Counter current – December 9, 2023
US Vetoes Cease-Fire Resolution at UN Security Council
By Julia Conley
As the United Nations humanitarian chief warned that aid workers in Gaza are “hanging on by our fingertips” as they try to mitigate an “untenable” disaster, and with Americans’ supportﾠfor Israel’s U.S-backed bombardment of the enclave eroding, the United States on Friday vetoed a resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian cease-fire at the U.N. Security Council.
U.S. Envoy to the U.N. Robert Wood told members of the council that a cease-fire would “only plant the seeds for the next war.”
Thirteen member-countries voted in favor of the cease-fire resolution, which was introduced after U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres took the rare stepﾠof invoking Article 99 of the U.N. Charter, warning that Israel’s slaughter of at least 17,487 Palestinians in just two months “may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security.”
The U.K. abstained from voting on the resolution, saying it did not take into account that Hamas committed acts of terrorism when it attacked Israel on October 7.
Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian U.N. envoy, called the veto “disastrous.”
“The Security Council was again prevented from rising to this moment to uphold its clear responsibilities in the face of this grave crisis threatening human lives and threatening regional and international peace and security,” said Mansour. “Instead of allowing this council to uphold its mandate by finally making a clear call after two months of massacres that the atrocities must end, the war criminals are given more time to perpetuate them. How can this be justified?”
Nicolas de Rivière, France’s permanent representative to the Security Council, who voted in favor of the cease-fire, argued that there is no “contradiction in the fight against terrorism and the protection of civilians, in strict respect of international humanitarian law.”
“Unfortunately once again, this council has failed. With a lack of unity and by refusing to genuinely commit to negotiations in doing this, the crisis in Gaza is getting worse and it runs the risk of extending,” said de Rivière.
The U.S. has now vetoed U.N. resolutions to hold Israel accountable for its policies in Palestine 45 times, human rights lawyer Noura Erakat said.
Former U.N. human rights official Craig Mokhiber—who resigned in October over the U.N.’s response to the war in Gaza—noted that U.S. blocked the resolution on the eve of the 75th anniversary of the U.N. Genocide Convention.
“Thousands have died since [the United States’] last veto and more will die now,” said Mokhiber.
Julia Conley is a staff writer for Common Dreams.
https://countercurrents.org/2023/12/us-vetoes-cease-fire-resolution-at-un-security-council/
World Socialist Web Site – December 9, 2023
Israel’s Murder of Palestinian Author Dr. Refaat al-Ar’eer sparks global outrage
By Jacob Crosse
The December 6 targeted assassination of gifted English teacher, author, translator and Palestinian rights advocate Dr. Refaat al-Ar’eer in Gaza by the US-backed Israel Defense Forces has provoked mass outrage across the globe. Dr. al-Ar’eer, a professor at the Islamic University in Gaza, which has since been destroyed by the IDF, is one of over 17,400 Palestinians who has been murdered by the IDF in the last two months.
The assassination of al-Ar’eer is one of the more heinous atrocities carried out by the Israeli government as part of its sinister campaign to suppress all those who speak out against the genocide. According to human rights group Euro-Med Monitor, al-Ar’eer along with his brother, sister and four of their children were killed on Wednesday when an Israeli airstrike “surgically targeted the apartment” in Gaza where he was staying.
A gifted and beloved academic, “the voice of Gaza” inspired thousands of Palestinians to learn English, read Shakespeare and see the humanity in Jewish people, in spite of the occupation. Prior to his killing, al-Ar’eer edited two books, Gaza Writes Back and Gaza Unsilenced, and contributed to several others, including 2022’s Light in Gaza: Writing Born of Fire. A regular contributor to Palestinian and left-wing news sites, including Electronic Intifada, al-Ar’eer also co-founded the organization We Are Not Numbers, following Israel’s 2014 military campaign “Operation Protective Edge” in order to help young Palestinians who survived not only cope but explain to the world the story of military occupation.
“Refaat in Gaza” was one of many Palestinians, including photojournalist Motaz Azaiza and filmmaker Bisan Owda, who have become known to workers and youth all over the world for posting on-the-ground updates from Gaza that not only cut through the lies of the capitalist press but also expose the reality of Israel’s war crimes.
Refaat’s final posts on X/Twitter include a poem written last month and a post condemning the role of the Biden administration and the Democratic Party in the slaughter. Collectively, as of this writing, these posts have garnered over 35 million “views” and been “retweeted” over 145,000 times, a reflection of the mass grief and anger al-Ar’eer’s assassination has provoked.
It has become clear that the IDF is deliberately killing Palestinian journalists and academics as part of its genocidal operations.
Four days before Dr. al-Ar’eer was killed, Professor Sufian Tayeh, a leading researcher in physical and applied mathematics and the president of the Islamic University of Gaza, where al-Ar’eer taught, was killed, along with his family in an Israeli airstrike.
Al-Ar’eer’s and Tayeh’s murders followed the end of the misnamed “humanitarian pause” and coincided with the release of a joint report on an October 13 Israeli military strike, which killed Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah and injured six others. The joint report by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Reuters and Agence France-Presse confirmed the strike was the result of deliberate Israeli tank fire. As of December 8, the Committee to Protect Journalists has confirmed the deaths of 63 journalists, overwhelmingly Palestinian, since October 7.
While millions of people around the world are mourning the killing of al-Ar’eer, “the Voice of Gaza,” the mainstream Western press, including the New York Times, Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times—more than 36 hours after his death was made public—have yet to write an article. Their silence on his assassination and the targeted killing of Palestinian journalists, healthcare workers and academics over the last two months exposes them as nothing more than stenographers for the US government and its policy of genocide against the Palestinians.
The assassination of al-Ar’eer, carried out by the fascistic regime of Benjamin Netanyahu, with the direct complicity of the Biden administration and the NATO powers, is not only a war crime but a serious warning to opponents of genocide around the world. Terrified of the global mass movement against the war and unable to stampede public opinion with ahistorical lies that Zionism is synonymous with Judaism—despite the best efforts of capitalist governments the world over to criminalize anti-war opposition as “antisemitic”—the Israeli ruling class, “America’s strongest ally in the Middle East,” is resorting to murdering its political opponents and even objective observers.
The murderous rampage by the Israeli government, backed by US imperialism, is a warning to workers and youth around the world; under conditions of mass opposition to inequality, war and genocide, capitalist governments are increasingly adopting genocide and the targeted assassination of unarmed political opponents and their family members as state policy.
The killing of al-Ar’eer represents an escalation in the global attack on democratic rights, which has been spearheaded by the United States with its prosecution of courageous WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, currently imprisoned in Belmarsh awaiting extradition. Similar measures that have already been employed against al-Ar’eer and Assange are being discussed at the highest levels of government in Washington, London, Paris, Berlin, Rome and Tel Aviv for suppressing domestic political opposition. These genocidal and authoritarian measures have the support of the entire political establishment in the US and internationally.
The crimes committed by the US and its Zionist ally are a harbinger of even worse ones to come. At the same time, the adoption of genocide and targeted assassination, by the governments currently engaged in the genocide in Gaza, underscores the futility of appeals to the same politicians.
For over two months, millions of people around the world have taken to the streets and school campuses, demanding an end to the genocide and for society’s resources to be redirected to improving social conditions, not enriching war profiteers. In the US, Biden and the Democratic Party have rejected these calls, downplayed the Palestinian death toll, whitewashed IDF war crimes, and passed multiple resolutions declaring their fulsome support for the Zionist project.
Under conditions of a growing strike wave and unable to reverse the decline of American capitalism in relation to its competitors, namely China, the US ruling class, and its NATO allies are using the Gaza genocide as a springboard for future war crimes and restrictions on democratic rights.
In order to enact their World War III agenda, the bourgeoisie the world over is encouraging the growth of fascistic and far-right forces to be used as bludgeons against the growing mass anti-war movement.
The growing anti-war movement must not be oriented towards appealing to the war criminals but must be based on the working class, the only social force capable of stopping the war and overthrowing the capitalist system, the source of war, poverty and fascism.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/12/09/xjxo-d09.html
Yemen says no ships bound for Israel will pass Red Sea
All ships bound for Israel, notwithstanding their nationality, will be stopped from passing through the Red Sea and become "a legitimate target" until more aid is delivered to Gaza on these ships, a Yemeni Armed Forces spokesperson said.
"The Yemeni armed forces announce the prohibition of the passage of ships bound for the Zionist entity of any nationality, if they do not enter the Gaza Strip with the food and medicine they need and it will become a legitimate target for our armed forces," according to a statement.
https://abcnews.go.com/International/live-updates/israel-gaza-hamas/?id=105348620
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