World Socialist Web Site – December 28, 2023

As Gaza death toll nears 30,000, Israeli leaders call for ethnic cleansing

  Andre Damon

On Wednesday, Gaza’s Government Media Office reported that the number of Gazans killed has hit 28,110, including 21,110 bodies identified at hospitals and approximately 7,000 additional people missing, most buried under the rubble.

In a separate report, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reported, “The majority of those killed in the Israeli air and artillery attacks on the Gaza Strip were civilians, including 11,422 children, and 5,822 women.”

The organization asserted, “Israel has deliberately targeted civilian infrastructure in order to cause as many casualties, material losses, and destruction as possible … as a form of retaliation and collective punishment.”

The organization concluded, “This is against international humanitarian law and the 1949 Geneva Convention, and amounts to war crimes according to the Rome Statute, which governs the International Criminal Court.” It added, “Israel has flagrantly broken the terms of international humanitarian law, which forbids property damage as a ‘preventive means’ and property destruction as a means of deterrence, even for military purposes.”

In its own report, the Gaza Government Media Office asserted that 310 medical personnel and 97 journalists have been killed. It reported that 65,000 residential units have been completely destroyed, with another 290,000 damaged. The government media office reported that Israel has “targeted more than 23 hospitals, 53 health centres, 140 health facilities, and 102 ambulances.”

In a separate report, Gaza’s education ministry said that over 4,037 students and 209 educational staff have been killed since the start of Israel’s attack on Gaza. It added that more than 7,259 students and 619 teachers were injured since October 7.

On Wednesday, more than 30 people were killed after Israel bombed a building near the al-Amal Hospital. In its daily report on the genocide, the United Nations asserted, “On 27 December, heavy Israeli bombardment from air, land, and sea, continued across most of the Gaza Strip. In the north, Gaza City and Jabalya were most affected; in the Middle Area, hostilities continued in the four refugee camps—Al Bureij, An Nuseirat, Deir Al Balah and Al Maghazi. Simultaneously, Israeli forces struck multiple targets in the southern cities of Khan Yunis and Rafah.”

As the death toll soars, Israeli politicians are openly advocating the ethnic cleansing of Gaza through the forcible displacement of the entire Palestinian population.

On Wednesday, Avigdor Liberman, a member of Israel’s parliament who previously served as defense minister, became the latest Israeli politician to openly advocate the ethnic cleansing of Gaza through the displacement of the population into the Sinai Desert. Liberman called on the Israeli military to “tear down the fences” between Gaza and Egypt. He continued, “As soon as there is no obstacle there, I estimate one-and-a-half million Gazans will leave for Sinai and we will not disturb anyone.”

This echoed a statement in parliament Monday by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu , who declared, “Regarding voluntary immigration … we are working on it. This is the direction we are going in.”

Earlier this month, Liberman published an op-ed in the Times of Israel entitled “Innocents in Gaza? Don’t be naïve,” in which he called for collective punishment against the entire civilian population of Gaza.

As the ferocity of the genocide increases, Israel is making preparations to massively expand the war throughout the Middle East.

Earlier this week, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant claimed that Israel is at “war” with multiple countries. “We are in a multi-front war. We are being attacked from seven fronts—Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), Iraq, Yemen and Iran,” he said. “We have already responded and acted on six of those fronts,” in a clear threat to Iran.

On Wednesday, Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz threatened Lebanon at a press conference, declaring, “The situation on Israel’s northern border demands change. The stopwatch for a diplomatic solution is running out. If the world and Lebanese government don’t act in order to prevent the firing on Israel’s northern residents, and to distance Hezbollah from the border, the [Israeli military] will do it.” He concluded, “the war will continue and expand.”

The United States, which is funding and arming the genocide, is coordinating its own military escalation in the Middle East with that of Israel. On Christmas Day, the US military carried out attacks on three locations in Iraq, targeting what it called Iranian proxy forces.

In a letter to Congress on Wednesday, US President Joe Biden wrote, “On the night of December 25, 2023, at my direction, United States forces conducted discrete strikes against three facilities in Iraq used by Iran-affiliated groups for training, logistics support, and other purposes… The strikes were intended to degrade and disrupt the ongoing series of attacks against the United States and our partners, and to deter Iran and Iran-backed militia groups from conducting or supporting further attacks on United States personnel and facilities.”

Biden threatened, “The United States stands ready to take further action, as necessary and appropriate, to address further threats or attacks.”

With every passing day, it is becoming clear that the Israeli-US genocide and ethnic cleansing of the population of Gaza is a critical component of a major new military offensive being carried out by the imperialist powers in the Middle East. With the new year just days away, the imperialist powers are seeking to make 2024 another year of endless war and military barbarism.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/12/28/tmyz-d28.html?pk_campaign=newsletter&pk_kwd=wsws

Daily Sabah – December 28, 2023

Israeli advance on central Gaza causes new Palestinian exodus

Amounting Israeli military advance on central Gaza on Thursday pushed tens of thousands of already displaced Palestinian families to take flight again in a new mass exodus.

Further south, Israeli forces struck the area around a hospital in the heart of Khan Younis, the Gaza Strip's main southern city, where residents feared a new ground push into territory crowded with families made homeless in 12 weeks of indiscriminate attacks.

Israel has escalated its ground war in Gaza sharply since just before Christmas despite public pleas from its closest ally the United States to scale the campaign down in the closing weeks of the year.

The main focus of fighting is now in central areas south of the wetlands that bisect the Strip, where Israeli forces have ordered civilians out as their tanks advance.

Tens of thousands of people fleeing the huge Nuseirat, Bureij and Maghazi districts of central Gaza were heading south or west Thursday into the already overwhelmed city of Deir al-Balah along the Mediterranean coast, crowding into hastily built camps of makeshift tents.

"Over 150,000 people – young children, women carrying babies, people with disabilities & the elderly – have nowhere to go," the main U.N. organisation operating in Gaza, UNRWA, said in a social media post decrying what it called "forced displacement" under Israeli evacuation orders.

The eastern part of Bureij was a theatre of heavy fighting on Thursday morning, with Israeli tanks pushing in from the north and east, residents and militants said.

Fighting near hospital

Khan Younis, the main southern city where Israeli forces advanced this month after a truce collapse, came under heavy bombardment Thursday morning from warplanes and tanks near the Al-Amal hospital, west of Israeli positions.

The Palestinian Red Crescent, which runs the hospital and has its headquarters nearby, said 10 Palestinians were killed and 12 wounded in one bombardment there, the third strike targeting the area around the hospital in less than an hour.

Residents said they believed Israeli forces were trying to provoke a new exodus ahead of a further ground assault in the city. Al-Amal is not far from Nasser Hospital, the main hospital in Khan Younis and the largest still functioning in the enclave.

Palestinian officials reported 50 people killed in strikes in Khan Younis and in the central area. Israel reported three more of its soldiers killed in fighting in central and southern areas, bringing the toll in the ground campaign to 169. The past week has seen some of its heaviest losses of the war so far.

Israel says it will not halt its ground campaign in Gaza until it roots out the Palestinian resistance group Hamas for its Oct. 7 incursion that killed 1,140 people.

The Israeli assault in response has laid much of the enclave to waste, killing over 21,100 people – nearly 1% of Gaza's 2.3 million population – with thousands more dead feared lost in the ruins.

Virtually all residents have been driven from their homes at least once and many forced to flee several times. Only a handful of hospitals are still functioning.

https://www.dailysabah.com/world/mid-east/israeli-advance-on-central-gaza-causes-new-palestinian-exodus

Daily Sabah – December 28, 2023

UN slams Israel's unlawful killings, rights situation in West Bank

The United Nations has called on Israel to "end unlawful killings" of Palestinians amid rapidly deteriorating rights situation in the West Bank occupied West Bank.

A report released Thursday demanded an immediate end to the use of military weapons and means during law enforcement operations, an end to arbitrary detention and ill-treatment of Palestinians, and the lifting of discriminatory movement restrictions.

"The use of military tactics and weapons in law enforcement contexts, the use of unnecessary or disproportionate force, and the enforcement of broad, arbitrary and discriminatory movement restrictions that affect Palestinians are extremely troubling," U.N. rights chief Volker Türk said in a statement.

"The intensity of the violence and repression is something that has not been seen in years."

The report looked at the human rights situation in the occupied West Bank and annexed East Jerusalem since the Oct. 7 Hamas incursion that killed about 1,140 people.

Israel in retaliation launched a brutal aerial bombardment and a siege followed by a ground invasion, killing at least 21,110 people, mostly women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.

Documented deaths

The report, which looked in detail at Oct. 7 to Nov. 20, documented a "sharp increase" in airstrikes as well as incursions into refugee camps and other densely-populated areas, resulting in "deaths, injuries and extensive damage" to civilian infrastructure.

In the weeks following Oct. 7, the report documented a "sharp rise in settler attacks" including "shootings, burning of homes and vehicles, and uprooting of trees."

Türk asked Israel to end "settler violence against the Palestinian population, to investigate all incidents of violence by settlers and Israeli security forces, to ensure effective protection of Palestinian communities against any form of forcible transfer, and to ensure the ability of herding communities displaced due to repeated attacks by armed settlers to return to their lands."

The U.N. Human Rights Office said it had verified the deaths of 300 Palestinians from Oct. 7 to Dec. 27 in the occupied West Bank and annexed East Jerusalem. The deaths included 79 children.

Of the 300 deaths, "Israeli security forces killed at least 291 Palestinians, settlers killed eight, and one Palestinian was killed either by Israeli security Forces or settlers."

The rights office said that prior to Oct. 7, 200 Palestinians had already been killed in the area in 2023, which it said was the highest number in a 10-month-period since the U.N. began keeping records in 2005.

Türk urged Israel to grant his office access to Israel, adding that it was ready to report in a similar manner on the Oct. 7 attacks.

https://www.dailysabah.com/world/mid-east/un-slams-israels-unlawful-killings-rights-situation-in-west-bank

Countercurrent – December 28, 2023

Demanding an End to Israel’s Targeted Killings of Journalists

by Phil Pasquini

To commemorate the deaths of 100 journalists and media workers along with over 20,000 Gazans who have been murdered by the Israeli military with weapons supplied by the US, an action calling attention to the ongoing genocide along with the targeted killings of journalists took place in San Francisco. Outside of the Chronicle newspaper building journalists, media workers and supporters of journalism gathered to demand a permanent ceasefire now and an end to all US aid to Israel.

The commemoration was organized by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) Palestine Solidarity Campaign saying “the Israeli government has, since the beginning of the war in Gaza, continued its organized attack and murder of journalists as part of the efforts of the Israeli forces to stop the documentation and recording of their war crimes and the genocidal slaughter.” The union “strongly condemns the killing of journalists in Gaza, Israel and from Lebanon and calls on all parties to ensure the safety of journalists in the region to work without threat or interference.”

Comments made by Benny Gantz, a minister in the Israeli government and former defense minister, who compared journalists to “terrorists” was condemned by the union by noting “Journalism is not terrorism, and covering violence is not the same thing as condoning it. Journalists document tragedy as it unfolds and shine a light on a dark world. Our job is to seek truth and report it, especially during a war.”

The members of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign have called on their Executive Council to stand with Palestine demanding, “Our union must stand on the right side of history. Our union must pressure the U.S. government to stop funding and supporting Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians. The billions spent on weapons and war should instead be put towards life-affirming systems such as healthcare, education, and infrastructure that benefits the working class.”

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign is also calling upon the union to honor the foundational commitment outlined in its constitution: “To raise the standards of journalism and ethics of the industry; to foster friendly cooperation with all workers. Living up to those words requires nothing less than demanding a ceasefire and an end to our government’s aid to Israel.”

Speaking to those gathered, union activist Steve Zeltzer spoke to the subject by saying “Not only have the journalists been killed, but their families have been killed by Israeli forces as they have actually bombed their homes in Gaza.” After posing the question of why so many journalists are being killed in Gaza, Zeltzer answered “The reason is that Israel does not want what they are doing in Gaza to get out. We believe that the labor movement and CWA International need to take a strong stand along with that of the United Auto Workers (UAW) and the American Postal workers Union who have already taken a strong stand against US support for Israeli’s war. The bombs, the bullets that are killing Palestinian journalists are coming from US weapons which our tax dollars pay for. That is a war crime and why are we paying for war crimes?’

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has characterized the war in Gaza on journalists and media workers, killed, injured, or missing “as the deadliest for journalists since they began gathering data in 1992.” Journalism is a dangerous profession and those who are willing to put their lives on the line to report from war zones are heroes in every sense of the word. All journalists deserve respect and support as they report on issues and conditions so the public in turn can be informed with relevant factual information and news about their communities and the world, to better understand for themselves the circumstances affecting their lives. Only demagogs and dictators fear the public being thus informed and are afraid to allow for the free exchange of information and ideas between journalists and the public, knowing full well that knowledge and Information is power.

Zeltzer went on to note that it’s not just journalists in Gaza who are being attacked but that here in the US journalists and media workers who support a ceasefire have been singled out, sanctioned and retaliated against to which the Palestine Solidarity Campaign has declared that “We defend their democratic rights and the rights of all journalists here and abroad.”

He went on to explain how several journalists at the LA Times “…who signed a statement for a ceasefire as a result of which the LA Times said they could no longer cover wars in the Middle East.” He pointed out how management at the paper has taken a position on a ceasefire in a November 16^th editorial titled “Cease-fire now. The killing in Gaza must stop” in part saying that “It is time for a cease-fire. It is time for the Biden administration to assert strong and sustained pressure on the government of Benjamin Netanyahu to stop attacks that have reportedly already killed more than 11,000 Gazans. The world cannot stand by to witness more slaughter of civilians.” Evidently, as Zeltzer pointed out, while “Management can take a position on a ceasefire, workers at the newspaper cannot take a position.”

“We believe that journalists in the newspaper industry have a right to take sides, to take a position.” He noted, too, while standing under the watchful eye of the building’s security cameras and by the private security officers observing the protest, that the San Francisco Chronicle has banned journalists from marching on May Day and on Women’s Day” so this type of suppression on free speech is industry wide. He closed by declaring that “Journalists have a right to have their own voices.”

Phil Pasquini is a freelance journalist and photographer. His reports and photographs appear in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Pakistan Link and Nuze.ink. He is the author of Domes, Arches and Minarets: A History of Islamic-Inspired Buildings in America.

https://countercurrents.org/2023/12/demanding-an-end-to-israels-targeted-killings-of-journalists/

World Socialist Web Site – December 28, 2023

The forces behind the assault on opposition to Gaza genocide

 Gabriel Black

More than 80 days into Israel’s genocidal war against the people of Gaza, the ruling class is bitterly attacking democratic rights in the major capitalist countries in order to suppress and isolate mass protest against the genocide.

The marches that have, globally, involved tens of millions of people are being relentlessly and cynically labeled “antisemitic” by the bourgeois press. In Germany, protests against the massacre are outright banned and criminalized. On college campuses in the United States, films by young Jewish directors critical of the state of Israel are being barred and those showing them threatened with expulsion. Student groups opposed to the massacre unfolding in Gaza are being outright banned, including Jewish Voice for Peace.

The United States Congress has begun a witch-hunt which targets university administrators whose words and actions do not sufficiently target students’ right to protest. The congressional grilling of university presidents Liz Magill (Penn), Claudine Gay (Harvard), and Sally Kornbluth (MIT)  earlier this month was a McCarthyite event aimed at intimidating other institutional heads to march in lock-step with this assault on democratic rights. Those who are not adequately revoking or curtailing the basic rights of students and employees to protest face expulsion from their post. The media is entirely complicit, with the New York Times pushing out reporters and staff who become too “political” by characterizing Israel’s assault as genocide in their non-work-related writing, including social media posts.

Twenty-two Democratic members of the House of Representatives and virtually all the Republicans voted to  censure US House Representative Rashida Tlaib (Democrat-Michigan) for calling for a ceasefire. Meanwhile, figures like Republican Senator Lindsey Graham are cheered when they call for a “total war” against what he calls “the most extremist population on Earth,” that is, the residents of Gaza.

The Biden administration has played a leading role in the campaign to censor opposition to Israel on college campuses. In October the White House began a campaign to combat the surge of pro-Palestinian sentiment on campus, sending teams from the Department of Education to go to major universities and colleges throughout the country.

White House spokesperson Andrew Bates, reporting on the student protests against Israel, stated, “these grotesque sentiments and actions shock the conscience and turn the stomach. They also recall our commitment that can’t be forgotten: ‘never again.’” Yet, cynically, it is the White House which has provided nearly every bomb that has been dropped in Gaza, killing well over 20,000 civilians, primarily women and children, the worst ethnic cleansing of the 21st century.

The Biden administration’s support of Israel has nothing to do with protecting the world or the Jewish people from the horror of genocide. It is about geopolitical control over the Middle East by US imperialism and its regional allies.

As Biden explained in 1986, speaking about US support for Israel on the Senate floor, “There is no apology to be made, none. It is the best $3 billion investment we make. If there were not an Israel the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect our interests in the region. The United States would have to go out and invent an Israel.”

A campaign based on a narrow and isolated group

One of the most remarkable things about this campaign is how little support it has beyond the thin layer of economic, political, and cultural power holders at the height of capitalist society. In stark contrast to the hundreds of millions of people shocked and outraged by the brutality and hypocrisy of the massacre of Gaza, the pro-genocide forces amount to a handful of billionaires, and the political and media apologists and state functionaries who serve them.

In this sense, the significant resources that are being devoted to shutting down and intimidating pro-Palestinian protests are not a sign of strength. Rather, they reflect the isolation and nervousness of the ruling stratum. 

The leaders of the United States, and its key imperialist allies, face a sea of troubles: a stagnating, indebted global economy; an increasingly restless and combative working class; mass opposition to its drive towards war; a failed attempt to dismember Russia which has cost hundreds of thousands of lives in Ukraine and Russia; a technological scramble to control an energy transition dominated by China; unending inflation, particularly in housing, food, and energy; the growing de-legitimization of the major political and cultural institutions, including the bourgeois political parties, the media, and the trade union apparatus; and now, to add to all this, a mass global protest movement opposed to the imperialist slaughter of Gaza. As the World Socialist Web Site stated recently, “The genocide in Gaza is politically radicalizing an entire generation of workers and youth in the US and internationally.” 

These problems terrify the ruling class. For all the trillions of dollars at its disposal, it cannot escape this historic, engulfing crisis of its own making.

The billionaires

To better understand the isolated character of the campaign to silence opposition to Israel’s genocide, it is useful to understand who is leading it.

The first major group involved are a handful of multi-billionaires and economic power players whose stranglehold over the global economy positions them to control the political and cultural leadership of the major universities and other significant institutions.

As the World Socialist Web Site noted in an article written by an anonymous Harvard employee:

Just as inequality in general is increasingly incompatible with what remains of democracy, so is the subordination of universities to wealthy donors incompatible with academic freedom. The right-wing, pro-Zionist “donor revolt” is a qualitative development in big-money university donors attempting to use their power and influence to shape campus discourse. That these donors wield such influence—and that many of them seek to do so publicly—is an indication of how deeply compromised academia already is.

Indeed, universities are largely reliant on this stream of cash. According to the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, in 1980 private donations to US colleges and universities amounted to $4.2 billion. Today they have surged to $59.5 billion.

These are some of the major billionaires whose “donor revolt” is leading to the attack on basic rights of free speech and protest on US campuses.

Les Wexner – One of the most important capitalists in retail sales, Wexner has amassed $10.6 billion, and is the 192nd richest person in the world, according to Bloomberg. Wexner founded L Brands, which controls, or previously controlled, Bath & Body Works, Victoria’s Secret, Abercrombie & Fitch, Express, and several other major brands. While Wexner no longer controls L Brands, his foundation, the Wexner Foundation, donated tens of millions of dollars to Harvard over the last few decades and has now pulled millions of dollars of future support. (He is also the billionaire who became the launching pad for convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, who managed Wexner’s personal holdings for nearly two decades).

Idan Ofer – Idan and his brother Eyal are the 77th and 87th richest people in the world, owning $42 billion, according to Bloomberg. Together they control Ofer Global, the Zodiac Group, Quantum Pacific Group and Global Holdings, each of which are massive industrial, energy and real estate investment firms. They own about half of Israeli Corp., Israel’s largest holding company. Collectively their companies take in hundreds of billions of dollars a year in revenue through shipping, fertilizers, industrial chemicals, energy and real estate. Miller Global Properties, one of the various “small”’companies that they have a leading ownership in, is notable for controlling various landmark properties, such as the Pebble Beach golf course, the Aspen ski resort and the Bevely Hills Hotel. Idan Ofer and his wife Batia both quit the board of Harvard in an attempt to pressure the university to crack down on the outcry of pro-Palestinian sentiment on the campus. Idan Ofer’s companies have been at the heart of multiple chemical leak and environmental scandals in Israel. Eyal was formerly an intelligence officer in the Israeli Air Force; he now resides in Monaco.

Bill Ackman – Ackman is an American billionaire who runs Pershing Square Capital, a hedge fund with about $20 billion under management. Ackman owns $4 billion personally. Pershing Square Capital holds significant shares of major US companies, including a 10 percent ownership of Target, one percent of Procter & Gamble, 10 percent control of Chipotle, a 7 percent share of Universal Music Group, and over a billion dollars in Netflix. Ackman is currently leading a vicious campaign to oust Harvard President Claudine Gay. Previously Ackman fought to get Harvard to release all the names of students who signed a pro-Palestinian statement, demanding that employers refuse to hire these students.

Ken Griffin – Griffin is the 35th richest person in the world, with over $37 billion in assets. He is the CEO of Citadel, a massive $52 billion hedge fund based in Miami. Citadel owns a significant share in some of the largest technology and bioscience companies, including Microsoft, Activision, Boston Scientific, Nvidia, Humana, Apple, Comcast, Merck, and Adobe. Griffin has donated over half a billion dollars to Harvard and is pressuring the university to adopt a stronger pro-Israel stance.

Cliff Asness – Asness is an American billionaire who founded AQR Capital Management, which has over $100 billion under management. Asness severed all his donations to the University of Pennsylvania and has publicly begun a campaign to pressure the university to stop “support[ing] evil.” In a diatribe published in the Wall Street Journal, he described the pro-Palestinian protests as a reflection of the “deep and systematic rot on elite college campuses.”

Marc Rowan – Rowan is co-owner of Apollo Asset Management, one of the largest private equity firms. He has over $6 billion in personal wealth. He halted his donations to University of Pennsylvania, using “Wall Street tactics to ‘strong-arm’” the university, in the words of Business Insider. Apollo has sprawling investments in real estate, cruise companies (Norwegian, Regent), hotels (Harrah’s Entertainment), education (McGraw Hill), entertainment (Chuck E. Cheese), private security (ADT) and retail (Smart and Final). Apollo co-founder Leon Black was formerly CEO of the company before revelations emerged that he had paid Jeffrey Epstein over $100 million for tax planning and consulting services. 

Zionists, antisemites and ethno-nationalists

Complementing this group of billionaires are a series of ethno-nationalists, both Zionists and MAGA Trumpers, who are more closely coordinating the effort to censor outrage against Israel’s genocide.

A recent, 2023 film, Israelism, made by two Jewish filmmakers, provides a window into the mechanisms used to promote Zionism in American culture and equate it with Judaism. One central figure in the film is Abe Foxman, an American lawyer and multi-millionaire who was the national director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) from 1987 to 2015. Foxman and the ADL are major fixtures in the American Zionist lobby, heavily promoting organizations such as Birthright.

The ADL characterizes all Jewish organizations opposed to the policies of the state of Israel as “hate groups.” Jonathan Greenblatt, the current ADL chief, described organizations such as Jewish Voice for Peace as the “photo inverse of white supremacists,” on Twitter. “We long have said that these are hate groups,” he stated.

The comparison of left-wing Jewish activists opposed to an apartheid ethno-nationalist state with white supremacists is as slanderous as it is ignorantly absurd. It is precisely these types of comparisons that are being used as ammunition in the effort to ban anti-Zionist groups like Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine from campuses.

Foxman previously provided political cover for the rise of Donald Trump, declaring in an interview, “I don’t think he’s a racist, I don’t think he’s an antisemite.”

The marriage between the Zionist lobby—many of whom are Democrats, like Foxman and Ackman—and the fascistic right-wing must be underscored.

Henry Schwartz, an executive committee member of one of the main US Zionist lobbies, the Zionist Organization of America, stated that Jews were “blessed by heaven with Donald Trump being elected president of the United States.”

To these wealthy, indifferent layers, who solidarize themselves not with the plight of millions of working-class Jews but rather the capitalist elite, Trump’s openly fascistic ethno-nationalism is warmly greeted. When, in 2017, fascists, neo-Nazis, and white supremacists took up torches and marched through Charlottesville, Virginia, chanting “Jews will not replace us,” Trump commented that they were “very fine people.” But this was no problem for these donors, who by antisemitism simply mean opposition to the government of Israel.

The lead “prosecutor” in the December 6 McCarthyite hearing for the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and Penn was Republican Representative Elise Stefanik (New York). Stefanik is a close ally of Donald Trump, who has expressed support for the so-called “Great Replacement Theory,” an openly fascistic and anti-Semitic theory, which holds that a conspiracy of elite Jewish liberals is trying to “poison the blood”—in the words of Trump—of white Western Christian nations through mass immigration. She supported Trump’s attempt to overturn the presidential election through the coup of January 6, 2021.

The close connections between the Zionist lobby and the far right are well documented.

One of Trump’s largest donors was the late Sheldon Adelson, who in 2015 had amassed $28 billion through the addictive and exploitative casino industry. According to Forbes he was the 18th richest person in the world a few years before his death in 2021. Adelson was a major figure in the Israeli American Council, acting both on its executive board and as a lead donor. 

Adelson was introduced to Trump through Michael Steinhardt, an American hedge fund manager and billionaire, who co-founded the Birthright Israel program. Steinhardt was also a major donor to Trump, and also to New York University, where he was a member of the board before resigning over accusations of illegally trafficking in antiquities.

It is notable that one of the founders of Birthright is a major Trump supporter. 

Birthright is a critical institution both in garnering political support for Israel within the US and in facilitating migration to Israel, especially its illegal settlements on the West Bank. About one in every six Israeli settlers in the West Bank are American citizens. Some 800,000 young people have gone on free trips to Israel sponsored by the Birthright Israel Foundation, described by the New York Times as a “rite of passage” for many young American Jews. Rabbi Bennet Miller, the national chair of the Association of Reform Zionists of America, is interviewed in the film Israelism, insisting, “Every one of our kids should be going over, not for ten days, but for a semester or a year.” In recent years, thousands of young people have been protesting on the trips, walking off in the middle to visit Palestinian settlements in opposition to the program’s guided tour.

This intertwining of the fascistic right, US imperialism, and Zionist forces can also be seen in the lawsuits underway in the US right now claiming rampant antisemitism on US campuses. An investigation by Grayzone notes that all of the lawsuits are being filed by one firm, Kasowitz Benson Torres. David Friedman was also one of the principal lawyers at the firm until 2017, when he became the US Ambassador to Israel under Trump. Friedman is currently campaigning for NYU to begin a crackdown against pro-Palestinian protest.

The firm has been described by Eric Garland, a geopolitical analyst and influencer, as “Netanyahu’s guys in the Trump White House.” The law firm was founded by a Big Tobacco lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, a long-time donor to both the Republican and Democratic parties, including to Trump, Biden and Obama. The firm was previously registered as a foreign agent, representing Israel, with the US Justice Department. Another of its clients was the Ukrainian-Israeli billionaire Ikor Kolomoisky, a major early donor for the fascist Azov battalion, who is now in prison for fraud. 

The Grayzone report also notes that the “witnesses” who have launched lawsuits through this firm have all been semi-employed, despite being students, by Israeli lobby organizations, particularly the Alliance for Israel, Israel Alliance, and Students Supporting Israel. While these paid employees of these groups have claimed instances of hate, such as being told, “You’re a dirty little Jew and you deserve to die,” their lawsuits do not provide any specific examples or references to such moments of antisemitism, just confrontations with pro-Palestinian activists, shouting matches, and the use of the supposedly antisemitic slogan, “from the river to the sea.”

The defense of Palestine is a class question

This marriage of Zionists, billionaires and outright fascistic antisemites testifies to the fact that the campaign underway to assault basic democratic rights, including free speech, has nothing to do with the popular demands of students, nor, for that matter, anything to do with a campaign against genuine antisemitism. 

In a critical lecture delivered December 14 at Humboldt University in Berlin, World Socialist Web Site International Editorial Board Chairman David North outlined the fascistic ideology that underpins the Netanyahu regime in Israel,

In the midst of the crimes being committed by the Israeli regime, there is no greater and more insidious lie than the claim that opposition to Zionism is, and must be, antisemitic. This is a lie that is refuted by the long history of pre-1948 opposition to Zionism among countless thousands of Jewish workers and intellectuals, spanning several generations, who rejected the myth-based call for a return to Palestine.

The working class, socialist movement played a key role in opposing Zionism:

[Socialists] identified and denounced the politically reactionary character of the perspective of establishing a Jewish state in Palestine. It was understood that this project was a colonialist enterprise, which could only be achieved in alliance with imperialism and at the expense of the Palestinian Arab population that had lived in the territory for 2,000 years.

The genocide of Gaza has nothing to do with the defense of the Jewish people. In fact, insisting that the horrific death of more than 20,000 people serves Jews or Judaism, is itself a deeply perverse, fundamentally antisemitic notion—claiming that Jews or Judaism require this massacre.

Those censoring the mass upsurge and awakening of anger in young people and workers worldwide do not reflect a genuine popular movement, let alone a genuine popular movement of Jewish people. Rather, this campaign is the product of an alliance of multi-billionaires, Trump-loving antisemites, and American imperialist strategists and cheerleaders dedicated to Israel as a geopolitical necessity. Safeguarded and promoted by the media, this alliance of reaction represents the interests of a tiny minority.

Workers and youth must make every effort to expose and resist this assault underway on democratic rights. Fighting not only against Israel’s genocide against Palestine, but also against the broader preparations for US-led war against Iran and China, requires a militant opposition against every effort to strip the population of the basic right even to question the actions undertaken by the government on the pretext of “national security.”

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/12/28/xxni-d28.html?pk_campaign=newsletter&pk_kwd=wsws

The Countercurrent – December 28, 2023

The Most Rich Turns Richer

The world’s richest people got even richer over the past year, Bloomberg’s top-500 billionaire list, published on Wednesday, shows. Some 77% of the billionaires who made it on the list saw their fortunes grow even larger, while others experienced certain losses.

Elon Musk remains at the top, with an estimated net worth of $235 billion. The South African-born billionaire first dislodged Amazon owner Jeff Bezos from the pedestal in mid-2021, retaining first place ever since.

This year, Musk saw his fortune grow by nearly $98 billion, according to Bloomberg. While his social media platform X, formerly Twitter, has been in turmoil, locked into back-and-forth with advertisers and battered by various scandals, Musk’s flagship asset, Tesla, has enjoyed steady growth, further solidifying his position.

Bezos himself is currently in third place with $178 billion, narrowly outmatched by Bernard Arnault, the CEO of the LVMH (Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton), whose wealth grew to some $179 billion this year.

Musk’s arch-rival and Meta owner, Mark Zuckerberg, enjoyed the second-largest absolute growth in wealth this year, with his net worth surging by nearly $83 billion. The two have long engaged in an open public rivalry and even planned to stage a fighting match, but the idea was ultimately scrapped. The growth, enabled by surging shares of his social media empire after the 2022 collapse, put Zuckerberg in sixth place with $128 billion.

Among the top-15, in fact, only a single billionaire saw his fortune shrink. Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, the chairman of the Adani Group, saw his net worth decrease by a massive $36.3 billion to some $84.3 billion, with the development putting him out of the top-10 list.

The massive loss – which actually became the largest one in absolute terms this year – was prompted by a large scandal around Andani’s empire, which erupted early this year. Namely, the businessman was accused of “pulling the largest con in corporate history” and “brazen stock manipulation.” The company, however, has firmly denied all the allegations.

Mark Zuckerberg Building Doomsday Bunker

Another media report said:

Billionaire Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly started work on a $100 million family compound in Hawaii that will include a 5,000-square-foot underground bunker featuring an escape hatch and a tunnel leading to two connecting mansions.

The project is located on the Hawaiian island of Kauai and is so secretive that carpenters, electricians and other contractors are muzzled by nondisclosure agreements, according to a report this week by U.S. media outlet Wired. “It is fight club, we do not talk about fight club,” one former employee told Wired. “Anything posted from here, they get wind of it right away.”

The compound stretches across about 1,400 acres, on land that Zuckerberg began buying in August 2014. A spokeswoman for the billionaire told Wired that he and his wife, Priscilla Chan, spent $170 million to purchase the property, which they view as their family home.

Known as Koolau Ranch, the compound reportedly produces its own energy and water supplies, and onsite ranching and farming can provide the food. The property will include more than a dozen buildings with at least 30 bedrooms and 30 bathrooms combined, said Wired, citing property records and interviews with unidentified contractors.

Two mansions at the center of the compound will total about 57,000 square feet of living space, and 11 disk-shaped treehouses will be connected by rope bridges. The property will be dotted with guest houses and will include a large building with a gym, pools, sauna, hot tub and tennis court.

The bunker will have living space, a mechanical room and a metal door filled with concrete. Many of the compound’s doors will be soundproofed and operated by keypads. Some of the passages, such as a “blind” door in the library, will be designed to resemble walls. Dozens of cameras will be stationed around the property. Just one small operations building will have more than 20 cameras.

Wired based its $100 million cost estimate on building permits, saying the actual figure will likely be higher. “The cost rivals that of the largest private, personal construction projects in human history,” the outlet said.

A six-foot wall reportedly blocks views of the property, as well as the ocean, from a road fronting the compound. Security guards are stationed at the entrance gate and patrol the nearby beaches on all-terrain vehicles.

https://countercurrents.org/2023/12/the-most-rich-turns-richer/
 

 

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HEADLINES

 The Journal of America Team:

 Editor in chief:
Abdus Sattar Ghazali

Senior Editor:
Prof. Arthur Scott

Special Correspondent
Maryam Turab