blow to the foundational myth of Israel. Israel, which paints itself as eternally persecuted, has been credibly accused of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Palestinians are the victims, not the perpetrators, of the “crime of crimes.” A people, once in need of protection from genocide, are now potentially committing it. The court’s ruling questions the very raison d’être of the “Jewish State” and challenges the impunity Israel has enjoyed since its founding 75 years ago.  

The ICJ ordered Israel to take six provisional measures to prevent acts of genocide, measures that will be very difficult if not impossible to fulfill if Israel continues its saturation bombing of Gaza and wholesale targeting of vital infrastructure. 

The court called on Israel “to prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to commit genocide.” It demanded Israel “take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance.” It ordered Israel to protect Palestinian civilians. It called on Israel to protect the some 50,000 women giving birth in Gaza. It ordered Israel to take “effective measures to prevent the destruction and ensure the preservation of evidence related to allegations of acts within the scope of Article II and Article III of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide against members of the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip.” 

The court ordered Israel to “take all measures within its power” to prevent the crimes which amount to genocide such as “killing, causing serious bodily and mental harm, inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, and imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.”

Israel was ordered to report back in one month to explain what it had done to implement the provisional measures.

Gaza was pounded with bombs, missiles and artillery shells as the ruling was read in The Hague — at least 183 Palestinians have been killed in the last 24 hours. Since Oct. 7, more than 26,000 Palestinians have been killed. Almost 65,000 have been wounded, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Thousands more are missing. The carnage continues. This is the cold reality. 

Translated into the vernacular, the court is saying Israel must feed and provide medical care for the victims, cease public statements advocating genocide, preserve evidence of genocide and stop killing Palestinian civilians. Come back and report in a month. 

It is hard to see how these provisional measures can be achieved if the carnage in Gaza continues.

“Without a ceasefire, the order doesn’t actually work,” Naledi Pandor, South Africa’s minister of international relations, stated bluntly after the ruling. 

Time is not on the side of the Palestinians. Thousands of Palestinians will die within a month. Palestinians in Gaza make up 80 percent of all the people facing famine or catastrophic hunger worldwide, according to the United Nations. The entire population of Gaza by early February is projected to lack sufficient food, with half a million people suffering from starvation, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, drawing on data from U.N. agencies and NGOs. The famine is engineered by Israel. 

At best, the court — while it will not rule for a few years on whether Israel is committing genocide — has given legal license to use the word “genocide” to describe what Israel is doing in Gaza. This is very significant, but it is not enough, given the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. 

Israel has dropped almost 30,000 bombs and shells on Gaza — eight times more bombs than the U.S. dropped on Iraq during six years of war. It has used hundreds of 2,000-pound bombs to obliterate densely populated areas, including refugee camps. These “bunker buster” bombs have a kill radius of a thousand feet. The Israeli aerial assault is unlike anything seen since Vietnam. Gaza, only 20 miles long and five miles wide, is rapidly becoming, by design, uninhabitable.

Israel will no doubt continue its assault arguing that it is not in violation of the court’s directives. In addition, the Biden administration will undoubtedly veto the resolution at the Security Council demanding Israel implement the provisional measures. The General Assembly, if the Security Council does not endorse the measures, can vote again calling for a ceasefire, but has no power to enforce it. 

Defense for Children International – Palestine v. Biden was filed in November by the Center for Constitutional Rights against President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. The case challenges the U.S. government’s failure to prevent complicity in Israel’s unfolding genocide of the Palestinian people. It asks the court to order the Biden administration to cease diplomatic and military support and comply with its legal obligations under international and federal law. 

The only active resistance to halt the Gaza genocide is provided by Yemen’s Red Sea blockade. Yemen, which was under siege for eight years by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, France, Britain and the U.S., experienced over 400,000 deaths from starvation, lack of health care, infectious diseases and the deliberate bombing of schools, hospitals, infrastructure, residential areas, markets, funerals and weddings. Yemenis know too well — since at least 2017 multiple U.N. agencies have described Yemen as experiencing “the largest humanitarian crisis in the world” — what the Palestinians are enduring. 

Yemen’s resistance — when the history of this genocide is written — will set it apart from nearly every other nation. The rest of the world, including the Arab world, retreats into toothless rhetorical condemnations or actively supports Israel’s obliteration of Gaza and its 2.3 million inhabitants.

The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported that the U.S. has sent 230 cargo planes and 20 ships filled with artillery shells, armored vehicles and combat equipment to Israel since the attacks of Oct. 7, in which some 1,200 Israelis were killed. U.S. weapons and military equipment are being shipped to Israel — which is running out of munitions — from the British base RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, according to the U.K. investigative website Declassified UK. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that more than 40 U.S. and 20 British transport aircraft, along with seven heavy-lift helicopters, have flown into RAF Akrotiri, a 40-minute flight from Tel Aviv. Germany reportedly plans to provide 10,000 rounds of 120mm precision ammunition to Israel. If the court rules against Israel, these countries will be recognized by the world’s most important international court as accomplices to genocide.

The ruling was dismissed by Israeli leaders. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, seeking to paint the decision not to demand a ceasefire as a victory for Israel, said “Like every country, Israel has an inherent right to defend itself. The vile attempt to deny Israel this fundamental right is blatant discrimination against the Jewish state, and it was justly rejected. The charge of genocide leveled against Israel is not only false, it’s outrageous, and decent people everywhere should reject it.”

“The decision of the antisemitic court in The Hague proves what was already known: This court does not seek justice, but rather the persecution of Jewish people,” National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said. “They were silent during the Holocaust and today they continue the hypocrisy and take it another step further.”

The ICJ was founded in 1945 following the Nazi Holocaust. The first case it heard was submitted to the court in 1947.

“Decisions that endanger the continued existence of the State of Israel must not be listened to,” Ben-Gvir added. “We must continue defeating the enemy until complete victory.”

The court, which rejected Israel’s arguments to dismiss the case, acknowledged “that the military operation being conducted by Israel following the attack of 7 October 2023 has resulted, inter alia, in tens of thousands of deaths and injuries and the destruction of homes, schools, medical facilities and other vital infrastructure, as well as displacement on a massive scale.” 

The ruling included a statement made by the U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths, who on Jan. 5, called Gaza “a place of death and despair.” The court document went on:

. . . Families are sleeping in the open as temperatures plummet. Areas where civilians were told to relocate for their safety have come under bombardment. Medical facilities are under relentless attack. The few hospitals that are partially functional are overwhelmed with trauma cases, critically short of all supplies, and inundated by desperate people seeking safety.

A public health disaster is unfolding. Infectious diseases are spreading in overcrowded shelters as sewers spill over. Some 180 Palestinian women are giving birth daily amidst this chaos. People are facing the highest levels of food insecurity ever recorded. Famine is around the corner.

For children in particular, the past 12 weeks have been traumatic: No food. No water. No school. Nothing but the terrifying sounds of war, day in and day out.

Gaza has simply become uninhabitable. Its people are witnessing daily threats to their very existence — while the world watches on.

The court acknowledged that “an unprecedented 93% of the population in Gaza is facing crisis levels of hunger, with insufficient food and high levels of malnutrition. At least 1 in 4 households are facing ‘catastrophic conditions’: experiencing an extreme lack of food and starvation and having resorted to selling off their possessions and other extreme measures to afford a simple meal. Starvation, destitution and death are evident.” 

The ruling, quoting Philippe Lazzarini, the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), continued:

Overcrowded and unsanitary UNRWA shelters have now become ‘home’ to more than 1.4 million people,” the ruling read. “They lack everything, from food to hygiene to privacy. People live in inhumane conditions, where diseases are spreading, including among children. They live through the unlivable, with the clock ticking fast towards famine.

The plight of children in Gaza is especially heartbreaking. An entire generation of children is traumatized and will take years to heal. Thousands have been killed, maimed, and orphaned. Hundreds of thousands are deprived of education. Their future is in jeopardy, with far-reaching and long-lasting consequences.

The court also referred pointedly to comments made by multiple senior Israeli government officials advocating genocide, including the president and minister of defense. Statements made by government and other officials form a crucial element of the “intent” component when seeking to establish the crime of genocide.

It quoted Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant who declared — two days after the Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7 — that he ordered a “complete siege” of Gaza City with “no electricity, no food, no fuel” being permitted. 

“I have released all restraints . . . You saw what we are fighting against. We are fighting human animals. This is the ISIS of Gaza,” Gallant told Israeli troops massing around Gaza the following day. “This is what we are fighting against…Gaza won’t return to what it was before. There will be no Hamas. 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.”

The ICJ quoted Israel’s President Isaac Herzog as saying, “It is not true this rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved. It is absolutely not true. They could have risen up. They could have fought against that evil regime which took over Gaza in a coup d’état. But we are at war. We are at war. We are defending our homes.” Herzog continued “We are protecting our homes. That’s the truth. And when a nation protects its home, it fights. And we will fight until we’ll break their backbone.”

Today’s decision was read out by the ICJ’s current president, Judge Joan Donoghue, an American lawyer who used to work at the U.S. State Department and the Department of the Treasury before she joined the World Court in 2010.

“In the Court’s view, the facts and circumstances mentioned above are sufficient to conclude that at least some of the rights claimed by South Africa and for which it is seeking protection are plausible,” it read. “This is the case with respect to the right of the Palestinians in Gaza to be protected from acts of genocide and related prohibited acts identified in Article III, and the right of South Africa to seek Israel’s compliance with the latter’s obligations under the Convention.”

It is clear from the ruling that the court is fully aware of the magnitude of Israel’s crimes. This makes the decision not to call for the immediate suspension of Israeli military activity in and against Gaza all the more distressing.  

But the court did deliver a devastating blow to the mystique Israel has used since its founding to carry out its settler colonial project against the indigenous inhabitants of historic Palestine. It made the word genocide, when applied to Israel, credible. 

Nonviolent Strategy to Halt the Genocide in Gaza, Liberate Palestine and Defeat the Global Technocracy

By Robert J. Burrowes

In accordance with its long-planned, detailed and comprehensive blueprint labeled ‘The Great Reset’, the Global Elite is currently implementing its program to reshape world order, kill off a substantial proportion of the human population, enclose the Commons ‘forever’, transfer all remaining wealth to the Elite and enslave those left alive in one of their technocratic ‘smart city’ prisons. See ‘We Are Being Smashed Politically, Economically, Medically and Technologically by the Elite’s “Great Reset”: Why? How Do We Fight Back Effectively?’

The methods for killing off people include the mandatory ‘Covid-19’ injection, which has killed at least 17,000,000 people worldwide so far – see ‘Global Study Links 17 Million Deaths to COVID-19 Vaccine, Reveals 0.126% Mortality Rate’ – and manipulation of the world economy, which has killed tens of millions historically, with the death rate now being dramatically accelerated as it is ransacked and dismantled. See Historical Analysis of the Global Elite: Ransacking the World Economy Until ‘You’ll Own Nothing.’

Beyond these methods, there are other more insidious killers such as electromagnetic radiation (with deaths rapidly accelerating as 5G is rolled out) – see ‘Deadly Rainbow: Will 5G Precipitate the Extinction of All Life on Earth?’ – and geoengineered disasters – see ‘Geoengineering Watch’ and the trilogy of books by Elana Freeland culminating in Geoengineered Transhumanism: How the Environment Has Been Weaponized by Chemicals, Electromagnetism & Nanotechnology for Synthetic Biology – as well as old and reliable favorites such as war and genocide currently being illustrated, respectively, by the ongoing war in Ukraine and the genocides against the Amhara in Ethiopia – see ‘We’re Still Breathing: Amhara Genocide in Ethiopia’ – and the Palestinians in Gaza.

While this article will focus on the genocide in Gaza, it is important to recognize that this genocide against the Palestinians – second only in its severity to the original Nabka in 1948 – is simply exploiting longstanding Zionist aspirations to play a key part in fulfilling a wider Elite program.

Thus, in accordance with its Dahiya Doctrine – see ‘The Dahiya Doctrine and Israel’s Use of Disproportionate Force’ – the rapidly developing technocratic state of Israel, financed and weaponized by the United States, is fulfilling its role in the Elite program by genocidally attacking the Palestinian population of Gaza to kill as many people as possible – see ‘Law for Palestine Releases Database with 500+ Instances of Israeli Incitement to Genocide – Continuously Updated’ – displace the remainder and fully technocratize Gaza.

Since long before its establishment on Palestinian land in 1948, Zionists committed to creating a Jewish homeland (‘Israel’) have wanted the entire land (and resources) of Palestine; they have never wanted the people. For brief accounts, see ‘The long history of Zionist proposals to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip’, ‘The War in Gaza: It’s Not About Hamas. It’s About Demographics’ and Amir Nour’s five-part series culminating in ‘The War on Gaza, Part V: How We Got to the “Monstrosity of Our Century”’.

For detailed scholarly treatments, see Professor Nur Masalha’s Expulsion Of The Palestinians: The Concept Of Transfer In Zionist Political Thought 1882-1948, Professor Walid Khalidi’s books All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948 and Palestine Reborn, Professor Rashid Khalidi’s The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonial Conquest and Resistance as well as the classic Israeli work on the subject by Professor Ilan Pappé The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.

If you prefer watching film, this four-part series does an excellent job with archival footage to also illustrate the long history of Zionist planning, political manipulation and imperial collusion that generated and maintains the extraordinary violence inflicted on the people of Palestine. See ‘Al-Nabka: The Palestinian catastrophe – Episodes 1-4’.

But whichever way(s) you acquire a deeper understanding of what has taken place and why it is still taking place, several things will become clear. Most notably for me was (again) perceiving the sheer terror and insanity (and thus warped worldview and predisposition to violence) of those ‘behind’ the entire enterprise from the beginning right through to those responsible for imposing it now. I have discussed this issue many times previously, including here: ‘The Global Elite is Insane Revisited’.

And if you would like to read the 23 emotional characteristics that define the psychological profile of ‘archetype perpetrators of violence’ (such as people like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and the Elite figures who put people like this in place), you can do so in the document ‘Why Violence?’ pp.12-15.

This partly explains why the amount of time it takes to kill or displace the bulk of the Palestinian population is of no consequence to Elite agents, including the Israeli and US governments, despite some authors expressing concern that the death of Israeli soldiers is costing the Israeli government support for its genocidal invasion. See ‘Industrial Killing of Civilians in Gaza Won’t Defeat the Armed Insurgency’.

This is because it is neither the Israeli government nor the government of the United States orchestrating this genocide, even though it appears to constitute the latest manifestation of C19th Zionist aspirations to create a Jewish ‘homeland’ in an ethnically cleansed Palestine. Hence, what the respective electorates of Israel and the United States think of this genocide is inconsequential to their governments. The governments answer to a higher power.

Moreover, beyond killing or displacing the Palestinian population, the Israeli government will pursue one of two possible courses of action (or a combination of both): it will facilitate construction of the Ben Gurion Canal through Gaza – as discussed in ‘Will Palestine Ever Be Free? Understanding Elite Strategy in the Global Context’ – and/or it will impose the necessary ‘smart city’ technologies on the predominantly Israeli-settler population that they intend will be living in Gaza when the war is concluded – see ‘As genocide unfolds, Israel settlers plan “dream” beach house in Gaza’ and ‘Israeli company announce controversial housing project in devastated Gaza’ – and the inevitable technocratic rebuilding commences. See ‘Palestine: “Peace to Prosperity” Through Technocracy’.

Having written that, however, it is worth noting that Gaza was already significantly technocratized, with several studies documenting that fact. See The Reality of Gaza Strip Cities towards the Smart City’s Concept. A Case Study: Khan Younis City’, ‘The Smart City of Gaza: Technologies of Containment and the Urban Condition’ and ‘Why The Gaza Strip May Be The City Of The Future’.

But with Elite plans for all cities extensively documented in the ‘smart city’ literature readily available, there remains much more to make Gaza, particularly following its recent substantial destruction, into the technocratic prison that Elite planners envisage for us all.

This was highlighted by Elon Musk’s latest visit to Israel to discuss ‘the operation of Starlink satellite internet in Gaza’ with Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog, during which it was made clear that deployment of the satellites – a critical foundation stone that enables creation of the new technocratic surveillance and control-oriented ‘smart cities’ – is already being planned even while the genocide is still being conducted and whatever ‘humanitarian’ slant might be attached to their deployment in the short-term. The agreement between Musk’s company SpaceX and Israel allows the company’s Starlink Internet satellites to operate in the Gaza Strip ‘with the approval of the Israeli ministry of communication’. See ‘Has Power of Starlink Turned Elon Musk Into Tech Oligarch?’ and Elon Musk’s Power as Geopolitical Arbiter Signals “Decay” of US State’.

Given that Israel agreed to it and there is no record of any Palestinian being consulted on this development, it is a straightforward conclusion that the satellites will be used to enhance Israeli surveillance and control (which is already substantial) of Gaza – see ‘The Weapons Israel Tests on Palestinians Will be Used Against All of Us’ – and will, for example, presumably include deployment of AI-controlled machine guns, like those already deployed in the West Bank. See ‘Israel deploys AI-powered robot guns that can track targets in the West Bank’.

After all, even with Gaza largely populated by Israeli settlers, Elite plans to imprison us all in ‘smart’ cities means that there is no distinction between Palestinians and ‘ordinary’ Israelis when it comes to how the future population of Gaza will be treated.

If you would like to read an account of how the televised genocide in Gaza is being used to advance the Elite program – including the extensive interests of the Rothschild family – while some sections of the world (including the UN, various national leaders, some Islamic and Arabic organizations and members of the protesting public) complain powerlessly, even while Hamas and its allies within Gaza and the West Bank as well as in the Axis of Resistance (Iran, Syria, the Ansar Allah [Houthis] in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq) offer military resistance, you can do so in this article: ‘Will Palestine Ever Be Free? Understanding Elite Strategy in the Global Context’.

But before departing this subject, what about those who argue that Israel is already suffering, or at least facing, strategic defeat in Gaza? See ‘What Does Pentagon Chief’s Warning of Israeli “Strategic Defeat” Mean?’ and ‘Israel Headed for Strategic Defeat in Gaza’.

The problem is simple. Whether in politics or in other domains, while listening to what people say it is imperative to observe what they do. While articles such as these document a range of actors from the US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, prominent actors in West Asia such as Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and others in key Arab and Muslim states suggesting what Israel should do to end the genocide, none of them is willing to take any action that would force Israel’s hand, such as cut off weapons supplies, or even take action that would seriously impede Israel’s genocidal assault. The unspoken message to Israel is as follows: ‘We will make ourselves look good by calling on you Israelis to take some token action to end the genocide but we won’t get in your way. So go ahead.’

And it has never troubled the Elite (and thus its agents) about what might appear to be happening. To reiterate, it is no ‘strategic defeat’ for Israel, as some commentators have argued, or even a ‘political defeat of Israel on the global stage’ because it ignored ‘the fundamental precepts of international humanitarian law’ and allowed itself ‘to be characterized as a practitioner of genocide, and its actions against Gaza as war crimes’. See ‘Israel Headed for Strategic Defeat in Gaza’.

So why don’t these issues concern the Elite and its agents? The answer is simple: As explained below, at the superficial level, the Elite knows that it cannot be held accountable (and it can protect those of its agents that it chooses for as long as it chooses). But there is a more fundamental reason which I will explain after briefly elaborating why the Elite knows it cannot be held accountable.

First, international law is a toothless tiger. Moreover, there is no national jurisdiction that can hold the Elite accountable either. The Elite is immune from prosecution in any court, anywhere.

Which means that even when international law is violated by Elite agents, efforts to prosecute them will fail. See ICJ Application Instituting Proceedings by South Africa against Israel in Gaza’, ‘South Africa’s Charges of Genocide Against Israel: The World Court Judges’ Vote Is Political, Not Legal. Neither “Evidence” Nor “Law” (The Genocide Convention) Will Convict Israel’, Westerners believe in international law but there’s really no such thing’ and ‘The Criminalization of International Justice [both the ICJ & the ICC], Putting an End to the Genocide against the People of Palestine. Nuremberg Principle IV. Disobey Unlawful Orders, Abandon the Battlefield under Principle IV of the Nuremberg Charter’.

Second, the United Nations is powerless to enforce its resolutions when they run counter to Elite interests. See ‘UN General Assembly votes by large majority for immediate humanitarian ceasefire [in Gaza] during emergency session’. Who is paying attention to this resolution?

Third, public opinion is worth nothing when merely expressed in the form of statements, petitions and demonstrations. See ‘The Elite Coup to Kill or Enslave Us: Why Can’t Governments, Legal Actions and Protests Stop Them?’

So don’t be impressed/deceived by governments ‘calling for a ceasefire’ or its various equivalents, UN resolutions, scholars and others signing statements, calls for accountability under international law and large numbers of people signing petitions or protesting. Whatever the level of revulsion expressed, history teaches us that such actions mean nothing but are useful in convincing the ill-informed wider public that ‘something is being done’. It isn’t.

And this brings us to the most fundamental issue: For the Elite, ‘winning’ or ‘losing’ in limited contexts such as Gaza is not important. Killing as many people as possible, enslaving those left alive (these days, technocratically), redistributing wealth and reshaping world order to enhance Elite control are the desired outcomes. As has been the case for the past 230 years at least.

This is why, for example, the United States has been engaged in perpetual war since World War II, has conducted a wide range of coups d’état (‘regime changes’) or otherwise militarily intervened in other countries. See Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II.

But it hasn’t mattered, from the Elite perspective, when the US lost, as it did in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. See Despite Trillions Spent, the US Military Hasn’t Won a Real War Since 1945’.

The point is this: These wars killed millions of people (mainly civilians), enslaved many people (by forcing them into the periphery of the world economy), transferred enormous wealth to the Elite in a wide range of ways and consolidated Elite control. So it matters nought to the Elite if the US government is $34trillion dollars in debt – see US Debt Clock – and much of the US population impoverished.

But to return our attention to Gaza: If you want an accurate understanding of what is actually being done, just keep an eye out for any individual, government, international organization or other entity taking action that actually impedes the genocide and/or moves Palestine closer to liberation.

By this measure, the actions of Ansar Allah in Yemen – see ‘The Houthis Have Biden By the Shorthairs’ – and Hezbollah in Lebanon – see ‘Hezbollah Hit Israeli Gatherings on Border with Rockets, Artillery & Drones’ – constitute the forefront of solidarity action, in the military realm, being taken by third parties in defence of Palestine.

And people participating in the ongoing Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement – see ‘Act Now Against These Companies Profiting from the Genocide of the Palestinian People’ – are leading the resistance to the Israeli occupation and genocide in the nonviolent realm, although a great deal more needs to be done in this realm for it to have the strategic impact necessary to succeed.

My point is straightforward: After documenting ‘this catastrophe for the Palestinians’, long-time and highly regarded scholar Professor John Mearsheimer poses ‘one simple question for Israel’s leaders, their American defenders, and the Biden administration: have you no decency?’ See ‘Death and Destruction in Gaza’.

The answer, of course, is ‘no’. Elite agents, whether in Israel or the US (or elsewhere), do as they are directed, and morality of any kind is not a consideration. If wars and genocides throughout history, including the C20th, have taught us anything, it is that ‘decency’ is not a factor that enters into Elite deliberations when mass killing is organized and perpetrated to serve Elite ends. And anyone with a cursory knowledge of history and the capacity to analyze should know this too.

Because what other conclusion can be drawn from 5,000 years of war, genocide, human sacrifice, slavery, imperialism, colonialism, exploitation in a vast range of ways, and all of the other forms of violence? See ‘We Are Being Smashed Politically, Economically, Medically and Technologically by the Elite’s “Great Reset”: Why? How Do We Fight Back Effectively?’

The truly great tragedy is that vast numbers of ‘ordinary’ people, as emotionally-damaged as the Elite agents who ‘order them into battle’, carry out the orders they are given without reflection, as Israeli soldiers in Gaza are doing now. See Why Violence? and Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice.

In essence, if the primary objectives of Hamas – notably including statehood for Palestine, the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails and an end to Israeli settler and police incursions into the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem: see the Hamas document ‘Our Narrative… Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ – are used as the measure of progress (as they should be), then the results are little short of catastrophic so far.

How even ‘winning’ the war in Gaza, assuming this ultimately occurs, achieves Palestinian statehood is problematic, to put it mildly; so far only about 240 Palestinian detainees and prisoners out of 5,000 – see ‘Statistics on Palestinians in Israeli custody’ – have been released in exchange for over 100 Israeli hostages; and there is no mention in anything I have read that suggests that any progress has been made on putting in place a protocol for ending Israeli civilian and police incursions into the al-Aqsa mosque, with the latest Good Shepherd Collective report advising ‘Settlers continue with their program to change the status quo at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, with armed incursions.’ See ‘Weekly Report’.

So the only clear tangible gain for Hamas so far (in relation to its apparent objectives) is some 240 released prisoners.

The cost, on the other hand, is in excess of 30,000 deaths (of mainly children and women), the kidnapping of nearly 3,000 Palestinian civilians – including children and women – as part of Israel’s policy of ‘enforced disappearances’, the substantial physical destruction of Gaza including much of its key infrastructure as well as sites of profound historical and cultural significance including the al-Omari (Great) Mosque (which was of comparable age to al-Aqsa), ‘the destruction of countless olive groves’, contamination of aquifers and the environmental degradation of Gaza creating an ‘unlivable hellscape’. See On 100th day of Gaza genocide: 100,000 Palestinians killed, missing or wounded, ‘1,000 children have undergone amputations without anaesthesia in Gaza’, ‘Israel required by law to reveal the fate of dozens of women arrested in Gaza, intl. community must investigate images and claims of torture, harassment’, ‘The wanton destruction of mosques and churches’, ‘Israel’s war on Gaza silences its historic mosques’, ‘The Killing of Gaza’s Environment: Or How to Create an Unlivable Hellscape on One Strip of Land’ and ‘In Gaza, Israel has turned water into a weapon of mass destruction’.

And while there is the intangible gain of considerably greater sympathy for the Palestinian plight among the general public around the world, the bulk of this support is being frittered away on appeals that will have no consequence, such as the signing of public statements directed at Elite agents – see for example, ‘Public Statement: Scholars Warn of Potential Genocide in Gaza’ and ‘International Coalition of Human Rights and Antiwar Organizations forms to Demand End to Genocide in Palestine’ – and on demonstrations, again directed at Elite agents, such as the hundreds that have occurred widely around the world already. See ‘Pro-Palestine protests held around the world as Gaza war nears 100 days’.

The strategic reality is that halting the genocide in Gaza and, ultimately, liberating Palestine while also defeating imposition of the global technocracy which this conflict is facilitating, will not be achieved by such tactics.

Similarly, the tactics articulated by various Palestinian groups such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine which called for ‘weekly global strikes’ – see ‘PFLP calls for weekly global strikes on Mondays’ – or the Gaza Coalition which called for a ‘general range of actions’ – see ‘Escalate the Struggle against 75 Days of Genocide NOW: #CeasefireNow #EndTheSiege’ – have no value, in a strategic sense, unless they also are used to mobilize strategically-oriented resistance.

And the genocide will not be halted, Palestine liberated or the advancing global technocracy impeded by those solidarity groups, such as Palestine Action in the UK, that campaign against Elbit (Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer) by encouraging secretive acts of sabotage by individuals or small ‘cells’ – see ‘The Underground Manual’ – despite occasional apparent ‘victories’. See ‘Palestine Action Campaign Leads to Fisher German Ending Ties with Elbit’.

Nor can anything worthwhile be achieved by groups such ‘It’s Going Down’ in the United States, despite their admirable intentions. See ‘Lacey, WA: Report Back From “Blockade The Genocide” Action’ and ‘Amazon Construction Site Disrupted By Pro-Palestine Activists In Central Point, Oregon’.

Halting the Genocide in Gaza and Ending the Occupation of Palestine using Nonviolent Strategy

If the genocide is to be halted and the occupation ended, it will require a substantial mobilization of people to participate in a comprehensive strategically-oriented campaign that precisely identifies the tactics to be undertaken (not just a random list of actions) and, as the historical record demonstrates, not by using secrecy and sabotage in their execution. For detailed explanations of these points, see The Strategy of Nonviolent Defense: A Gandhian Approach.

Before proceeding, if you doubt that a nonviolent strategy can halt a genocide in progress, you can read a solid account of when this has occurred historically and how it was accomplished in the section titled ‘Nonviolent Defense Against an Extremely Ruthless Opponent’ on pp.238-245 of the book just cited.

But if we are able to mobilize enough people to halt the genocide, we will be in a stronger position to keep struggling to end the occupation as well so, strategically speaking, it is useful to see these two political purposes as related.

And while defeating the attempt to impose a global technocracy on us all will require a worldwide mobilization far beyond what has even begun yet, success in Palestine could bolster these efforts. After all, what is happening in Gaza is coming to us all, one way or another, although few people are aware of this yet.

Anyway, to illustrate what both a nonviolent strategy to halt the genocidal assault by Israel against Gaza and a nonviolent strategy to liberate Palestine would entail, I have reproduced below just nineteen ‘consolidated’ strategic goals, written in a form appropriate for this particular context, taken from the comprehensive but generalized list of 50 Strategic Goals for Defeating a Genocidal Assault’.

In most cases, I have also briefly explained the value of that strategic goal and perhaps offered examples, either historically or in the current context, where tactics in pursuit of that goal have been undertaken.

Identification of the strategic goals is one component of a comprehensive nonviolent strategy explained on the website Nonviolent Defense/Liberation Strategy. You can see a diagram illustrating all twelve components of a comprehensive nonviolent strategy here: Nonviolent Strategy Wheel. And you can read a brief explanation of why nonviolent action is so powerful here: ‘Nonviolent Action: Why and How it Works’.

This incomplete/consolidated list of strategic goals is based on principles not explained here but carefully elaborated on the website just identified. Needless to say, it is a straightforward task to consult the full list of strategic goals (to halt a genocide or liberate an occupied country) and reword each of the remaining goals to make it appropriate to the Palestinian situation and nominate the specific groups that should be mentioned where appropriate.

And, for example, the American Friends Service Committee has compiled a valuable resource that can be used in planning this strategy by identifying ‘The [Weapons] Companies Profiting from Israel’s 2023 Attack on Gaza’.

Thus, just nineteen strategic goals that would contribute both to defeating Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza and liberating Palestine (which conform to the formula described on the website) are listed below (with brief explanations and historical examples where appropriate). It should be noted, however, that the list would be considerably longer as individual organizations – such as each organization involved in inciting, facilitating, organizing, conducting and/or benefiting from the genocide (for whatever reason but including national and religious groups with competing perspectives as well as corporations involved in media, banking and resource extraction) – should be specified separately.

Of course, individual groups within the defense would usually accept responsibility for focusing their work on achieving just one or two of the strategic goals. It is the responsibility of the struggle’s strategic leadership to ensure that each of the strategic goals (identified and prioritized according to local circumstances) is being addressed (or to prioritize if resource limitations require this).

If there is no identified strategic leadership, individuals and local groups should proceed to tackle those strategic goals most relevant to their circumstances, interests and capacities.

(1) To cause the people of Palestine (men, women and children) to identify their support for, and participation in, the Palestinian resistance strategy by wearing a symbol of Palestinian unity (a keffiyeh, as a head covering or scarf, or the colors of the Palestinian flag: black, white, green and red) and by boycotting all corporate/government media and social media outlets that support the genocide in Gaza and/or the occupation of Palestine.

For this item and many subsequent, see the list of possible actions in the article ‘198 Tactics of Nonviolent Action’.

(2) To cause the people of Israel (men, women and children) to identify their solidarity with the people of Palestine and opposition to the genocide and occupation by wearing a symbol of solidarity (a keffiyeh, as a head covering or scarf, or the colors of the Palestinian flag: black, white, green and red) and by boycotting all corporate/government media and social media outlets that support the genocide in Gaza and/or the occupation of Palestine.

Government and corporate media and social media have long been used to control the narrative regarding what is happening in Palestine. If you choose to boycott these outlets, in favor of outlets committed to telling you the truth, you play a valuable role in holding media that lies accountable and supporting those telling the truth who are often suppressed.

(3) To cause people elsewhere in the world (men, women and children) to identify their solidarity with the people of Palestine and opposition to the genocide and occupation by wearing a symbol of solidarity (a keffiyeh, as a head covering or scarf, or the colors of the Palestinian flag: black, white, green and red) and by boycotting all corporate/government media and social media outlets that support the genocide in Gaza and/or the occupation of Palestine.

With virtually all government and corporate media and social media owned and/or controlled by Elite agents and much of it acting on behalf of powerful Israeli interests, Gaza’s inhabitants have been treated as nonpersons for decades ‘and daily life in Gaza as non-news’. Consequently, the ‘shameful legacy of narrow, pro-Israel coverage indirectly laid the groundwork for the atrocious human suffering taking place there now.’ See ‘How Corporate Media Helped Lay the Groundwork for Israel’s Genocide in Gaza’, ‘Are social media giants censoring pro-Palestine voices amid Israel’s war?’ and, for an example, ‘Facebook Approved an Israeli Ad Calling for Assassination of Pro-Palestine Activist [in the USA].

(4) To cause young people in Israel to resist conscription and recruitment into the military, police, intelligence services and other forces/organizations inciting, facilitating, organizing and/or conducting the genocide or maintaining the occupation of Palestine.

This is already happening, given long-standing and significant Israeli opposition to the occupation but it would be invaluable to focus more effort in this realm. See ‘“Youth Against Dictatorship”: Meet Israel’s new class of conscientious objectors’ and watch ‘Young Israelis refuse to participate in Gaza “genocide”’.

For example, prior to the current genocide and despite four stints in prison, 19-year-old Israeli woman Hallel Rabin resolutely stood her ground, refusing to serve in the Israeli army occupying Palestine. This article includes a video of Rabin speaking eloquently about her reasons for resisting. See ‘Refusing to serve in the army is my small act of making change’.

Just recently and despite knowing he would be imprisoned, 18-year-old Tal Mitnick conscientiously chose jail rather than being responsible for killing Palestinians in Gaza. See ‘“I refuse to take part in a revenge war”: Israel jails teen for opposing army draft’.

And despite the risk of a significant jail sentence, Ariel Davidov, a 19-year-old Israeli ‘refusenik’ believes that ‘not joining the army is one of the most effective things you can do’ to ‘end the cycle of violence’. See ‘Why Israeli army refusers are crucial to ending the cycle of violence’.

These intelligent and conscientious young people are far from alone and highlight the possibilities open to those of us who choose to mobilize an effective nonviolent resistance to violence, wherever it occurs in the world.

We just need their commitment and courage.

(5) To cause soldiers, airmen, sailors, intelligence personnel, drone pilots and others in the Israeli military to refuse to obey orders that will lead to the arrest, assault, torture, shooting, bombing and other forms of harm to Palestinians, medical personnel, foreign aid workers, journalists, solidarity activists and others in Palestine.

There are precedents of conscientious objection at various levels in Israel where the human right to conscientious objection is only allowed in extremely limited circumstances. See, for example, ‘Who are the Israeli refuseniks who refuse to fight the Palestinians in Gaza’.

Of course, the right and duty to make decisions based on conscience were enshrined in international law a long time ago, including in Principle IV of the Nuremberg Charter: ‘The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of [their] Government or of a superior does not relieve [them] from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to [them]’. See ‘Principles of International Law Recognized in the Charter of the Nürnberg Tribunal and in the Judgment of the Tribunal 1950’.

The importance and potential of military personnel (and anyone involved in the genocide) making moral choices has been discussed by Professor Michel Chossudovsky as part of a review of what he identifies as ‘the criminalization of international justice’ during the US-sponsored Israeli genocide in Gaza. See The Criminalization of International Justice, Putting an End to the Genocide against the People of Palestine. Nuremberg Principle IV. Disobey Unlawful Orders, Abandon the Battlefield under Principle IV of the Nuremberg Charter’.

And the historical record demonstrates that dialogue and nonviolent action designed to convince troops to disobey their orders have sometimes been successful. For example, it was a vital element of the Czechoslovakian resistance to the Warsaw Pact invasion during 1968, it was the defining feature of the nonviolent revolution in the Philippines in 1986, it was the crucial factor in thwarting the Chinese government’s first attempt to clear Tiananmen Square on 20 May 1989, and it was fundamental to the defeat of the Soviet coup in 1991. See The Strategy of Nonviolent Defense: A Gandhian Approach. pp.256-8.

Individuals in Israel who make such conscience-based choices are supported by Mesarvot, one of the organizations that supports Israeli ‘refuseniks’ in a campaign against the occupation of Palestine.

[An earlier organization – Yesh Gvul (‘There is a limit’) – was founded in 1982 ‘as a political movement aimed at supporting refuseniks and conscientious objectors’. It now appears to be inactive.]

But the potential for something more significant might be inferred from this article by Shimri Zameret, a soldier who conscientiously resisted participation in the Israeli military response to the Palestinian second Intifada, spending 21 months in prison as a result, and now comments on disquiet within the military for the anti-democratic ‘reforms’ pursued by Netanyahu in 2023. See ‘A mass wave of Israeli army refusal could be a transformative moment’.

Zameret and many others are part of another organization – the Refuser Solidarity Network – that also supports soldiers opposed to the occupation and the policies (genocidal and otherwise) that derive from it.

A version of resistance of this type – not reported as based on conscience or international law – has just occurred when ‘half the soldiers of an Israeli reserve battalion refused to fight in the Gaza Strip and were released from duty by their commander… after the army tried to send them to fight and carry out combat missions within Gaza for which they were not qualified or adequately equipped’. See ‘Israeli reserve soldiers refuse to fight in Gaza: Half a brigade was released from duty after complaining of poor training and lack of weapons before deployment to Gaza’.

In any case, there is enough evidence of disquiet among young Israeli conscripts and serving soldiers (and possibly personnel in other services, such as the intelligence services) concerned about participating in the genocide and occupation to make it strategically worthwhile for people, whether in Israel or elsewhere, to contact serving personnel with encouragement to consider their conscience about the moral path in this context and offers to listen while they deliberate.

(6) To cause the private military contractors (mercenaries) employed by the Israeli Army to refuse to participate in the genocide in Gaza and/or in maintenance of the occupation.

One way in which Israel minimizes Israeli deaths in Gaza (and conceals the extent of the overall death toll) is by employing mercenaries to fight on the front line of the genocide. See ‘Israel’s use of thousands of foreign mercenaries in attacks on Gaza sparks debate’.

According to one source, there are an estimated 28,000 mercenaries in the Israeli military. This constitutes a heavy drain on the Israeli economy, which is now being threatened by various measures. See ‘Gaza Exhausted Israel’s Economy’.

Apart from efforts to dissuade foreign soldiers from joining the Israeli military, increasing pressure on the Israeli economy will make it difficult for ordinary Israelis impacted – as Mohandas K. Gandhi understood the Indian boycott of cloth imports from Manchester in defence of the indigenous khadi industry would make it difficult for workers in England – but the Israeli leadership will endeavour to hold out against enormous pressure as it will be directed to do. Nevertheless, there are many measures that can be taken, including those outlined below, to keep this pressure building.

(7) To cause the officers in the Israeli police and Shin Bet (the security agency) in Israel to refuse to obey orders to inflict violence on Israeli nonviolent activists and to arrest, assault, torture and shoot Palestinians, medical personnel, foreign aid workers, journalists, solidarity activists and others in Palestine.

Again, there are many historical precedents around the world of police refusing orders to inflict violence on populations they police, including during the lockdowns imposed as part of the restrictions enforced under the recent Covid-19 regime. See ‘Policing the Elite’s Technocracy: How Do We Resist This Effectively?’

And there is already substantial dissatisfaction within the Israeli Police for various reasons, leading significant numbers to leave the force. A key reason for the dissatisfaction is that senior officers are often abusive of lower ranks (in various ways) and, whether in the police or Shin Bet, punishment of these officers is virtually non-existent (or trivial when it happens). See ‘Why do so many Israel Police officers quit?’

Nevertheless, there is enormous pressure on Israeli activists against the genocide and occupation with police beatings and recent bans on protests just two of the hurdles. See ‘Israel Police Bars Protests Against Gaza War, Citing Inability to Protect Public, Prevent Violence’.

Despite this, key personnel in the Israeli anti-occupation movement are not bowed as the short video of 23-year-old Gaia Dan clearly demonstrates. See ‘Police Are Beating and Arresting Anti-Zionists in Israel’s “Coexistence” Capital: Israeli authorities are trying to stamp out Haifa’s anti-occupation bloc’.

Fortunately, the long legacy of nonviolent struggle in extremely violent contexts has much to teach nonviolent activists about dealing powerfully with such situations. This article offers 20 ideas of use in both the Israeli and Palestinian contexts: ‘Nonviolent Action: Minimizing the Risk of Violent Repression’.

Not every police or Shin Bet officer will follow orders to be violent unthinkingly. Our challenge is to amplify their inclination to do what is right, irrespective of the orders they are given.

(8) To cause military personnel in the military forces of Israeli-allied countries including the United States, the United Kingdom and elsewhere to refuse deployment to the conflict zone near Israel and Palestine.

In immediate response to Israel’s attack on Gaza, the United States deployed military forces – including two aircraft carrier strike groups, a range of aircraft and troops – to the Middle East. See ‘2,000 US Troops Ordered to Prepare for Deployment in Growing Response to Israel War with Hamas’.

Since then, the United States has set up and deployed ‘Operation Prosperity Guardian’, a multinational coalition supposedly intended ‘to help protect merchant ships in the Red Sea area from drones and missiles’ fired by Yemen’s Ansar Allah against vessels perceived to be supporting, directly or indirectly, Israel’s attacks on Gaza. See ‘US unveils international force to defend Red Sea. Here’s what we know’.

But deployments of this nature increase the risk of the war escalating in Palestine or expanding into the region, as the US foreign policy elite has long planned – see Expanding Middle East War. Planned US-Israeli Attack on Iran, the War on Energy, Strategic Waterways’ – and is now happening. See Three Hours of Fire and Fury: How US and UK Unleashed Over 100 Missiles on More Than 60 Houthi Targets Using Jets, Warships and a Sub in Meticulously Planned Strikes on Iran-backed Rebels in Yemen’.

This can also be resisted by people, including anti-war activists, in the various countries (the United States, United Kingdom, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles and Spain) that are deploying troops and weapons systems to the region by taking targeted nonviolent action against weapons producers and the troops facing deployment to the region. As always, see the list of possible actions in the article ‘198 Tactics of Nonviolent Action’.

(9) To cause members of trade unions and professional associations, activist groups, religious bodies, women’s organizations, student bodies, consumer groups and ethnic groups, as well as artists, musicians, intellectuals and members of other key social groups in Israel to resist the genocide and the occupation by encouraging their members to boycott all government/corporate media and social media that support the genocide or occupation and to withdraw their labor [temporarily/permanently] from any organization complicit in the genocide and/or occupation.

It is clear that there is disagreement among key Israelis about the genocide in Gaza and this is already manifesting. For example, lawyer and human rights activist Michael Sfard, ‘on behalf of a group of lawyers and Israeli public figures, sent a letter to Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara requesting that she take measures against public figures and officials, including lawmakers, who called for the annihilation of Palestinians in Gaza and ethnic cleansing.’ See ‘Israeli judiciary accused of silence concerning incitement to violence by officials against Palestinians: Lawyer. Michael Sfard says Attorney General does not care about incitement against Palestinians’.

And while loudly condemned by most of his fellow MPs in the Israeli Knesset, Ofer Cassif had the courage to sign a petition in support of the hearing at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza. In response to his widespread condemnation, Cassif noted ‘I will not give up the fight for our existence as a moral society. This is true patriotism…’. See ‘Balls of Steel’.

While it will clearly take stronger actions than these to halt the genocide, like the efforts of those young Israelis resisting conscription into the Israeli military, they are undertaken by those who have a conscience and the courage to live it and all movements for justice are built on such individuals.

No doubt Israel has plenty more yet and one of our tasks is to encourage Israelis to act and support them when they do. There are plenty of people in the United States and elsewhere who could usefully focus some effort on contacting Israelis they know and encouraging them to take a conscientious stand (and perhaps listen supportively while any individual considers such a course).

As mentioned above, there are trade unions, professional associations, religious bodies, women’s organizations and a great many other groups in Israel that can be approached to ask their members to boycott media supporting the genocide/occupation and to consider withdrawing their labor from organizations that are complicit.

The wider the resistance is spread, the less pressure there is on any one individual.

(10) To cause members of trade unions and professional associations, activist groups, religious bodies, women’s organizations, student bodies, consumer groups and ethnic groups, as well as artists, musicians, intellectuals and members of other key social groups in countries in which governments are complicit in the genocide (including the USA, UK, Germany and other European countries particularly) to resist the genocide and the occupation by encouraging their members to boycott all government/corporate media and social media that support the genocide or occupation and to withdraw their labor [temporarily/permanently] from any organization complicit in the genocide and/or occupation.

Just one of many examples where such noncooperation is now occurring is in the United States government where both Administration and Congressional staffers who are distressed by the genocide are clearly expressing their dissent – see ‘U.S. diplomats slam Israel policy in leaked memo’ – two have already resigned rather than be complicit ‘in Biden’s fervent support for the war’ – see ‘War on Gaza: Internal anger with Biden and Congress reaches boiling point’ – and hundreds of federal employees across 22 federal agencies were due to walkout to observe a ‘Day of Mourning’ to mark 100 days of Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza. See ‘US government employees plan walkout over Biden’s Gaza policies’.

The point is that this discontent is everywhere and, at some point, the more courageous will act and inspire many around them, whatever organization in which they work.

And other forms of resistance that are especially effective in that particular context can be considered. Again, for inspiration, consider ‘198 Tactics of Nonviolent Action’.

(11) To cause members of trade unions and labor organizations, activist groups, religious bodies, women’s organizations, student bodies, consumer groups and ethnic groups, as well as artists, musicians, intellectuals and members of other key social groups in countries in which governments are complicit in the genocide (including the USA, UK, Germany and other European countries particularly) to resist the genocide and the occupation by encouraging their members to boycott those products that are extracted (or produced) and exported by corporations acting in concert with the Israeli government.

Notably, in this category, Israel is using corporations such as Siemens and Chevron to extract gas from the eastern Mediterranean – see ‘Siemens and Chevron: Stop Fueling Apartheid and Climate Disaster’ – and, as some authors have explained previously, yet another part of the long-standing plan behind the current genocide is undoubtedly to enable Israeli seizure of the gigantic Leviathan maritime natural gas reserves in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Gaza. See ‘“Wiping Gaza Off The Map”: Big Money Agenda. Confiscating Palestine’s Maritime Natural Gas Reserves’.

While Felicity Arbuthnot, in the 2013 article just cited, nominated the interest of the BG Group in Gaza’s gas and oil reserves, in early 2016, the BG Group became part of Shell Global. See Combining Shell and BG: a simpler and more profitable company’.

Of course, Shell has been a Rothschild corporation since the very early 20th century. According to the Rothschild Archive: ‘As it turned out, Rothschilds had a decisive influence in shaping Royal Dutch Shell, more so than anyone had previously imagined.’ See ‘Searching for oil in Roubaix’. But Shell does not represent the only Rothschild investment in energy supplies.

Consequently, widespread and persistent consumer boycotts that target Shell, Chevron (for which the key brand names are Texaco and Caltex) and Siemens products could play a valuable role in compelling these corporations, and their Elite owners, to reconsider their role in sponsoring the genocide and occupation.

(12) To cause people in your country to boycott Israel as a tourist destination.

The genocide in Gaza has had a significant, adverse impact on the Israeli economy. See ‘Gaza Exhausted Israel’s Economy’. Causing people to boycott Israel as a tourist destination (in favor of traveling elsewhere) is an effective way to reduce Israeli government finance available for the genocide and occupation.

An important subset of this, which focuses more on removing the apparent legitimacy attached to Israeli institutions, is advocated by the BDS Movement and involves the encouragement of academics, prominent entertainers, cultural figures (such as writers and artists) and sportspeople to boycott Israel. See Academic Boycott’ and Cultural Boycott. Individuals in this category can set a powerful example for their colleagues/fans.

In her own variation on what the BDS Movement encourages, popular Bosnian author Lana Bastasic has taken a huge cut in earnings to express her solidarity with Palestine. See ‘Author’s split with German publisher over “silence on Gaza” causes her huge loss of earnings’.

(13) To cause the workers in the trade unions and professional associations that work for individual weapons corporations (such as Elbit Systems, Rafael, Lockheed Martin and Boeing) that supply weapons to the Israeli military to withdraw their labor [partially/wholly], [temporarily/permanently].

The American Friends Service Committee has compiled a valuable resource identifying ‘The [Weapons] Companies Profiting from Israel’s 2023 Attack on Gaza’.

Thus, whether in relation to an Israeli weapons corporation, such as Elbit Systems and Rafael, or a weapons corporation in the US, the UK, Germany or other countries that supply weapons to Israel, each trade union and/or professional association representing employees working for the corporation is effectively supporting individuals to participate in enabling the genocide and maintenance of the occupation.

Individuals and organizations can be encouraged to choose not to do so using a variety of means, always beginning with dialogue but then, if the issue cannot be resolved through listening and clear communication, using a range of nonviolent tactics at worksites, ranging from demonstrations and picket lines to blockades. But again, plenty of options here: ‘198 Tactics of Nonviolent Action’.

(14) To cause corporations that provide vital services/components to weapons corporations that supply weapons to Israel to cease doing so.

This could happen by campaigning against companies such as Martin-Baker, https://martin-baker.com/ the family business in Britain that supplies the ejection seats for fighter jets such as the F-35’s made by US weapons corporation Lockheed Martin and used by Israel. See ‘How One British Business Could Stop Israeli Jets Bombing Gaza: UK-made ejection seats are in the cockpit of most Western fighter jets, including Israel’s air force’.

But there are a great many possibilities as the sheer diversity of parts in military weapons means that many corporations are drawn into the staggering array of supply lines. Choosing those services and components that are more specific and critical to military impact – including command, control, communications, delivery, targeting – rather than some insignificant, generic part, will ensure strategic value derives from success in any campaign.

If this isn’t feasible (or efforts fail) in a particular context, consider the following strategic goal.

(15) To cause the workers in the relevant trade unions or labor organizations to withdraw their labor [temporarily/permanently] [partially/wholly] from those corporations that supply services/components to weapons corporations that supply weapons to Israel.

A corporation management might not have a conscience but plenty of workers do, and approaching them through their trade union or labor organization might open opportunities to discuss possible ways they can noncooperate with the genocide and occupation.

(16) To cause vessels and cargo planes engaged in transporting goods and weapons to or from Israel to cease doing so [temporarily/permanently].

This has already happened in response to the military attacks by Ansar Allah [the Houthis] in the Red Sea. See ‘Chinese Shipping Giant COSCO to Stop Visiting Israeli Ports: The decision comes despite the low chances of the Houthis attacking a Chinese vessel’.

These attacks have also caused significant disruption. See ‘Support for vessels rerouting from the Red Sea’.

And while Ansar Allah’s use of violence ‘justifies’, in the eyes of many, the violent response of the United States which has now attacked Yemen (thus paving the way for a wider war) – see ‘Major Escalation: Biden Launches War On Yemen’ and ‘Joint US-UK Assault on Houthis: Here’s the Latest’ – there are variations on delaying/halting shipping that can be achieved by nonviolent means, including by government decision such as that made in Malaysia. See ‘Global Supply Chains Falter as Malaysia Blocks Israeli Cargo Ships’.

Beyond that, however, and given that most governments won’t do this, activists working in conjunction with local trade unions can do it too. For example, starting in the late 1980s in Australia, the combined efforts of nonviolent activists and trade unionists caused significant delays in the unloading of imported rainforest timber from cargo ships. The awareness generated by these widely publicized and graphic actions was used to mobilize a massive boycott of imported rainforest timber by the Australian community, effectively eliminating the trade within three years as entire industries switched to sourcing timber from more sustainable sources. Watch ‘Time to Act’ and see ‘Nonviolent Struggle for the Rainforests’.

Of course, trade union action of this nature has a long history. For example, during the apartheid era in South Africa, Danish dock workers in 1963 decided not to unload ships carrying South African products, triggering a similar boycott in Sweden, England and elsewhere.

In relation to Palestine, the first solidarity action of this nature occurred in South Africa when the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU) decided not to unload an Israeli ship due to arrive in Durban on 8 February 2009. See The BNC Salutes South African Dock Workers Action!’

And in 2014, the Arab Resource and Organizing Center in the United States launched Block the Boat in response to the call by the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) and a coalition of all major Palestinian workers unions and professional associations who called on their fellow trade unionists and workers worldwide to boycott Israel and businesses that are complicit with its apartheid regime. They specifically urged a refusal to handle Israeli goods and support for union members refusing to build Israeli weapons.

Analysing the ten-year history of ‘Block the Boat’ actions in various countries, researchers Rafeef Ziadah and Katy Fox-Hodess identified some crucial variables worth addressing to make these nonviolent actions have maximum impact. Critically, this included thinking carefully about how activists could most effectively get involved in working with unions and how activists can take some of the more extreme pressures off workers, particularly when sanctions for taking solidarity action are onerous. See ‘Dockworkers and Labor Activists Can Block the Transport of Arms to Israel’.

As an adjunct to their research, they offered these downloadable documents to assist activists and workers seeking to work together: Lessons on Organizing with Trade Unions to Build Solidarity Actions’ and, from Workers in Palestine this Guidance Sheet for Trade Unionists on Building Solidarity with Palestine.

Workers in Palestine has recently posted a video of nonviolent actions undertaken around the world to shut down weapons factories and disrupt weapons shipments to Israel in response to the genocide in Gaza.

This has included several delays of ships of Israel’s ZIM Integrated Shipping Services at two ports by activists and workers in Australia, as discussed here: ‘In Australia, Palestine Solidarity Activists Are Blockading ZIM Ships Owned by Israel’, ‘The Economic Incentive: Blocking Israel’s Supply Chain’ and ‘Australian police attack pro-Palestine protests blockading Israeli ship’.

If nonviolent actions of this nature in solidarity with Palestine appeal to you and other activists in your local port, you can identify the arrival of Israel’s ZIM vessels on their port schedule – see ZIM vessels Port schedule – and track their vessels on either Marine Traffic or Vessel Finder.

Similarly, nonviolent action can be undertaken to disrupt, delay or halt the movement of military weapons by air, although it will need more than just protests such as this one in Cyprus. See ‘UK’s alleged use of Cyprus bases to arm Israel and hit Yemen draw protests’.

(17) To cause consumers, including members of religious, service, sporting, business and other community organizations, to boycott those products produced by companies taking advantage of the Israeli occupation economy in Palestine.

As the BDS Movement points out, it is superior strategy for people to focus their efforts on certain companies prioritized for targeting (because of their deep complicity in the occupation) rather than dissipate effort so widely that little impact is felt anywhere. See ‘BDS Guide to Strategic Campaigning for Palestinian Rights’.

Consequently, the companies that the BDS Movement recommends for targeting are listed in ‘Act Now Against These Companies Profiting from the Genocide of the Palestinian People’.

But if you want more comprehensive lists to view other companies you can boycott, the Who Profits Research Center has compiled a list of companies to boycott because they profit from the Israeli occupation economy.

The American Friends Service Committee has also compiled a list of companies, with two sectors additional to the ‘Who Profits’ list above. See ‘Investigate: What are you invested in?’

And the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has compiled a comprehensive A/HRC/43/71: Database of all business enterprises involved in… the Israeli settlements… throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem’.

Another simple option is to sign the ‘No Tech for Apartheid’ letter to Google and Amazon for providing ‘cloud technology to the Israeli government and military… to surveil Palestinians and force them off their land’. But boycotting Google and Amazon is a far more powerful option given they are spying on you too as part of their role in advancing the Elite’s technocracy.

(18) To cause the individual and organizational investors (including religious and sporting bodies) of banks, asset managers, insurance companies and pension funds in Israel and elsewhere to shift their money to ethical banks and credit unions, asset managers, insurance companies and pension funds that do not finance, invest in or are otherwise involved in supplying banking, asset management, insurance or pension services to Israel (and Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine) or to weapons corporations that supply weapons to Israel.

Don’t Buy Into Occupation has compiled a valuable list of European banks and other financial institutions to boycott in their report ‘European Financial Institutions’ Continued Complicity in the Illegal Israeli Settlement Enterprise’.

The BDS Movement specifically encourages divestment from the French multinational insurance giant AXA ‘for its investments in Israeli banks [with Bank Hapoalim, Bank Leumi, First International Bank of Israel, Israel Discount Bank, Mizrahi Tefahot Bank being the main five], which are deeply complicit in Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise on occupied Palestinian land’. See ‘AXA Divest’.

If you live outside Europe or an organization is not listed and you are in doubt, the general principle is to always seek those (invariably smaller) institutions that identify as ‘ethical’ and investigate these to see if they deserve your patronage.

As an aside, if your knowledge of the management (or membership) of a financial institution with which you deal suggests they might be willing to divest from Israel (or weapons corporations) without significant public engagement first, it may be worth your while to approach them to find out. Obviously, you do not need to boycott or organize a wider boycott of an institution that is responsive to dialogue.

(19) To cause SpaceX, which manufactures and deploys Starlink spy satellites to facilitate genocide in Gaza and the occupation of Palestine generally, to cease doing so.

One way in which pressure can be exerted is by mobilizing people, wherever they live, to boycott the Starlink service (and switch to another provider) in their area. Another less direct way is to boycott X (formerly Twitter) because it is also owned by Elon Musk (who owns SpaceX).

Summary

Not all of the strategic goals nominated above will need to be achieved for the strategy to be successful but each goal is focused in such a way that its achievement will functionally undermine the power of those conducting the genocide and the occupation.

Once the genocide is halted, this list would still constitute the foundation for a refined set of strategic goals to guide the strategy to liberate Palestine (taken from the generalized list here): Strategic Goals for Removing a Military Occupation’ or, for the fullest elaboration, The Strategy of Nonviolent Defense: A Gandhian Approach.

I have reproduced the nineteen strategic goals listed above here: ‘Strategic Goals to Halt the Genocide in Gaza and Liberate Palestine’.

And if we are to defeat the Elite technocracy being imposed on the entire human population, with Palestine (in both the West Bank and Gaza) being used as the testing ground and incubator of so many of the technologies that will be used to kill or enslave us all, then we must resist strategically, as explained in the campaign of We Are Human, We Are Free’ with one-page flyers, identifying the simplest version of the strategy, available in 23 languages.

Conclusion

The people of Palestine have the same choice we all face in relation to the Elite’s rapidly advancing technocracy.

We can do nothing, we can complain (by lobbying and petitioning governments or international organizations), we can sign public declarations, we can turn up at demonstrations, and do all of the other things that put the power to change things in the hands of others. And watch this come to nought.

According to Dr Anis Sayigh, Palestinian intellectual and chairman of the Palestine Research Center in Beirut until it was destroyed by Israel in 1983, in 1936 the Palestinians were convinced by Arab leaders in the region to end a nonviolent general strike to give Britain a chance to prove its ‘good intentions’. Dr Sayigh goes on to state: ‘Unfortunately, to this day, we are still discussing UN resolutions and American and European initiatives to give the West a chance to prove its good intentions.’ Watch episode 2 of ‘Al-Nabka: The Palestinian catastrophe – Episodes 1-4’.

The point is simple: Until we learn that the Elite and its agents – no matter who or where they are: western, Arabic, Israeli, Russian, Chinese, Indian, Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Hindu, international organization, corporation, NGO, philanthropic foundation…. – will never change a system from which they benefit enormously by exploiting us, we will continue to run the treadmill of defeat whatever the cause for which we fight.

So we have a choice: Keep doing what history clearly demonstrates does not work or plan and take strategically-focused action that makes a difference ourselves.

That choice is yours whether we are fighting to defend Palestinians in Gaza from the ongoing genocide, liberate Palestine from Israeli occupation or defend humanity from the rapidly advancing technocracy.

Biodata: Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?’ His email address is flametree@riseup.net and his website is here.

Israel Is Terrified the World Court Will Decide It’s Committing Genocide

:International Court of Justice HQ 2006 via Wikimedia Commons

By Marjorie Cohn

Source: ScheerPost

For nearly three months, Israel has enjoyed virtual impunity for its atrocious crimes against the Palestinian people. That changed on December 29 when South Africa, a state party to the Genocide Convention, filed an 84-page application in the International Court of Justice (ICJ, or World Court) alleging that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

South Africa’s well-documented application alleges that “acts and omissions by Israel … are genocidal in character, as they are committed with the requisite specific intent … to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as a part of the broader Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group” and that “the conduct of Israel — through its State organs, State agents, and other persons and entities acting on its instructions or under its direction, control or influence — in relation to Palestinians in Gaza, is in violation of its obligations under the Genocide Convention.”

Israel is mounting a full-court press to prevent an ICJ finding that it’s committing genocide in Gaza. On January 4, the Israeli Foreign Ministry instructed its embassies to pressure politicians and diplomats in their host countries to make statements opposing South Africa’s case at the ICJ.

In its application, South Africa cited eight allegations to support its contention that Israel is perpetrating genocide in Gaza. They include:

(1) Killing Palestinians in Gaza, including a large proportion of women and children (approximately 70 percent) of the more than 21,110 fatalities and some appear to have been subjected to summary execution;

(2) Causing serious mental and bodily harm to Palestinians in Gaza, including maiming, psychological trauma, and inhuman and degrading treatment;

(3) Causing the forced evacuation and displacement of about 85 percent of Palestinians in Gaza — including children, the elderly and infirm, and the sick and wounded. Israel is also causing the massive destruction of Palestinian homes, villages, towns, refugee camps and entire areas, which precludes the return of a significant proportion of the Palestinian people to their homes;

(4) Causing widespread hunger, starvation and dehydration to the besieged Palestinians in Gaza by impeding sufficient humanitarian assistance, cutting off sufficient food, water, fuel and electricity, and destroying bakeries, mills, agricultural lands and other means of production and sustenance;

(5) Failing to provide and restricting the provision of adequate clothing, shelter, hygiene and sanitation to Palestinians in Gaza, including 1.9 million internally displaced persons. This has compelled them to live in dangerous situations of squalor, in conjunction with routine targeting and destruction of places of shelter and killing and wounding of persons who are sheltering, including women, children, the elderly and the disabled;

(6) Failing to provide for or ensure the provision of medical care to Palestinians in Gaza, including those medical needs created by other genocidal acts that are causing serious bodily harm. This is occurring by direct attacks on Palestinian hospitals, ambulances and other healthcare facilities, the killing of Palestinian doctors, medics and nurses (including the most qualified medics in Gaza) and the destruction and disabling of Gaza’s medical system; 

(7) Destroying Palestinian life in Gaza, by destroying its infrastructure, schools, universities, courts, public buildings, public records, libraries, stores, churches, mosques, roads, utilities and other facilities necessary to sustain the lives of Palestinians as a group. Israel is killing whole families, erasing entire oral histories and killing prominent and distinguished members of society;

(8) Imposing measures intended to prevent Palestinian births in Gaza, including through reproductive violence inflicted on Palestinian women, newborns, infants and children.

South Africa cited myriad statements by Israeli officials that constitute direct evidence of an intent to commit genocide:

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

Avi Dichter, Israel’s Minister of Agriculture, declared, “We are now actually rolling out the Gaza Nakba,” a reference to the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestinians to create the state of Israel.

“Now we all have one common goal — erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth,” Nissim Vaturi, the Deputy Speaker of the Knesset and Member of the Foreign Affairs and Security Committee proclaimed.

Israel’s Strategy to Defeat South Africa’s Case at the ICJ

Israel and its chief patron, the United States, understand the magnitude of South Africa’s ICJ application, and they are livid. Israel usually thumbs its nose at international institutions, but it is taking South Africa’s case seriously. In 2021, when the International Criminal Court launched an investigation into Israel’s alleged war crimes in Gaza, Israel firmly rejected the legitimacy of the probe.

“Israel generally doesn’t participate in such proceedings,” Prof. Eliav Lieblich, an international law expert at Tel Aviv University, told Haaretz. “But this isn’t a UN inquiry commission or the International Criminal Court in the Hague, whose authority Israel rejects. It’s the International Court of Justice, which derives its powers from a treaty Israel joined, so it can’t reject it on the usual grounds of lack of authority. It’s also a body with international prestige.”

A January 4 cable from the Israeli Foreign Ministry says that Israel’s “strategic goal” is that the ICJ reject South Africa’s request for an injunction to suspend Israel’s military action in Gaza, refuse to find that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and rule that Israel is complying with international law.

“A ruling by the court could have significant potential implications that are not only in the legal world but have practical bilateral, multilateral, economic, security ramifications,” the cable states. “We ask for an immediate and unequivocal public statement along the following lines: To publicly and clearly state that YOUR COUNTRY rejects the outragest [sic], absurd and baseless allegations made against Israel.” 

The cable instructs Israeli embassies to urge diplomats and politicians at the highest levels “to publicly acknowledge that Israel is working [together with international actors] to increase the humanitarian aid to Gaza, as well as to minimize damage to civilians, while acting in self defense after the horrible October 7th attack by a genocidal terrorist organization.”

“The State of Israel will appear before the ICJ at The Hague to dispel South Africa’s absurd blood libel,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spokesperson Eylon Levy declared. South Africa’s application is “without legal merit and constitutes a base exploitation and contempt of court,” he said.

Israel is pulling out all the stops, including disingenuous accusations of “blood libel,” an anti-Semitic trope that erroneously accuses Jews of the ritual sacrifice of Christian children.

“How tragic that the rainbow nation that prides itself on fighting racism will be fighting pro-bono for anti-Jewish racists,” Levy added ironically. He made the astonishing claim that Israel’s military campaign to destroy Hamas in Gaza is designed to prevent the genocide of the Jews.

As the old adage goes, when you’re being run out of town, get in front of the crowd and act like you’re leading the parade.

The Biden regime rose to defend its staunch ally Israel. U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby lambasted South Africa’s ICJ application as “meritless, counterproductive and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever.” Kirby claimed, “Israel is not trying to wipe the Palestinian people off the map. Israel is not trying to wipe Gaza off the map. Israel is trying to defend itself against a genocidal terrorist threat,” echoing Israel’s preposterous assertion.

Kirby’s contention that Israel is trying to prevent genocide is particularly absurd, given the fact that since Hamas killed 1,200 Israelis on October 7, Israeli forces have killed at least 22,100 Gazans, about 9,100 of whom are children. At least 57,000 persons have been wounded and at least 7,000 are reported missing. Untold numbers of people are trapped beneath the rubble.

Provisional Measures Against Israel Can Have Immediate Impact

South Africa is requesting that the ICJ order provisional measures (interim injunction) in order to “protect against further, severe and irreparable harm to the rights of the Palestinian people under the Genocide Convention.” South Africa is also asking the court “to ensure Israel’s compliance with its obligations under the Genocide Convention not to engage in genocide, and to prevent and to punish genocide.”

The provisional measures South Africa seeks include ordering Israel to “immediately suspend its military operations in and against Gaza” and to cease and desist from killing and causing serious bodily or mental harm to Palestinians, inflicting on them conditions of life intended to destroy them in whole or in part, and imposing measures to prevent Palestinian births. South Africa wants the ICJ to order that Israel stop expelling and forcibly displacing Palestinians and depriving them of food, water, fuel, and medical supplies and assistance.

The judicial arm of the United Nations, the ICJ is composed of 15 judges elected for a nine-year term by the UN General Assembly and the Security Council. It is not a criminal tribunal like the International Criminal Court; rather it resolves disputes between countries.

If a party to the Genocide Convention believes that another party has failed to comply with its obligations, it can take that country to the ICJ to determine its responsibility. This was done in the case of Bosnia v. Serbia, in which the Court found that Serbia violated its duties to prevent and punish genocide under the Convention.

The obligations in the Genocide Convention are erga omnes partes, that is, obligations owed by a state towards all the states parties to the Convention. The ICJ has stated, “In such a convention the contracting States do not have any interests of their own; they merely have, one and all, a common interest, namely, the accomplishment of those high purposes which are the raison d’être of the Convention.”

Article 94 of the UN Charter says that all parties to a dispute must comply with the decisions of the ICJ and if a party fails to do so, the other party may go to the UN Security Council for the enforcement of the decision.

An average ICJ case from start to finish can last several years (it was nearly 15 years from the time that Bosnia first filed its case against Serbia in 1993 to the issuance of the final judgment on the merits in 2007). However, a case can have an immediate impact. The filing of a case in the ICJ sends a strong message to Israel that the international community will not tolerate its actions and seeks to hold it accountable.

Provisional measures can be issued quickly. For example, the ICJ ordered measures 19 days after the Bosnian case was initiated. Provisional measures are binding on the party against whom they are ordered, and compliance with them can be monitored by both the ICJ and the Security Council.

Judgments on the merits rendered by the ICJ in disputes between parties are binding on the parties involved. Article 94 of the United Nations Charter provides that “each Member of the United Nations undertakes to comply with the decision of [the Court] in any case to which it is a party.” The judgments of the court are final; there is no appeal.

Public hearings on South Africa’s request for provisional measures will take place on January 11 and 12 at the ICJ which is located in the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands. The hearings will be livestreamed from 4:00-6:00 a.m. Eastern/1:00-3:00 a.m. Pacific on the Court’s website and on UN Web TV. The court could order provisional measures within a week after the hearings.

Other States Parties to the Genocide Convention Can Join South Africa’s Case

Other states parties to the Genocide Convention can either request permission to intervene in the case filed by South Africa or file their own applications against Israel in the ICJ. South Africa’s application identifies several countries that have referred to Israel’s genocide in Gaza. They include Algeria, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Iran, Palestine, Türkiye, Venezuela, Bangladesh, Egypt, Honduras, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Malaysia, Namibia, Pakistan and Syria.

On January 5, Quds News Network tweeted, “Jordan’s minister of Foreign Affairs, Ayman Safadi, announces that his country backs South Africa’s genocide case against Israel in the ICJ. He added that the Jordanian government is working on a legal file to follow up on the case. Turkey, Malaysia, and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) had announced that they back the case too.”

The newly formed International Coalition to Stop Genocide in Palestine, endorsed by more than 600 groups throughout the world, has convened to urge states parties to invoke the Genocide Convention.

The coalition contends, “Declarations of Intervention in support of South Africa’s invocation of the Genocide Convention against Israel will increase the likelihood that a positive finding of the crime of genocide will be enforced by the United Nations such that actions will be taken to end all acts of genocide and those who are responsible for the acts will be held accountable.”

During the first week of January, delegations of “grassroots diplomats,” spearheaded by CODEPINK, World Beyond War and RootsAction, mounted a campaign across the United States urging nations to submit Declarations of Intervention in South Africa’s case against Israel in the ICJ. Activists traveled to 12 cities, visiting UN missions, embassies and consulates from Colombia, Pakistan, Bolivia, Bangladesh, the African Union, Ghana, Chile, Ethiopia, Turkey, Belize, Brazil, Denmark, France, Honduras, Ireland, Spain, Greece, Mexico, Italy, Haiti, Belgium, Kuwait, Malaysia and Slovakia.

“This is the rare case where collective social pressure urging governments to support the South African case can be a sharp turning point for Palestine,” said Lamis Deek, a Palestinian attorney based in New York, whose firm convened the Palestinian Assembly for Liberation’s Commission on War Crimes Justice, Reparations, and Return. “We need more states to file supporting interventions — and we need the court to feel the watchful eye of the masses so as to withstand what will be extreme U.S. political pressure on the Court.”

Suzanne Adely, president of the National Lawyers Guild, noted, “The increasing global isolation of Israel and the U.S. and their European allies is an indicator that this is a key moment for popular movements to move their governments in the direction of taking these steps and being on the right side of history.” Indeed, since October 7, millions of people throughout the world have marched, protested and demonstrated in support of Palestinian liberation.

RootsAction and World Beyond War have created a template that organizations and individuals can use to urge other states parties to the Genocide Convention to file a Declaration of Intervention in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel in the ICJ.

Yes, Palestinian Civilians Are Being Massacred

Israel is committing horrific war crimes in Gaza with openly genocidal intent, and it is heartbreaking to see RFK Jr defending this inhumanity.

By Jeremy R. Hammond

Source: JeremyRHammond.com

In a private forum I’m a member of, the topic of Israel’s ongoing military operation in Gaza—dubbed “Operation Swords of Iron”—has been under discussion, and, regrettably, I have found myself in the position of being a lone voice speaking out against attempts to justify Israel’s ongoing war crimes in Gaza, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by which the “Jewish state” came into existence, and Israel’s systematic violation of the fundamental human rights of the Palestinians ever since.

Since this group includes individuals who exercise public influence, I’ve been viewing it is as my duty to exercise my own influence within the group by speaking out and setting the record straight both in terms of the history of the conflict and with respect to what Israel has been doing to the Palestinians in Gaza in retaliation for the horrific atrocities perpetrated by Hamas against Israeli civilians on October 7.

Since I’ve put the time into addressing numerous arguments there, I figure I might as well make the most use of that labor by publishing some of what I wrote here.

In particular, I want to provide my readers with an update about the horrific situation on the ground in Gaza, which I wrote for the purpose of posting to the discussion thread in response to someone who questioned my assertion that civilians are being massacred. In my response, I also pointed out that Israel’s indiscriminate bombardment of Gaza is being carried out with openly genocidal intent.

Before I get to that, though, I’ll provide some of the context of what happened prior to that in the discussion.

Defending Israel’s War Crimes in Gaza

My participation in this particular discussion thread was prompted by one participant putting forth an argument attempting to defend of Israel’s war crimes. His view was that Israel must continue its military operations in Gaza until Hamas has been completely eliminated. This is essentially the same argument that I debated the negative to on The Tom Woods Show last month, my rebuttal being summarized in the statement, “So, no, Israel does not have a ‘right’, much less a ‘moral duty’, to commit war crimes in Gaza”.

So, I responded in the forum thread with an explanation for why Israel’s devastating indiscriminate bombardment is absolutely indefensible. After a few rounds of this, my interlocutor ended by incongruously admonishing me to join him in working towards peace, to which I responded by pointing out that I was the one literally advocating a humanitarian ceasefire while his whole argument was literally that Israel must continue its violence against the Palestinians in Gaza.

I won’t repeat all the points and counterpoints that were made because it was too lengthy an argument and too difficult to try to summarize, but one argument this individual made was that he and I just don’t agree on the distinction between legitimate self-defense and war crimes. My response to that was to say I doubt that very much, unless he simply rejected international humanitarian law. That Israel has committed massive war crimes is beyond dispute, as I’ll come to.

The Zionist Trope that Occupation Is Good for Palestinians

Another participant rolled out the Zionist propaganda trope that life in Gaza improved dramatically after it came under Israeli occupation in 1967, to which I responded by pasting an excerpt from my e-book Exposing a Zionist Hoax: How Elan Journo’s “What Justice Demands” Deceives Readers about the Palestine Conflict.

Journo in his book had made the same claim that the Palestinians benefited economically because of Israel’s occupation. I cited a World Bank report detailing rather how economic growth had occurred in the Occupied Palestinian Territories despite Israel’s economically repressive occupation. As the World Bank pointed out, for sustainable development to occur and for the Palestinian territories to reach their full economic potential, Israel’s occupation must end.

I won’t paste the whole excerpt from that section of my book here, but here are the final several paragraphs I wrote after detailing at length the myriad ways documented by the World Bank in which Israel’s occupation was harming Palestinians’ economy, with reference to the “broken window” fallacy in economics of failing to recognize opportunity costs:

Journo commits the same fallacy, highlighting the economic development that occurred in the occupied territories in the 1970s while ignoring the opportunity cost inherent in the occupation. That is to say, he ignores how the Palestinian economy would otherwise have been able to grow sustainably and at an even greater pace if they’d just enjoyed the freedom necessary for such growth to occur, to be able to live up to their full economic potential, as opposed to suffering under Israel’s oppressive and restrictive occupation regime.

Israel didn’t create the conditions for economic growth to occur. Rather, Israel calculatedly hindered economic growth in such a way as to make the Palestinians dependent upon their occupier, thus suppressing resistance so that Israel’s illegal land-grabbing settlement regime could continue apace, while taking advantage of the cheap labor provided by Palestinian commuters whose alternative employment opportunities were denied to them as a consequence of the restrictions on their freedom imposed by the occupation regime.

Journo’s presumption that the Palestinians ought to have been grateful to Israel for imposing its occupation regime on them is a stark illustration of his contempt for their right to self-determination, as well as his extraordinary hypocrisy in feigning to approach the subject from the premise that the right to individual liberty is inviolable.

By the time we come to the year 1987 and the mass uprising against the occupation known as the first intifada, Arabic for “throwing off”, we are supposed to be awed by Israel’s greatness and horrified by the Palestinians’ innate backwardness and inexplicable hatred of Jews. We are not supposed to be able to comprehend how Palestinians would wish for an end to Israel’s rule over them. 

But setting aside Journo’s fiction and considering the actual nature of the occupation regime, the Palestinians’ desire for freedom is the simplest thing to understand. Their yearning for liberty, to be able to have a say in how they are governed, to determine their own fate and live up to their full potential, is a trait shared by all human beings. Evidently, Journo views them as something less, rejecting their human rights and projecting upon them his own hateful prejudice and inhumanity.

The Biblical Defense the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

Another participant then posted a timeline and meme that together implicitly argued that because there was a 300-year period in ancient history during which a kingdom called Israel existed, therefore Zionist Jews in 1948 had a right to ethnically cleanse Palestine of its indigenous inhabitants.

I have a forthcoming article addressing this type of religious argument so won’t repeat my counterargument here except to point out that Jews actually owned less than 7% of the land in Palestine at the time the Zionist leadership unilaterally and with no legal authority declared the existence of their “Jewish state” on land in which Arabs were both the majority and owned most of the land.

discussed the early history of the conflict at considerable length recently with economist Saifedean Ammous, author of The Bitcoin Standard and other books, who is Palestinian and grew up in the West Bank, as he mentions during our discussion.

The Zionist Trope that Criticism of Israel Is “Anti-Semitism”

After posting my response to the religious argument, the person who posted the timeline and meme baselessly and absurdly accused me of “anti-Semitic slurs” that were “fomenting hate that is leading to violence” while not even attempting to identify anything I’d said that wasn’t true or any conclusions I’d drawn that didn’t logically follow from the facts. After pointing out that this type of baseless personal attack is the height of intellectual dishonesty and moral cowardice, I further observed:

I remind you also that I am the one advocating an end to hostilities and peaceful co-existence based on mutual respect for the equal rights of Jews and Palestinians, while you are the one trying to defend Israel’s systematic violation of the rights of the Palestinians—and Israel’s ongoing war crimes in Gaza—by mindlessly equating legitimate criticisms of the Israeli government with “anti-Semitism”.

I then pointed out that the Foreword to my book Obstacle to Peace: The US Role in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict was written by former UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories Richard Falk, who is Jewish.

Additionally, the Introduction to my book was written by former economics editor of Barron’s Gene Epstein, who is also Jewish, and who wrote his Introduction specifically to preempt the intellectually dishonest equation of criticizing Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians with anti-Semitism.

I also quoted blurbs written for the book by famed intellectual Noam Chomsky and journalist Max Blumenthal, both also Jewish.

In the thread, I pasted Gene’s entire Introduction, which I won’t do here, but here’s the most relevant excerpt in the context of the “anti-Semite” accusation leveled at me:

In Hammond’s case, people who would benefit most from reading his book will put up a wall of resistance against the simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense he offers.

I know, because over the years I’ve spoken with many of these people. Their identity as Jews and as Americans—or identification with Jews or with Americans—seems to depend on a certain false narrative that is difficult for them to abandon. The falsity can often be demonstrated, as Hammond shows, not by citing sources critical of Israel, but by citing journalists, historians, and politicians who are themselves Jews, Zionists, or Israelis—a fact that, perhaps perversely, makes me proud of being a Jew. We are a candid people, who tell it like it is.

I found Obstacle to Peace quite convincing, but my pride in being Jewish and American, and my identification with many Israelis, remains intact. That should not be a difficult feat.  . . . My pride in being Jewish is not diminished by knowledge of these facts, just as my contempt for Jew-haters is not diminished when they cite the crimes of Israel to justify their anti-Semitism.

People have told me that I “don’t support Israel” because of my views. They might as well level that accusation against the Israeli Peace Now movement, Shalom Achshav, established in 1978, and its sister organization, Americans for Peace Now. Those who subscribe to the mythic version of events are in effect condemning Israelis and Palestinians to a permanent state of war. With supporters like that, neither side may need antagonists.

RFK Jr.’s Defense of Israel’s Crimes Against the Palestinians

Next, the person who stupidly accused me of anti-Semitism shared the link to a video in which presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. once again tried to defend Israel’s military operation as well as its 16-year illegal blockade of Gaza, which prompted me to write the article I published yesterday, “Correcting RFK Jr on Israel’s Policies Toward Gaza“, which I then shared with the group.

To see Mr. Kennedy supporting Israel’s violations of international law and Palestinians’ human rights is heartbreaking to me. As someone who has become a prominent voice within the health freedom community, I have had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with Mr. Kennedy, whom I had come to have the utmost respect for his incredible leadership in fighting the Covid lockdown madness and the government’s systematic violation of the right to informed consent. I have also been impressed by his sensible views on US foreign policy, such as on the Ukraine war. We have corresponded on many occasions, including phone conversations, and he wrote the Foreword to my book The War on Informed Consent: The Persecution of Dr. Paul Thomas by the Oregon Medical Board.

I usually do not vote because there are no candidates worth voting for and I have no intention of legitimizing my own disenfranchisement by participating in the system that infringes on my personal liberties and steals from me, or legitimizing the violations of human rights of people in other countries as a result of US foreign policy. The only candidate I have ever voted for was Ron Paul, in 2008 and again as a write-in in 2012. But when Bobby Kennedy announced his candidacy earlier this year, I became an enthusiastic supporter.

It was with great regret that, after watching him defending Israel’s war crimes in Gaza after Hamas’s 10/7 attacks, I was compelled by my moral conscience to also publicly withdraw my support for his candidacy. It is simply not within me to be able to support any candidate who is willing to try to defend clear war crimes and crimes against humanity, any more than I could support a candidate who supported the authoritarian COVID-19 lockdowns and their coerced mass vaccination endgame.

I waited for several weeks before making my view public because I was holding out hope that I might see signs that he was coming around, that he might moderate his position from one of essentially repeating standard Zionist propaganda talking points intended to justify Israel’s criminal policies to one of respecting the equal rights of both Israelis and Palestinians.

Unfortunately, after seeing no such indications and rather watching him once again defend Israel’s war crimes while refusing to join those calling for a humanitarian ceasefire, I could wait no longer and issued my statement (first to my subscriber community, then published on my website).

I remain heartbroken, but I have no choice but to follow my conscience.

Civilians Are Being Massacred? Yes.

After posting the link to that article correcting Mr. Kennedy’s numerous false characterizations of the nature of Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians, I received a rebuke from yet another member of the discussion forum. I was told that I do not have some moral imperative to correct him, that I lacked integrity for “attacking” and “belittling” him, and that I should instead have the intellectual integrity to agree to disagree.

I responded by expressing my continued love for Mr. Kennedy and saying, “I stand by what I wrote. And, yes, I do have a moral imperative to speak out. I do not ‘agree to disagree’ when civilians are being massacred.”

Yet another member of the group then responded to ask, “Civilians are being massacred?”

I do not know whether the question was sincerely asked because this person really has not been paying attention to what’s been happening in Gaza or because she was implicitly trying to challenge me because she believed the ludicrous Zionist propaganda claim that Israel is “the most moral army in the world” and does everything possible to avoid harm to civilians.

That is a claim that I thoroughly and utterly demolish in my book Obstacle to Peace and also addressed briefly but sufficiently in my article setting the record straight in response to Kennedy’s mischaracterizations of the nature of Israel’s policies toward Gaza.

Whatever the intent behind the question, here was my response:

Yes, civilians are being massacred. The death estimate as of yesterday was over 17,177, about 30% of whom are women and 40% children. More Palestinian children were killed in just the first [three] weeks of Israel’s onslaught than in all of the other conflict zones in the world combined for each of the years 2020, 2021, and 2022.

As of November 24, 50% of the housing stock in Gaza had been damaged and 10% completely destroyed. Israel has systematically targeted civilian infrastructure including power systems, water supplies, bakeries, hospitals, and schools, including UN-run schools where displaced civilians have sought shelter. The devastation has of course increased greatly in the two weeks since.

Early in its operations, the IDF ordered the entire northern half of Gaza to evacuate and go south while also bombing the south. It has since ordered the entire population of Gaza, over 2 million people, to a coastal area, to borrow scholar Norman Finkelstein’s comparison, about the size of the Los Angeles airport. The destruction that the IDF wrought on the north is now being done to the south. Palestinians are being told to flee, but they have nowhere safe to go.

Nearly 85% of the population is now displaced. The shelters are overrun. Gaza remains under an electricity blackout. There is a grave lack of fuel to run generators. The over-capacity health care system is collapsing, with only 14 of 36 hospitals in Gaza even partially functioning, only 2 in the north. The WHO has documented over 200 attacks on health care, including 24 hospitals and 59 ambulances. Humanitarian aid operations that the civilian population is absolutely dependent on for survival have virtually halted because of the serious danger to relief workers, with 130 UN relief workers already having been killed.

This is a humanitarian catastrophe of absolutely horrific proportions. The UN Secretary General has invoked Article 99 of the UN Charter, bringing to the Security Council’s attention the grave threat to international peace and security posed by the situation, an effort to push the Council to call for the urgently needed permanent ceasefire—not a “pause” in hostilities—that UN humanitarian agencies and international human rights organizations have been calling for to save Palestinian civilians from dying in massive numbers, but which efforts have been blocked by the US.

Moreover, Israel’s military operation is being conducted with openly genocidal intent.

Netanyahu invoked the fabled Israelite genocide of the Amalekites and declared the goal of turning Gaza into rubble.

The Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declared that Israel would block the supply of electricity, food, water, and fuel to the civilian population because the IDF was “fighting human animals”. “Gaza won’t return to what it was before,” he also said. “We will eliminate everything.”

The IDF’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the [Occupied] Territories (COGAT) echoed that “Human animals must be treated as such. There will be no electricity and no water. There will only be destruction. You wanted hell, you will get hell.”

The IDF’s spokesperson Daniel Hagari prior to Israel’s ground invasion said with regard to Israel’s bombardment that “the emphasis is on damage and not accuracy”.

Ezra Yachin, a 95-year-old Israeli military veteran who was involved in the 1948 Deir Yassin massacre, rallied IDF soldiers to “Be 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.”

Not content to massacre the civilian population of Gaza, he further called on Israeli Jews to kill Arab Israelis: “Every Jew with a weapon should go out and kill them. If you have an Arab neighbor, don’t wait, go to his home and shoot him.”

Israeli academic Mordechai Kedar on BBC Arabic objected to the description of Palestinians as “human animals”, saying “I do not equate them with animals because that is an insult to animals.”

On Twitter, Israeli politician and former Knesset member Moshe Feiglin called on the IDF to “completely destroy Gaza”, “I mean destruction like it was in Dresden and Hiroshima”.

“Gaza needs to turn to Dresden, yes!” he repeated in another tweet. “Complete incineration. No more hope. . . . Annihilate Gaza now! Now!”

Knesset member Galit Distel-Atbaryan took to Twitter to tell people to “Hate the monsters” and “Invest this energy in one thing; Erasing all of Gaza from the face of the earth. That the Gazan monsters will fly to the southern fence and try to enter Egyptian territory, or they will die…. Gaza should be erased.”

Former head of the Israeli National Security Council Giora Eiland, who during his tenure in 2004 appropriately described Gaza as “a huge concentration camp”, wrote in the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth that “Israel has no choice but to make Gaza a place that is temporarily, or permanently, impossible to live in. . . . Every building will be a military target.” Gazans must be told to “evacuate to the UNRWA schools and the Shifa Hospital, and immediately after that the Air Force will attack these targets”. It was not enough to stop the flow of electricity, fuel, and water; the IDF must “gradually attack targets that provide these essential needs, and if necessary also to block with fire any vehicle passage from the city of Rafah to the north. Creating a severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza is a necessary means to achieve the goal.”

In another article, Eiland wrote that “Israel issued a stern warning to Egypt and made it clear that it would not permit humanitarian aid from Egypt to enter Gaza. Israel needs to create a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, compelling tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands to seek refuge in Egypt or the Gulf.” The goal of the IDF’s operation is that “Gaza will become a place where no human being can exist”.

Raz Segal, an Israeli historian and director of the genocide studies program at Stockton University has described what has been happening in Gaza “a textbook case of genocide”. The organization Jewish Voice for Peace has called on the world community to demand a ceasefire to protect the Palestinian people against genocide. 880 legal scholars and academics in conflict studies and genocide studies issued a statement on October 15 warning of potential genocide, observing that Israeli official’s incitement of genocide was being followed up with Israel’s indiscriminate bombing. The Center for Constitutional Rights three days later issued a briefing paper describing Israel’s crime of genocide and the US government’s complicity in it. On October 19, seven UN Special Rapporteurs issued a statement decrying the bombing of hospitals and schools and called on the world community to act to prevent genocide.

So, yes, to answer the question again, civilians are being massacred in Gaza, with openly declared genocidal intent.

I then added that this is what other group members were trying to defend, and this is what Mr. Kennedy has been also trying to defend. In doing so, I must regrettably say, he is completely discrediting himself as a defender of children and human rights. My heart is broken, and my soul is weeping. It is unconscionable. And I cannot in good conscience remain silent about it.