Will the International Court of Justice finally give
a Verdict against Israel’s Illegal Squatting in Palestine?
Juan Cole, 01/03/2023
Al-Quds [Jerusalem] reports the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution entitled “Israeli Practices that affect the Human Rights of the Palestinian People in Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.”
It depended on Chapter XIV, Article 96 of the U.N. Charter, which specifies that “The General Assembly or the Security Council may request the International Court of Justice to give an advisory opinion on any legal question.”
Al-Quds says that the wording of the UNGA resolution demonstrates a sea change in that body’s discourse about the Palestinians and a new, severe anxiety about the long-term deprivation of their basic human rights under international law.
According to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights, the UNGA asked the court “to render its opinion on the legal consequences arising from Israel’s ongoing violation of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, its prolonged occupation, settlement and annexation of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem, and from its adoption of discriminatory legislation and measures.”
The body also requested the ICJ to pronounce on how Israeli practices in the Occupied territories affect the legal status of the occupation, and the further legal consequences that flow from any such verdict for the international community.
Israel occupied Gaza and the West Bank in 1967 after having angled to do so for a decade.
The Geneva Convention and the Rome Statute forbid occupying powers to alter the ways of life of the occupied population, or to annex that territory, or to settle their own citizens in the occupied territory.
The laws of occupation also envisage it as being brief, lasting during war time, not stretching to decades. These strictures were reactions against war crimes during WW II, such as when Germany occupied Poland and attempted to replace the Poles with ethnic Germans and to annex Polish territory to Germany...
The OHCHR had asked the General Assembly in October to take up the question of whether Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza had now lasted so long and been characterized by such brazen disregard for the laws of occupation as to now be unlawful.
The United States condemned the step, even though it has asked international courts to take up the illegality of the Russian occupation of eastern Ukraine and has cited the same corpus of international law against Russian practices as UN members cited against Israel’s.
US spokesman Richard M. Mills said that a two-state solution was the best resolution.
You wonder in which universe Mr. Mills lives, that he thinks a Palestinian state is still viable, when Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has pledged to annex the entirety of the West Bank.
He pointed to the Abraham Accords as a reason for which no International Court of Justice verdict is needed. Again, which universe does he live in?
The issue isn’t whether Dubai can make money off Israeli business deals but whether the 5 million Palestinians under permanent Israeli military occupation will ever have their basic human rights recognized.
The United States’s mantra about a “peace process” and a phantom “two-state solution” is just dust thrown in the world’s eyes to obscure Washington’s complicity in the brutalization of the Palestinian people.
Israel’s politicians maintain that it is being unfairly demonized by the UNGA resolution. However, there are no other states in the world that are occupying a number of stateless people that is nearly equal to their own population.
Occupations result from the capture of territory in war time. But democratic countries have given back the territory they occupied after 1945 when the UN Charter came into effect.
The United States ceased occupying Afghanistan and Iraq... But the Israelis are still occupying the Palestinian territories, and won’t let the Palestinians have the rights of citizenship in a state. The Israelis annexed some of the occupied territories to themselves.
The Palestinians are the largest group of stateless people in the world, and are kept that way by Israel...
Haaretz | Israel News
There Goes Netanyahu’s Saudi Dream
Jonathan Lis, Jan 5, 2023
Just a few minutes of Itamar Ben-Gvir’s defiant stroll on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount Tuesday were enough for the international community to make it clear to Benjamin Netanyahu that it has no patience for the whims of his new government.
The flood of condemnations sent the new-old prime minister a clear message: Washington, European states, Jordan and the Arab states of the Persian Gulf expressed, in nearly identical statements, concern about the provocation of the new national security minister.
The previous day it was the notification to the High Court of Justice of the coalition’s plans to amend the disengagement law and leave the settlement outpost of Homesh in place that caused an uproar in European capitals...
Three weeks ago, Benjamin Netanyahu laid out an optimistic vision of his intention to establish diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia and to sweep the U.S. administration and European countries to promote the adventure.
But dreams are one thing, reality another. Ben-Gvir’s Temple Mount visit and the decision regarding Homesh started Netanyahu’s new government on the wrong foot.
“There is no chance of advancing relations with Saudi Arabia as long as Ben-Gvir and Smotrich are in the coalition,” said an Israeli official who is involved in the efforts. He named several additional and unrelated obstacles to moving forward.
Saudi Arabia reiterated Tuesday what it thinks about a public rapprochement with Israel. In addition to registering strong protest to Ben-Gvir’s actions, the foreign ministry in Riyadh stated that the actions “undermine international peace efforts and contradict international norms and principles of respecting religious sanctities.”
The statement also reaffirmed Saudi Arabia’s “solid stance of standing by the brotherly Palestinian people,” a clear signal of the expectation of a significant improvement in Israel’s attitude toward the Palestinians...


Fashback: Yasser Arafat &
Sharon's visit to the Haram al-Sharif
Israel to sanction Palestinian Authority
over World Court move
Dayly Sabah|Agencies, Jan 06, 2023
The new Israeli government approved harsh new sanctions on the Palestinian Authority (PA) in response to their request from the U.N.'s highest judicial body to give its opinion on the Israeli occupation of the West Bank.
The Israeli sanctions against the Palestinian government came after the U.N. General Assembly voted in favor of Palestine's request for an expert opinion from the court last week.
The Israeli sanctions will, among other measures, freeze Palestinian construction projects in Zone C of the occupied West Bank, a spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
Area C was placed under sole Israeli control as part of the Oslo Peace Accords in the 1990s and accounts for more than 60% of the total area of the occupied West Bank.
Human rights organizations have reported that Israel only issues Palestinians with building permits in Zone C in exceptional cases.
Israel will also seize 139 million shekels (about $39 million) in taxes collected by Israel on behalf of the Palestinian Authority and distribute the money to families of terror victims instead.
In addition, Israel plans to implement further measures against organizations that promote what it considers hostile or terrorist activities "under the guise of humanitarian work."
Last week, following an appeal by Palestine, the U.N. General Assembly asked the Hague-based World Court to give an opinion on the legal consequences of Israel's 55-year-old occupation of the Palestinian territories.
The World Court is the top U.N. court dealing with disputes between states. Its rulings are binding, though it has no power to enforce them.

Boasting of his settlement strategy when in government Ariel Sharon said, “We’ll make a pastrami sandwich out of them. We’ll insert a strip of Jewish settlements in between the Palestinians. And then another strip of Jewish settlements right across the West Bank, so that in twenty-five years’ time, neither the United Nations nor the United States, nobody, will be able to tear it apart.”
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Is Israel Being Turned into a Jewish Theocracy?
By Mohammad Makram Balawi, Middle East Monitor 01/09/2023
Benjamin Netanyahu, the longest serving prime minister of Israel, built his entire career on confronting Iran. His argument is, Iran is building a nuclear weapon and its intent on using it against Israel and wiping out the Jewish people and he is the only person who can stop the genocide.
After decades of Israeli propaganda, Iran has not built a nuclear weapon nor attacked Israel. However, Netanyahu continues with the same rhetoric.
Ironically, after all this demonisation of Iran, Netanyahu has built a government which seems very keen on making Israel a Jewish copy of Iran.
His partners from the religious ultra-Orthodox parties, such as Bezalel Smotrich, made it very clear that their goal is to make Israel a state governed by the Torah and Jewish law.
In fact, more than half of the ministers of his government – 16 out of the 31 ministers – are from religious parties, such as Religious Zionism and Jewish Power, Netayahu’s own Likud party MKs are not exactly liberal, on the contrary they have strong inclinations towards the far right.
Indeed, Israel which was mainly built by Jewish European migrants, and always saw itself as an integral part of the more advanced Western civilisation, looks more and more like a Middle Eastern country; a highly militarised country, lacking political stability and social cohesion, deriving its existence and legitimacy from God Himself, with a ruler who has been ruling for decades.

Flashback 2014: This Time, Netanyahu Won't Attack Judaism
By Gil Ronen, Arutz Sheva, 8-12-2014
To appease his ultra-orthodox Jewish partners, Netanyahu is to amend the legislation which allows every Jew to get Israeli citizenship, and put more religious restrictions and laws redefining who is a Jew in first place, and therefore who is entitled to be an Israeli citizen.
This will lead to a selective process in which only those who meet the ultra-orthodox parameters will be allowed in, and will also reduce the number of Jewish immigrants to Israel. It is a demographic plan to change the social makeup of Israel, by increasing the number of religious Jews who have big families, described by Netanyahu himself as an economic burden.
This selective process will decrease the number of non-religious Jews, and will eventually enable religious Jews to permanently control every detail in the state....
Judith Butler: Zionism Is Opposed to Jewish Values
Carlo Strenger, Huffington Post, 16-3-2013
Contemporary political Zionism, in Butler’s view, has constructed a very slanted narrative of Jewish history − one that glorifies the kingdom of David, the Maccabees, Masada and Bar Kochba, all equated with the type of bellicose masculinity embraced by some early Zionist activists like Max Nordau, Arthur Ruppin and Vladimir (Ze’ev) Jabotinsky and pursued by Israeli leaders like Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu.
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Rehabilitation of Deir Ezzor industrial zone
168 facilities return to service
Syrian Arab News Agency, 16-1-2023

With the return of 168 industrial facilities and crafts, and after the rehabilitation of most of the facilities and infrastructure, life and production began to return to the industrial zone in Deir Ezzor.
Deir Ezzor industrial zone has been out of service since 2012 and has been affected by vandalism and destruction as a result of terrorism.
An integrated action plan has been drawn up to revitalize and rehabilitate the industrial zone in the province, in cooperation between the city council, service departments, and international organizations operating in Syria, Head of Deir Ezzor City Council, Engineer Jarir Kaka Khan says.
According to Kaka khan, the completed works include removing rubble and rehabilitating the two sewage networks for a distance of 1,000 meters, and the water network for a distance of 4,000 meters, installing 30 solar lighting poles, and setting up a police station in the middle of the industrial zone.
He pointed out that the plan includes the installation of communication and electrical networks.
Deir Ezzor City Council has also opened the road between Ghassan Aboud roundabout and al-Sina’a neighborhood to facilitate access to the industrial zone, which will complete its rehabilitation work completely, and all the services it needs will be provided.
In turn, Head of Deir Ezzor Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Louai Muhaimed, said that work is underway to rehabilitate several facilities in the region by their owners, in preparation for their reopening, adding that, in cooperation with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), 80 facilities have been rehabilitated in the region.
French militant killed in clashes in Syria's Idlib
TRT World News, 16-1-2023
A French militant has been reported killed while in combat against Syrian regime forces in northwestern Syria, according to his armed faction.
The armed militant used the pseudonym Abu Hamza, but his real name could not be verified. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based war monitor, Hamza was killed on Sunday during combat with Syrian regime forces and was buried on Monday in the Jabal al-Zawiya area.
Firqatul Ghuraba, a group of foreign fighters in Syria's last main rebel-held region of Idlib, announced: "the martyrdom of one of its heroes... from the French Muhajirin, our brother Abu Hamza".
The group is led by Omar Omsen, also known as Omar Diaby, a French national of Senegalese descent suspected of funnelling francophone fighters to Syria. He is wanted on a French arrest warrant.
In a statement on WhatsApp, the group said Hamza died in the Jabal al-Zawiya area of Idlib.
Along with the statement, the group published photos of men carrying what appeared to be a body which they put into the earth.
Over the past decade, thousands of armed men from Europe travelled to Syria to fight alongside rebel groups.
The “Shiite Crescent” is in danger
Shafaq News|Le Monde, 30-1-2023
Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq are facing dollar shortages, institutional chaos, economic turmoil, and civil war. Two states, Iran and Syria, are subject to very strict American and international sanctions, both political and economic.
Iraq, which has an abundance of petrodollars, does not have this directly because its foreign currency account is hosted by the New York Federal Reserve. And because of the sanctions imposed on Iran, Washington is watching very closely the destination of the currencies available to the government in Baghdad.
This surveillance has recently been tightened to suffocate the Iranian regime, to the point where Baghdad has to pay for Tehran’s purchases in dinars, causing the Iraqi dinar to plummet and the Iranian rial to collapse.
We remind you that in the summer of 2015, the US authorities froze the account of the Central Bank of Iraq at the Fed in order not to provide these resources to Daesh.
Lebanon is institutionally paralyzed; Financially in default as of 2020, socially disintegrated despite transfers from diaspora to families at home.
Syria has been fragmented and occupied by several foreign armies, Turkey, Russia, the United States, Iran, and finally Israel for control of its airspace....
The legal arsenal used to support sanctions was strengthened by the Caesar Act.
The Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act of 2019, also known as the Caesar Act, is United States legislation that sanctions the Syrian government, including Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. The Act was signed into law by President Trump in December 2019, and came into force on June 17, 2020.
Russia and Iran launch payment system
as an alternative to Swift
By MEE staff, 30 January 2023
Iran and Russia have linked their banking systems, a senior Iranian official said on Monday, a move that will allow the two heavily sanctioned countries with deepening economic ties to trade and conduct business outside the US financial system.
The two connected their interbank communication and transfer systems. Since the 2018 reimposition of sanctions, Iran has been disconnected from the western-based Swift financial messaging system, while many Russian banks were kicked off the platform following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
"Iranian banks no longer need to use SWIFT ... with Russian banks, which can be for the opening of Letters of Credit and transfers or warranties," deputy governor of Iran's Central Bank, Mohsen Karimi, told the semi-official Fars news agency.
Swift is a Belgium-based financial messaging platform that allows trillions of dollars’ worth of money to cross borders daily and be transferred into bank accounts. It’s also used for foreign exchange settlement and trade. US banks often act as intermediaries in the transactions.
The decision to create an alternative payment system is the latest sign that Iran and Russia are moving beyond a marriage of convenience in hotspots like Syria, to a more comprehensive partnership against the West.
Both countries have attacked the dominance of the US dollar in the global financial system. US sanctions carry heft because the bulk of global trade is conducted in the reenback.
Russia's central bank declined to comment on the deal signed on Sunday. According to Karimi, "about 700 Russian banks and 106 non-Russian banks from 13 different countries will be connected to this system”.
The key pillars of U.S. economic hegemony
are SWIFT, CHIPS, and the dollar.
By: BLOOMBERG, Aug 22 2022
Based in Brussels, but with a data center in Virginia, the cooperatively owned Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or SWIFT, is a “financial panopticon” that allows Washington to surveil cross-border fund flows. However, the actual policing often comes out of New York, where 95% of the world's dollar payments are irrevocably settled.
The Clearing House Interbank Payments System, or CHIPS, is a private club of financial institutions. Its 43 members settle $1.8 trillion in claims every day using a pre-funded account at the Federal Reserve. They all maintain U.S offices, and are subject to U.S. law, which makes it easier for authorities to catch and punish.
As an instrument of American power, CHIPS hasn't gone unnoticed in Beijing.
To shrug off the yoke of CHIPS, China has readied its own Cross-Border Interbank Payment System.
CIPS settles international claims in yuan and can potentially run its own messaging network. (Since 2016, it has used SWIFT as its communications channel.) CIPS has grown rapidly. But as long as 40% of the world's international payments are in dollars, a clearing facility for yuan — whose share is 3% — can't be a replacement for CHIPS...
Is US financial hegemony nearing its end
amid global de-dollarization?
By Al Mayadeen English, 29 Dec 2022
The Foreign Affairs op-ed effectively indicates that the US is well aware its financial and monetary hegemony is nearing an end.
Foreign Affairs published on Thursday an op-ed that explains why the "golden days of US sanctions may soon be over." The piece is relevant insofar as it reveals the deep-seated American fear that the grounds of US imperialism are in fact beginning to crumble.
It effectively indicates that the US is well aware that its financial and monetary hegemony is nearing an end.
It begins with the frank admission that the US has historically relied on punitive measures, such as sanctions, to subdue other nations to the primacy and hegemony of the American dollar.
Several emerging powers, in particular China and Russia, have recently been revamping their monetary industries to circumvent the use of the dollar in a show of resistance against US imperialism.
Sanctions, which constitute an effective weapon for the US, are thus becoming less and less effective in impacting the economies of its rivals, which have set up new protective measures to circumvent US sanctions.
One of the examples that the op-ed cites is the US' removal of Iran from the SWIFT global messaging system in 2012.
The second example cited is that of sanctions imposed on Moscow after Crimea's accession in 2014.
The third is the war trade against Beijing which it says began in 2017, while in reality, it goes way back when the US suffered a financial crisis in 2007 and printed trillions in bail money to Wall Street bankers, which gave China a clear signal that the US in no way intends to repay its debt that China held in the form of bonds and treasuries...
It says that this trade war then spilled onto the tech sector with the sanctioning of purchasing semiconductors from China, as well as prohibiting the delivery of technologies from the US to China. But it failed to mention that these punishing measures were linked to China's defiance of western sanctions against Russia.
All in all, it identifies these three particular episodes to be at the root of a new phenomenon, namely "sanctions resistance".
But it also failed to include the horrendous experiences suffered in Arab countries, such as Iraq, Libya, Yemen, as well as Syria although it continues to survive repeated aggression on the country.
At some point, the US seemed like it held all the power in the world to sanction whoever it wanted.
Former US President Bill Clinton even said himself that he worried the US was "in danger of looking like we want to sanction everybody who disagrees with us."
US hegemony: the culprit of Ukraine crisis
By Xin Ping, Global Times [China], Mar 20, 2022
Edward Carr, a leading British scholar of international relations, reminded people more than 80 years ago that the US was a master in using kindness to disguise selfishness.
Boasting abundant resources, strong industry and geographical advantage, Ukraine could have achieved development. While the country pursued a relatively balanced policy in the early years of its independence, the US supported and incited the Orange Revolution in 2004 and the Square Revolution in 2014 to push for a pro-Western agenda, splitting Ukraine politically from within and geopolitically between Russia and Europe.
It is really thought-provoking that the "Gateway to Europe" has become one of the poorest countries in Europe, the frontline of NATO's eastward expansion, and the fault line of "color revolutions" and conflicts.
In 2014 when the crisis broke out in eastern Ukraine, while Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine held several rounds of consultations and signed two Minsk Agreements to cool down the situation, the US took an opposite direction to fan the flame by inciting the anti-Russian and pro-Western forces in Ukraine to escalate the conflicts on the ground.
In the current Russia-Ukraine conflict, the US is reaping the benefits without getting itself involved militarily. It never intended to come to Ukraine's rescue, the idea used as a political tool by the US to trap Russia in a seemingly endless conflict.
We might need to go a bit further back into history to conclude how the US hegemony had created all the security trouble for Europe, Russia and Ukraine. It is well known that the US became a global superpower after the two world wars which plunged Europe into chaos and destruction and led to its dependence on the US military hegemony and NATO.
Looking for a pathway to common security, Europe and the US signed the Helsinki Accords with the Soviet Union in 1975, which saw the establishment of the Organization for Security and Cooperation as well as the indivisible, cooperative and comprehensive approach to security.
However, after the Cold War, the US overturned the European security agenda and rejected Russia's bid to join NATO four times. The aim was to make Russia the imaginary foe to justify US hegemony...