Michael Jansen – Informed Comment https://www.juancole.com Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion Mon, 11 Sep 2023 02:46:24 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.8.9 Israel and its Occupation exact a High Price from Palestinians https://www.juancole.com/2023/09/israel-occupation-palestinians.html Mon, 11 Sep 2023 04:04:26 +0000 https://www.juancole.com/?p=214311 ( Jordan Times ) – Last week, the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People called for Israel’s “immediate and unconditional” pull out from East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. Its annual report cited Israel’s breaches of key tenets of international law as proof that Israel’s forever occupation is illegal. These include annexation of portions of the occupied territories, mistreatment of Palestinian inhabitants, and imposing apartheid. This study, one of scores, “concludes that Israel is in gross violation of these laws and that the administration of the occupation has become illegal”, stated Michael Lynk, the UN’s former special rapporteur on Palestine.

He contended, “Because the occupation is illegal, the consequences should be the immediate, unconditional complete withdrawal of Israel’s military forces, the withdrawal of colonial settlers, the repeal of all discriminatory laws and dismantling of the military administrative regime.” The occupation could have ended, colonisation and the military regime pre-empted, and apartheid avoided if Israel had been compelled to abide by the French version of UN Security Council resolution of November 1967 which, after reaffirming the rejection of the acquisition of territory by force, called for the application of: “Retrait des forces armees Israeliennes des territoires occupes lors du recent conflit.”

The French version is significant as it speaks of “des territoires” — “the territories” — while the watered down English text calls for “Withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in recent conflict.” By leaving out “the”, Washington and its pals did not specify all the territories and weakened the resolution. Which Israel ignored in any case without facing sanctions.

Words, words, words. No action from the international community. The new study will join others on dusty shelves in the UN archives while Israel continues colonising Palestinian territory, driving Palestinians from villages, hamlets and land, and tightens its grip on those living under Its everlasting occupation. Israel seeks to annex the entire West Bank by driving out 3 million native Palestinians.

Israel is following a long-term strategy of disputing the very existence of the Palestinian people. According to the Zionists who built and established Israel, Palestine was “a land without a people for a people without a land”. Palestinians have been denied the right to national self-determination and destined to live forever in their country under Israeli occupation.

Since occupying East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza n 1967, Israel has adopted the traditional colonial policy of divide-and-rule. Israel exerts remote control over besieged and blockaded Gaza by air, sea and land and treats it as an open prison for 2 million Palestinians, the majority of whom are trapped for life in the narrow coastal strip.

Israel has annexed East Jerusalem and adjacent territory and denied Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza unfettered entry, cutting them off from their historical cultural centre and its religious sites. Jerusalemites and West Bankers cannot go to Gaza without rare Israeli permits. The West Bank has been sub-divided into northern, central, southern regions and the Jordan Valley.

Israel controls all Palestian movement in the West Bank. The UN reports 650 obstacles. These include permanent checkpoints, checkpoints staffed intermittently, roadblocks, earth mounds and gates, walls, barriers and trenches. Palestinians have to navigate these obstacles whenever they travel from one place to another.

Israel controls all imports into and exports from Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Palestinians depend totally on Israel which uses this control a leverage to put pressure on the Palestinian Authority, Hamas in Gaza, and the Palestinian community in East Jerusalem.

In East Jerusalem and the West Bank, Israel expropriates land and homes with the objective of encouraging Palestinians to emigrate. West Bank villagers are being forced to relocate to towns and cities where they have no property or housing, putting a strain on urban areas and the slender resources of the Palestinian Authority. This amounts to ethnic cleansing.

Israeli analyst Oren Ziv reported on August 31 on the +972 Israeli website: “There are almost no Palestinians remaining in a vast area [150 square kilometres] stretching from Ramallah to the outskirts of Jericho.” Most Palestinians, many of them herders with sheep and goats, “have fled for their lives in recent months as a result of intensifying Israeli settler violence and land seizures, backed by the Israeli army and state institutions”.

Israel imposes the internationally outlawed system of apartheid in the West Bank. While Israeli colonists live under laws governing Israel “proper”, Palestinians are administered by the Palestinian Authority while the area is ruled by Israel’s civil authority which is run by the military. Israel builds infrastructure for Israel’s illegal colonies, subsidises colonists and provides them with the means to live well. Many Palestinian communities are deprived of electricity, water, clinics, schools, roads, and infrastructure. Around 36 per cent of West Bank Palestinians live in poverty. The figure for Gaza is more than 50 per cent.

Palestinian West Bankers and East Jerusalemites are the most physically and electronically surveilled people on the planet. Palestinians have no personal, familial or communal privacy or freedom. Israel justifies this system by claiming it saves Israeli lives.

Israeli troops conduct daily raids into Palestinian cities, towns, villages and refugee  camps, terrorising families, arresting and shooting youths identified through monitoring devices as suspected members of the Palestinian resistance. At least three East Jerusalemites, 233 West Bankers, 37 Gazans, and 35 Israelis have been killed so far this year.

Israel and its occupation exact a high price from the Palestinians.

Reprinted from Jordan Times “> The Jordan Times with the author’s permission.

]]> Two Decades after the US War on Iraq began, the disastrous Consequences of the Conflict are still being Felt https://www.juancole.com/2023/03/disastrous-consequences-conflict.html Tue, 21 Mar 2023 04:04:35 +0000 https://www.juancole.com/?p=210798

Washington’s victory in Iraq did not liberate but imprisoned the country in warfare

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Michael Jansen
 
 

( The Irish Times ) – The US war on Iraq, launched 20 years ago on Monday, became a significant turning point for the eastern Arab world due to the fall of a third key country from the regional front designed to secure the sovereignty and independence of the region. For decades, wars have felled Arab countries like dominoes, if not by design then by default.

The 1948 Israel-Arab war began this process. Arab governments and people responded to Israel’s occupation of 78 per cent of Palestine by pretending Israel did not exist and declaring it a no-go zone. Until then, Palestine had served as a land bridge between Egypt and the Levant, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.


Via Unsplash.

Israel’s 1967 conquest of the rest of Palestine forced the Arabs to forge ties with Palestinians living under occupation, but not with Israel. The 1973 war led to the 1978 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, removed Egypt from the Arab politico-military alliance and denied Cairo Arab leadership.

The 2003 US war removed Iraq as a military and political force, stripped Baghdad of Arab stewardship, and set the region adrift. The Arab League, Arab goverments and citizens opposed George W Bush’s war, which was waged without UN authorisation by the US and Britain. backed by Australia and Poland.

French academic Dominique Reynie estimated 36 million people took part in 3,000 worldwide protests against the war. By contrast, in 1991 George H W Bush formed a 35-state coalition for the UN-authorised war to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi occupation. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Morocco, Kuwait, Oman, the Emirates and Bahrain joined that coalition.

While the 1991 war was waged to free Kuwait, the casus belli for the 2003 war was three falsehoods: Iraq retained banned weapons of mass destruction (WMD); Iraqi president Saddam Hussein had ties to al-Qaeda, which attacked New York and Washington in 2001; and he posed a threat to the US.

The US lost Arab credibility when there was no WMD found – which had been eliminated by Iraq by December 1991. The Arabs never believed Saddam Hussein tolerated al-Qaeda’s presence in Iraq or intended to attack the US.

Casualties were greatly disproportionate, angering the Arabs. The US lost 4,480 soldiers and 3,400 contractors during the March 20th-May 1st war and its allies suffered 318 military deaths. Between 110,000-150,000 Iraqis were killed during the US-led attack and overall, there were one million conflict-related deaths, the US Rand organisation reported.

Many Iraqis left their country after the US occupation. Some 95 per cent remained in the region. According to the UN, 700,000 fled to Jordan and 1.2 million to Syria. Egypt, the Gulf Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon received tens of thousands. Iraq lost 40 per cent of its middle class.

Washington’s victory in Iraq did not liberate but imprisoned Iraq in warfare. After US viceroy L Paul Bremer III demobilised the Iraqi army, dismissed the civil service and outlawed the ousted Baath Party, soldiers and Baathists joined forces with al-Qaeda to mount an insurgency. Pro-Iranian Shia militias and the Iraqi nationalist Mahdi Army attacked US troops and Sunni communities until the US and Sunni allies put down the revolt in 2007-08.

Meanwhile al-Qaeda offspring Islamic State, also known as Isis, took root in Iraq and, after 2012, joined the conflict in neighbouring Syria where it established a caliphate, swept into Iraq, and ruled 40 per cent of the country until ousted in 2017.

Democracy promised by Bush produced a takeover by pro-Iranian Shia fundamentalist expatriates who returned to Iraq after the war. They benefited from the US-imposed sectarian system of governance, which has survived six flawed elections.

In October 2019, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis rose up to demand an end to sectarian rule. They argue it has fostered rampant corruption and impoverished oil-rich Iraq.

The Syrian civil and proxy war, Lebanon’s collapse, and the Saudi-Emirati war on Yemen have toppled three more countries of the depleted Arab front, leaving only Jordan and the six Gulf countries standing – with Saudi Arabia and the Emirates making policy. The Iraq War and its disastrous consequences have prompted them to scale down traditional reliance on the US and turn to Russia and China to restore relations with Tehran.

By normalising with Iran, they seek to reduce regional tensions and prevent potential Israeli-US military strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities, which could provoke Tehran to retaliate against the Gulf states.

Reprinted with the author’s permission from The Irish Times

]]> Syria bears Brunt of economic Devastation caused by Quake https://www.juancole.com/2023/02/economic-devastation-caused.html Fri, 10 Feb 2023 05:08:08 +0000 https://www.juancole.com/?p=209979 ( Irish Times ) – The death and devastation wreaked by Monday’s massive earthquake is greatest in Turkey, but that country is in a far better position to deal with the aftermath than Syria, due to warfare and sanctions.

War-torn country is in far weaker position than Turkey to deal with aftermath of disaster.

The civil conflict and proxy interventions have left Syria divided, with 70 per cent of territory held by the government, 25 per cent by the US-backed Syrian Kurds, and 5 per cent by Turkey and surrogate militias.

Pre-earthquake conditions were already catastrophic in northwest Idlib province, which is ruled by al-Qaeda offshoot Hay ‘at Tahrir al-Sham, a Turkish ally. So 65 per cent of foreign humanitarian aid went there, while 35 per cent was allocated to the rest of the sanctions-ridden country.

Roads, power plants, water and electricity networks, schools, hospitals and public buildings were damaged or destroyed by fighting. Industries in the country’s thriving manufacturing and commercial hub, Aleppo, were damaged, gutted and looted. Suburbs of Homs, Aleppo and Damascus were levelled. Farmland was abandoned.

Syria’s oil fields, which produced enough for the domestic market and export, were occupied by Kurdish forces.

More than 500,000 combatants and civilians are estimated to have been killed. Five million Syrians fled the country and six million were displaced. According to the UN, GPD losses are $226 million, with costs of economic disruption far greater than losses from physical destruction.

I am struck by the pervasiveness of the human rights and humanitarian impact of the unilateral coercive measures imposed on Syria

Since major fighting wound down in December 2016, Western sanctions have blocked reconstruction and recovery and negatively impacted the population. Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor has reported that 90 per cent of Syrians live in poverty due to “displacement, severe economic recession, and devaluation of the local currency”. Prices have soared by 800 per cent over the past two years.

Following a tour of Syria last year, UN special rapporteur on human rights Alena Douhan described the impact of sanctions: “I am struck by the pervasiveness of the human rights and humanitarian impact of the unilateral coercive measures imposed on Syria and the total economic and financial isolation of a country whose people are struggling to rebuild a life with dignity, following the decade-long war.”

Karin Leukefeld, a German journalist who was in Syria until Saturday, told The Irish Times that the current situation, before the earthquake, was worse than during her last visit in September. “People are hungry, they go through the rubbish, and there are many beggars. Christian charities which used to give poor people oil and milk now give beggars sandwiches. Government subsides have been cut on bread, sugar and rice.

“Since there is little fuel for heating, people collect paper and plastic to burn in their stoves – if they have stoves. They cut down trees although it is forbidden. The government petrol ration used to be 25 litres a week, now it is 25 litres a month. Petrol on the black market is double [the price].

“In Aleppo, a falafel sandwich which, before the war, cost 25 Syrian poundsnow costs 10,000 (€3.70). Workers’ pay is between 70,000 and 100,000 Syrian pounds, so families can no longer afford the national snack.”

Reprinted with author’s permission from The Irish Times

]]> Muslim Authorities Condemn Taliban Ban on Women in Universities, as NGOs Close in Protest https://www.juancole.com/2022/12/authorities-condemn-universities.html Sat, 31 Dec 2022 05:08:06 +0000 https://www.juancole.com/?p=209121 By Michael Jansen | –

( The Irish Times ) – Four global aid agencies have suspended services in Afghanistan in response to a Taliban ban on women working at non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

In a joint statement, Care, Save the Children, the Norwegian Refugee Council and the International Rescue Committee said: “We cannot effectively reach children, women and men in desperate need in Afghanistan without our female staff.”

The agencies said women employees enabled them to reach “millions of Afghans in need since August 2021″ when the Taliban seized power.

Some 3,000 women are employed by the International Rescue Committee alone and make up 40 per cent of its staff.

Many of the 180 foreign and local NGOs operating in Afghanistan funnel UN and other external aid to Afghans in need of shelter, food, and medical treatment.

Over the weekend, the Taliban’s minister of economy Din Mohammad Hanif signed an order barring women from working in national and international NGOs as they were not wearing headscarves and failing to observe other Islamic laws. He warned any organisation that didn’t comply with the order would have its licence revoked.

 

The edict came after condemnation by Sunni Islamic scholars and governments of last week’s ban by the Taliban on women attending university. Cairo-based Sunni authority on the faith, Grand Imam Ahmad al-Tayeb of the Al-Azhar Islamic heritage institution, ruled that the ban contradicts Muslim canon law (sharia) and conflicts with Islam’s call for both men and women “to seek knowledge from cradle to grave”.  He argued the ban ignored 2,000 sayings of the Prophet Muhammad as well as “historic roles women have assumed in education, science, and politics”.  He called the prohibition “shocking” and said it should not have been issued by any Muslim.

The Abu Dhabi-located Muslim Council of Elders also opposed the ban, saying: “Islam liberated women from pre-Islamic traditions that deprived them of their rights and rendered them unable to function.”

The UAE, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Qatar have expressed concern over the ban while Pakistan, a Taliban ally, said it was disappointed.

In a bid to pre-empt the university ban, six Gulf Co-operation Council members met Taliban acting foreign minister Amir Khan Mutaqi in Doha last month and urged full inclusion of women and girls in Afghan affairs. The UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and Saudi Arabia – which base their laws on sharia – told the Taliban to make a reconciliation plan that “respects basic freedoms and rights, including women’s right to work and education”.

In March, the Taliban closed girls’ secondary schools but allowed girls’ elementary schools to operate. However, girls and teachers have, reportedly, been told not to go to elementary schools.

This would deny literacy to half 40 million Afghans.

Michael Jansen

Michael Jansen

Michael Jansen contributes news from and analysis of the Middle East to The Irish Times

Reprinted from The Irish Times with the permission of the author.

]]> While world focuses on plight of Ukraine’s children, endless trauma of Gaza’s children should not be ignored https://www.juancole.com/2022/03/focuses-ukraines-children.html Fri, 11 Mar 2022 05:06:02 +0000 https://www.juancole.com/?p=203415 ( Jordan Times ) – More than two million refugees have fled Ukraine since Russia invaded that country. The majority have been women and children since men between 18-60 are not allowed to leave and are conscripted into the armed forces. Most refugees have fled to Poland, Moldova, Slovakia, Romania and Hungary where Ukrainians, but not Arabs, Asians and Africans, have been warmly welcomed. The office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has warned that the outflow of refugees could swell to five million.

At the end of the first week of warfare, when the number of refugees was estimated to be ONE million, UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi said half were children. This percentage is likely to be maintained as long as the outward flow continues.

Ukrainian children, experts argue, are particularly vulnerable to psychological distress and long-term mental health problems due to the trauma of sheltering from bombs in underground train stations and basements and being torn from their fathers and other family members, friends and schools, and home environment. Children may also be affected by long, cold and perilous journeys to borders where they have to wait in line for hours before being allowed to cross into a safe country. They could be distressed by uncertainty over where they will be accommodated and fed when they arrive in a strange country and worry over where they will eventually find refuge.

The situation is particularly difficult and, even, alarming for children who travelled on their own, leaving behind parents whose presence could provide a measure of stability and comfort.

The Western media cites mental health experts on the impacts of past war situations on children without speculating how the Ukraine war may affect the young. Children can be shaken, depressed, withdrawn, undemanding, liable to cry without cause and wet their beds. How children handle warfare depends on parental and other support systems. These change when families become refugees and could deepen trauma and alienation.

The refugee children of Ukraine are fortunate because their mental health is already being discussed and, in some cases, addressed even though the Russian war on Ukraine is 15 days old.

By contrast, the children of Gaza are forgotten victims of Israel’s 15-year war on the Palestinian coastal strip. Sixty-four per cent of these children come from refugee stock and the majority depend on the UN agency looking after refugees for the necessities of life. Gaza’s children cannot flee from the strip and find sanctuary in a safe country. They are trapped by Israel’s siege and blockade. Seriously ill children cannot get Israeli permits to travel to West Bank or Israeli hospitals for treatment not available in Gaza. Many youths who gain admission to foreign universities cannot leave Gaza in order to secure degrees and claim a future outside the strip’s narrow confines.

Israeli drones fly overhead constantly and, occasionally, strike targets claimed to be military sites. When, between 2018-2020, Palestinian youths and minor children resisted the Israeli occupation by protesting at the Israel fence which surrounds the Gaza strip, Israeli troops fired tear gas, rubber bullets, and live rounds at them. Between 2018-2020 214 Palestinians, 46 of them children, were killed and 36,100 Palestinians were injured, including 8,800 children. Resistance of any type is branded “terrorism” by Israel and its friends.

Every few years Palestinian children are subjected to full-scale Israeli attacks which can last a week or weeks. Unlike Ukrainian children, Gaza’s children do not have underground train stations and tunnels and bunkers where they can shelter from bombs, bullets and shells. Israel’s current practice is to warn Palestinians to leave homes and other buildings about to be levelled.

While this saves lives where warnings are given, families are rendered homeless and without most of their possessions. Children search rubble for teddy bears, toys and schoolbooks and bags. Children who survive destroyed unoccupied households help dig survivors and bodies of unwarned famililes from the ruins.

Gaza’s Community Mental Health Programme, founded in 1990 by the late Eyad Al Sarraj is the leading Palestinian non-governmental organisation providing counselling and other help to men, women and children suffering from war and privation. The latter caused, at least in part, by Israel’s blockade. Research has shown Palestinian children develop feelings of fear, anger, hostility, resentment and frustration which can turn to violence in schools. In response, the programme has carried out programmes in schools to train teachers how to deal with affected children and encourage children to resolve differences peacefully. Summer camps and recreational trips are also organised for children.

During a trip to Gaza with a BBC television correspondent some years ago, she and I interviewed the deputy director of the Mental Health Programme. Since the weather was clear although the wind was gusty, we did the interview on the beach where children were playing football. They gathered round and aggressively asked who we were and what we were doing. They exemplified the trauma that Gaza’s children face on a daily basis.

Before his death from cancer in 2013, I used to call on Eyad whenever I visited Gaza. Following Israel’s 2008-09 onslaught on Gaza, I found him at home with his six-year-old son, Ali, who sat firmly on Eyad’s lap. He had kept Ali by his side throughout the Israeli attack. Eyed told me that as a result of that campaign, 99 per cent of Gazans suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). When I checked with people I met, they agreed. People react in different ways to PTSD. A foreign resident told me his son had nightmares and wet his bed while a UN official spoke in a rapid stream of words during an interview, signalling that he was suffering from PTSD.

This heightened bout of PTSD was piled on top of years of traumatic stress caused by Israel’s siege and constant malignant presence on the borders, in the sea, and in the sky over Gaza.

While the world focuses on the tragic and terrible plight of Ukraine’s children, the endless trauma of Gaza’s children should not be ignored.

Reprinted with author’s permission from the Jordan Times

]]> Our Double Standards on War and Refugees https://www.juancole.com/2022/03/double-standards-refugees.html Sat, 05 Mar 2022 05:04:54 +0000 https://www.juancole.com/?p=203306 By Michael Jansen | –

( Gulf Today ) – Demonstrators attend a rally in support of Ukraine after Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized a military operation in eastern Ukraine, in Prague, Czech Republic. Reuters

Under US leadership Nato and the European Union (EU) have mobilised compelling military and financial resources to counter and halt Russia’s invasion and occupation of Ukraine. They have provided Ukrainian defenders with millions of dollars in weaponry, munitions and supplies and are imposing punitive sanctions against Russia for multiple violations of international law.

The Nato and EU aim is to force Russia to ceasefire, withdraw its troops, and resolve through negotiations issues in dispute with Ukraine. During negotiations, Ukraine would have the enormous advantage of US, Nato, and EU backing. Invitations to Ukraine to join the alliance and bloc would be issued, perpetuating Russia’s quarrel with that country.

Russia could also be charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity for attacking Ukraine and bombing and shelling civilian neighbourhoods and “objects,” i.e. schools, hospitals, public buildings, and infrastructure and could be forced to pay compensation.

Ukraine has become a special case deserving of protection and coddling because it aspires to become a member of the alliance and the EU although that country does not currently qualify to join either and membership in the alliance is seen by Moscow as a threat to Russia and a casus belli.

Unfortunately, international law protections are not enjoyed by countries which are not Nato members or in the Nato orbit. To them, double standards apply. Aggressors are not discouraged, countered and sanctioned. In some cases, aggressors are Nato members or Nato allies.

Cyprus is just such a case. Cyprus is occupied by not one but two and — during crises on the Arab mainland — three Nato members. The price the island had to pay for independence from Britain, the colonial power, was 256-square kilometres of its territory for use as sovereign military facilities. Britain secured prime real estate at Akrotiri, Episcopi , Dhekelia, and Ayios Nikolaos.

Pretexts for retaining this territory was the influence wielded by the Cypriot communist party and the non-aligned orientation of the country. During the Cold War, the British airbase at Akrotiri was tasked with protecting Nato’s southern flank. During conflicts in Iraq, Syria and Libya, US war planes were based at and conducted operations from Akrotiri, making the US an intermitant occupier.

Unilaterally appointed as a guarantor of the Cyprus republic along with Greece and Turkey, Britain was also bound to defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the republic. However, Britain did not intervene when the Greek military junta mounted a coup against Cyprus President Makarios in mid-1974 and Turkey responded by invading and occupying the north. Two-fifths of Greek Cypriots were driven from the area and their homes and property seized while most Turkish Cypriots living in the south were forced by Turkey to move north.

Nato did nothing to halt the invasion, ethic cleansing and de facto partition of the island by a Nato member using Nato weaponry. Since then, Turkey has deployed 30-35,000 troops in the north, established and subsidised a separate administration, imported Turkish settlers from the mainland and recognised the area’s 1983 declaration of independence. I live in Nicosia, the divided capital, a 15-minute walk from the Green Line which bisects the island and separates Greek and Turkish Cypriots who, since 2003, have been allowed by Turkey to cross and mingle.

In 2004, the Republic became an EU member and the north was recognised as part of the Republic out of the control of the government. Thus, EU member Cyprus was occupied by Nato member Turkey which was — and is — an applicant for EU membership. This arrangement should never have stood the test of time. Efforts to reunify the island have failed and the current right-wing Turkish Cypriot administration has rejected reunification under the internationally mandated federal model and has demanded a “two state solution.”

Last week, a BBC television team accompanied a handful of natives from the Indian Ocean Chagos string of islands returning to their home island 50 years after being expelled by Britain. Their expulsion was carried out by Britain to enable the US to establish a military airbase on Diego Carcia, the largest island, where only US personnel have been permitted to live. Since then, all Chagossians, not only those from Diego Garcia, have been denied their right to return to their homeland and forced to dwell in exile in Mauritius and the Seychelles.

As the US airfield can accommodate the massive B-47 long-distance bombers, Diego Garcia has been used in operations during the 1978-79 Iranian revolution, the 1991 offensive against Iraq, the 1996 bombing of Iraq, the 2001-22 war in Afghanistan, and the 2003 Iraq war. The latter was waged without provocation and UN Security Council authority and fit the classification of “aggression” under the UN charter and international law. No measures have been taken by the West, Europe, and Nato against the US and members of the George W. Bush administration.

Britain acquired the archipeligo along with Mauritius from France in 1814, following the Napoleonic wars. When Mauritius gained independence in 1968, it claimed the Chagos. Britain dubbed the islands British Indian Ocean Territory and continued to occupy them. In 2019, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion declaring that Britain “…has an obligation to bring to an end its administration of the Chagos Archipelago as rapidly as possible, and that all Member States must co-operate with the United Nations to complete the decolonisation of Mauritius.” Therefore, in this non-binding ruling, the Court acknowledged that the islands belong to Mauritius. This, of course, has been ignored by the two Nato members which occupy these islands and the other 28 members of the alliance.

Syria has been sanctioned for defending itself from armed groups, some of them radical fundamentalist (takfiri), seeking to overthrow the government. Meanwhile. the US — by means of 900-odd troops on the ground and Syrian Kurdish allies — illegally controls 25 per cent of Syrian territory in the northeast and east. Furthermore, Nato-member Turkey occupies pockets of Syrian land in the north and the Afrin district in the northwest, from which Syrian Kurds have been expelled. In Idlib province Ankara cooperates with and protects Daesh.

Of course, as an intimate Nato ally, Israel has never been sanctioned by the alliance for its multiple wars against the Arabs and occupation of Palestinian, Syrian and Lebanese territory.

These examples demonstrate that international law is respected only in cases selected for application by the Western countries and that Nato, instead of being an alliance designed to defend Europe and the US, is an offensive organisation directed to consolidate its control wherever its prime movers choose.

The author, a well-respected observer of Middle East affairs, has three books on the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Reprinted with the author’s permission from Gulf Today

]]> Is Big Brother Israel a ‘stalker state’? https://www.juancole.com/2021/11/brother-israel-stalker.html Sat, 27 Nov 2021 05:08:53 +0000 https://www.juancole.com/?p=201459 ( Jordan Times) – In an interview with The Washington Post, Israel’s Breaking the Silence, an ex-soldiers rights organisation, has highlighted Israel’s comprehensive surveillance of Palestinians living under occupation. Breaking the Silence, which collects testimonies of abuses reported by soldiers, points out that Israel’s employment of advanced techniques amount to “massive escalation in Israel’s pursuit of total control over the Palestinian civilian population in the West Bank, and raises some serious questions on the role of technology within the context of the occupation”.

According to Breaking the Silence’s testimony collection director Shai Daniely, “Soldiers are making it clear to the Palestinians that Big Brother is watching them, gathering every piece of information about their lives and recording their movements.”

It is ironic that “Big Brother”, the state, in George Orwell’s predictive novel “1984” was published in 1948, the year of Israel’s war of establishment. Orwell sought to warn against the threat of total control of citizens’s lives practiced by totalitarian regimes like those emerging in the wake of World War II. In this book, he did not envisage the uses of state-of-the-art technologies to control a population living under the hostile occupation of a democratic country, like Israel.

Elizabeth Dwoskin, reporting in the Post on November 8th, wrote that Israel is “conducting a broad surveillance effort in the occupied West Bank to monitor Palestinians by integrating facial recognition with a growing network of cameras and smartphones, according to descriptions of the programmeme by recent Israeli soldiers” belonging to Breaking the Silence, which opposes the occupation.

The effort involves a smartphone technology called “Blue Wolf” which soldiers use to photograph Palestinians of all ages with prizes for the most photos accumulated by involved units. The Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem has released video of an Israeli soldier lining up sleepy Palestinian school children and photographing them during a late night raid on their home.

B’Tselem observed, “It seems that for the military, all Palestinians, including school-age children, are potential offenders. At any time, it is permissible to wake them up at night, enter their homes and subject them to a lineup.”

The Israeli military responded to this report by saying soldiers were seeking to identify chidren who threw stones.

Thousands of Palestinians have been photographed, some multiple times, and their photos stored in a data base. When a soldier photographs a Palestinian, an app matches it to a stored profile and flashes red, yellow or green to signal whether a person should be arrested, detained for questioning, or permitted to pass.

One soldier told the Post that “this database is a pared-down version of another, vast database, called ‘Wolf Pack’, which contains profiles of virtually every Palestinian in the West Bank, including photographs of the individuals, their family histories, education and a security rating for each person”.

The “Wolf Pack” database identifies Palestinians as “terrorists” or “potential terrorists”, encouraging the Israeli army to treat them as such.

Another smartphone app, dubbed “White Wolf”, has been used by Jewish colonists since 2019 to scan a Palestinian’s identity card before he or she enters a colony. Israeli checkpoints also employ facial recognition equipment to identify Palestinians seeking to enter Israel “proper”.

Israel has also installed cameras in Hebron — where 200,000 Palestinians contend with 500-800 aggressive Israeli colonists, to scan faces and identify Palestinians approaching checkpoints before they show their identity cards. The Post also reveals that closed-circuit television cameras provide “real-time monitoring of the city’s population”, not colonists but Palestinians, some of whose homes can be accessed by these cameras.

Israelis have, naturally, rejected the deployment of facial-recognition equipment in their cities, towns and neighbourhoods.

Face-recognition and spying via closed-circuit television are not the only means Israel uses to monitor Palestinians and others. Military-grade Pegasus spyware created by NSO, an Israeli firm, not only hacks into Palestinian phones on behalf of the Israeli army but is also sold to governments for hacking the phones of journalists, businessmen, and others.

NSO spyware was used to hack the phones of staff of six Palestinian human rights organisations which were subsequently declared “terrorist organisations” by current Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz, Middle East Monitor writes. The hacking was exposed by Dublin-based Front Line Defenders, which investigated 75 phones and found Pegasus spyware on six. Three of the six targets belonged to Al Haq, Bisan Centre fpr Research and Development, and Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association based in Jerusalem. The other three blacklisted organisation are Defence for Children International, the Union of Agricultural Workers, and the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees which is connected to the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

Gantz charged them with working on behalf of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine which Israel regards as a “terrorist organisation” although these groups have cooperated for years with the UN, the International Court of Justice at The Hague, and the International Court of Justice. The “terrorist” designation has prompted criticism from the US and Europe and led UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, to say the organisations are some of the “most reputable human rights and humanitarian groups in the occupied Palestinian territory” that have worked closely with the UN for decades.

“Claiming rights before a UN or other international body is not an act of terrorism, advocating for the rights of women in the occupied Palestinian territory is not terrorism and providing legal aid to detained Palestinians is not terrorism.” she stated.

Middle East Eye (MEI) reports another Israeli firm, Candiru, has misused Microsoft’s Windows operating system to target human rights activists, politicians, journaists, academics, embassy staff and political dissidents, half of whom dwell in enclaves administered by the Palestinian Authority. MEI says it was targeted by Candiru along with other sites promoting the Palestinian cause. The firm sells spyware which can identify people who visit an infected website. This effort could impact thousands of people around the globe who simply seek to keep up-t0-date with regional developments.

Unable to set up cameras in besieged and blockaded Gaza, Israel uses cameras on the border, phone hacking and drones to monitor its 2 million inhabitants, making the total 5 million of inhabitants of the West Bank are added.

Big Brother Israel has become a “stalker state” which uses what it calls its “fight against terrorism” as a means to subject Palestinians under its control to constant, increasingly invasive and intimidating surveillance.

Reprinted from the Jordan Times with the author’s permission.

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Bonus Video:

TRT: “Apple announces it is suing Israeli spyware firm NSO Group over hacking allegations”

]]> The Taliban Emirate of ‘No’ https://www.juancole.com/2021/10/the-taliban-emirate.html Fri, 08 Oct 2021 04:08:16 +0000 https://www.juancole.com/?p=200483 ( Jordan Times ) – The unclaimed murder last weekend of a journalist and two of his relatives while travelling in a car along a road in Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province remains a crime to be investigated by the Taliban along with another ten shooting and bombing attacks on Afghan civilians. But, since the Taliban admits it cannot exercise central control over its fighters, more killings and woundings can be expected from undisciplined, heavily indoctrinated gunmen determined to impose the rule of the movement on unwitting Afghans confused by Taliban pledges to the international community to respect human rights while, in reality, the Taliban is reenforcing the very same harsh rules and regulations they imposed during their 1996-2001 reign.

The Taliban has made clear that there would be no return to the US-sponsored deficit democratic system of governance and that the Taliban’s interpretation of Sharia is the law of the land. As a result, there is no room for devout clerics who disagree with this interpretation. Since it does not seem to have been codified, there are numerous loyalist interpreters and insufficient guidelines for Afghans to follow.

Consequently, there is no freedom from fear of the Taliban. Many Afghans stay at home and hesitate to circulate freely as they have done for the past 20 years instead of going to their jobs or practising their trades. The troubled Afghan economy — long dependent on external aid and injections of hard cash — is sinking fast due to the Taliban’s failure to deal with the situation.

The Financial Times reports that Afghanistan’s largest legal exports, grapes and figs, are rotting on the vines and trees because of long delays on the Pakistan border and difficulties making payments due to sanctions. Fresh and dried grapes and figs gracing Pakistani and Indian markets make up 80 per cent of Afghan exports. Afghanistan’s illegal exports, drugs flow along smugglers routes.

While the Taliban promised an “inclusive government”, the cabinet is all male and comprised of only Taliban members, the majority Pushtun with a couple figures from the Tajik and Uzbek communities.

Although senior Taliban leaders have repeatedly declared amnesty for former government employees, activists, journalists, and translators who worked with foreign forces and agencies, Taliban fighters comb neighbourhoods in Afghan cities in search of these men and women, forcing them into hiding and terrorising their families. Afghans fearing for their lives are barred from leaving Afghanistan.

Taliban gunmen exact instant punishment on Afghans who breach the movement’s regulations while corporal punishments are being imposed, without full judicial review or mercy, on thieves, rapists, adulterers and murderers.

There is no toleration of criticism from any quarter. Press freedom is defined by the Taliban’s interpretation of Sharia. Television and radio programming, not banned this time round, is closely supervised.

Although the Taliban has said women will be able to exercise rights guaranteed by its version of Sharia, women are being squeezed out of public space and jobs unless they are doctors and nurses and, in some areas, elementary school teachers. Women who leave their homes are increasingly told by Taliban they encounter that they have to be accompanied by a male chaperone. Many revert from colourful headscarves and Western dress to black hijab, conservative dress and burkas. Women employed at the first, second and third levels of the civil service have been told to stay at home as their jobs will be filled by Taliban fighters (who almost certainly do not know how to do them).

In some communities, there is no healthcare for women unless female doctors are available Family courts for dealing with domestic and other violence against women and children have been closed down. There is no coeducation. Girls are barred from attending secondary schools and women from universities until arrangements are made for them to be taught by women, thereby limiting the courses they can take. Men are far less targeted: They have been told no fashionable haircuts, shaving and trimming of beards.

During the past two decades, Afghans in the major cities enjoyed a vibrant cultural life. Artists previously displayed their work in galleries and painted scenes from local life on city and town walls. The latter have been whitewashed and have been replaced by Taliban slogans and religious sayings. Images of people and animals are disappearing. Once well attended, concerts and dramatic performances have ceased. Satirists once poked fun at officials and film makers churned out releases. No more. Today, musicians are being silenced, their instruments hidden. Fewer shops, hotels, and restaurants play Afghan and international popular music.

On the security front, the Taliban does not intend to curb the activities of takfiri groups which joined its forces in the battle against the US and the former Afghan regime. And, the Taliban has warned the US there will be reprisals if its military flies drones over Afghan territory. This means US President Joe Biden will have to think twice about conducting promised “over-the-horizon strikes” against Al Qaeda and Daesh.

If the Taliban reverts to practices enforced during its earlier period of rule, there will be no shirking of prayer times for men, no celebrations deemed un-Islamic, no dancing, no kite flying (a favourite Afghan sport), no books not approved by the Taliban, no culture.

Afghanistan has become, once again, the Taliban emirate of “no.”

Reprinted with the author’s permission from Jordan Times

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Bonus Video added by Informed Comment:

South China Morning Post: “From extreme violence to keeping law and order, Taliban police patrol Afghan capital Kabul”

]]> Fierce Optimism of Oslo Accords has Vanished 25 Years On https://www.juancole.com/2018/09/optimism-accords-vanished.html Sat, 15 Sep 2018 05:23:15 +0000 https://www.juancole.com/?p=178619 Dublin (Irish Times) – Twenty-five years ago on Thursday, a portly Palestinian boy scout raised the Palestinian red, white, black and green flag from the balcony of Orient House in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem as solemn compatriots spilled from the courtyard into the street.

On the White House lawn in distant Washington, the Oslo Accord was signed in a ceremony seen on satellite channels around the world. US president Bill Clinton, standing between Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli prime minister Yitzak Rabin, coaxed the old enemies to shake hands.

At Orient House, Palestinians sang their national anthem while small paper flags were handed around, deemed by Israel an illegal act until that moment. Youths carrying a vast flag walked down Salaheddin Street, the main thoroughfare of this sector of the city.

Lads paced prancing horses, symbols of Arab independence, to accompany the flag. Palestinians pushed red and white carnations into the rifle barrels of confused Israeli soldiers standing outside the post office. Bystanders cheered as the flag was draped over Damascus Gate to the Old City.

The next morning, the small Jordan Valley town of Jericho was festooned with bunting and flags. Israeli troops were to make initial withdrawals from Jericho and Gaza in preparation for Palestinian self-rule. People were optimistic the occupation would end and Palestinians would have a state in the 22 per cent of their homeland occupied by Israel in 1967.

In Gaza, a two-hour drive away, Palestinians who believed in Oslo had danced in the streets the previous night and continued to party while Hamas members scowled in shadowed doorways.
Best of times

For Palestinians this was the best of times. The accord had not only been signed by Arafat’s deputy, Mahmoud Abbas, and Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres, but also US secretary of state Warren Christopher and his Russian counterpart, Andrei Kozyrev, committing the great powers to the accord’s implementation. Arafat believed, wrongly, that momentum could not be broken and the launch towards self-determination could not be reversed.

The accord, negotiated in secret in Norway and initialled on August 20th, had remained under wraps until then.

In early September I had been asked to go to Tunis by The Irish Times to cover a visit to Arafat by TD Brian Lenihan snr and two colleagues. On the morning after I arrived, I met Hassan Asfour, who, along with Fatah’s Ahmed Qurei, “Abu Alaa”, and economist Mahr al-Kurd, negotiated the deal. All three were exiles rather than from the occupied territories.
Scenes of Palestinian joy after the signing of the Oslo Accord in 1993. Photograph: Esaias Baitel/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images Scenes of Palestinian joy after the signing of the Oslo Accord in 1993. Photograph: Esaias Baitel/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

Asfour showed me the document but allowed no notes and described how the Palestinians, with no experience of such negotiations, dealt with Yair Hirschfeld and Ron Pundak, Israeli academics in the peace camp – and, after some months, Uri Savir, Israeli foreign ministry director. Asfour said they would ring up colleagues to find out what key terms meant.

The Oslo Accord promised Palestinians limited self-government but not self-determination and left for direct negotiations over five years the most important issues: Jerusalem, Israeli settlements, refugees, borders and security. Years later Ron Pundak told The Irish Times the Israeli negotiators had expected a Palestinian state to emerge.

Main problems

The two main problems with Oslo were the politico-military-economic disparity between Israelis and Palestinians and Israel’s refusal to halt settlement construction, which was ruled illegal under international law. If Rabin had done so at that time, Oslo might have succeeded.

Unrestrained settlement activity has constantly altered the situation. Writing on al-Monitor website on September 10th, 2018, one of Israel’s Oslo architects, Yossi Beilin, called settlements “the gravest Israeli provocation”.

In 1993 there were 111,600 settlers in the West Bank, 152,800 in East Jerusalem and 4,800 in Gaza; today there are some 400,000 in the West Bank and 200,000 in East Jerusalem. Gaza settlers and soldiers were evacuated in 2005.

The settlements and the West Bank wall-and-fence complex create territorial obstacles designed to prevent the emergence of a contiguous Palestinian state in accordance with the “two-state solution” adopted by the Palestinians, the UN and international community.
Squeezed out

To accommodate settlement expansion Palestinians have been pushed off their land and squeezed out of West Bank villages into urban areas that have been turned into enclaves separated by Israeli-controlled territory, which is broken up by hundreds of checkpoints and closed military areas.

Palestinians are denied freedom of movement and must obtain Israeli passes to visit East Jerusalem, once the religious, social, economic and cultural capital of Palestine.

Instead of opening a route to resolution of the conflict, the Oslo Accord relieved Israel of responsibility for the inhabitants of the territories by establishing the Palestinian Authority without providing Palestinians with a political horizon.

A quarter of a century after the Oslo Accord was signed, Palestinians face the worst of times. Israel retains East Jerusalem and 61 per cent of the West Bank, which Palestinians demand for their state; Gaza is isolated, besieged and blockaded by Israel.

Reprinted from Irish Times with author’s Permission.

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Bonus video added by Informed Comment:

EuroNews: “By Oslo they lay down and wept, peace hopes 20 years on unfulfilled”

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