Category Archives: HUMAN RIGHTS

Activists Occupy Canadian Parliament Building to Protest Gaza War & Arming of Israel

. . HUMAN RIGHTS . .

An article from Democracy Now (licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License)

“Canada needs to stop arming Israel and implement an immediate arms embargo.” In Ottawa, over 100 Jewish activists began a sit-in inside a Canadian parliamentary building Tuesday to demand Canada stop arming Israel.

Rachel Small, a member of the Jews Say No to Genocide Coalition and a member of the sit-in, says that the Canadian government’s claims that it is halting arms shipments to Israel are obfuscating the fact that Canadian weapons are still being transported via the United States. “We’re here to make sure that they … actually cut off the flow,” says Small. Such protest “is what we should be seeing more of,” adds Israeli journalist and former conscientious objector Haggai Matar.

Transcript of video

AMY GOODMAN: Haggai, you asked if people are doing enough. I want to break into this conversation with this breaking news. In Canada, about 150 Jewish activists and allies have just launched a protest inside the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa to demand Canada stop arming Israel.

We’re joined now by Rachel Small, a member of the group Jews Say No to Genocide Coalition.

Rachel, can you describe where you are and what you’re doing and what you’re calling for?

RACHEL SMALL: Thank you. We are in a Parliament Hill building. Right now we have completely taken over the lobby of this building, that has hundreds of parliamentarians’ office in here.

Our demand is clear: Canada needs to stop arming Israel and implement an immediate arms embargo. We know that every F-35 fighter jet, every Boeing Apache helicopter dropping bombs on Lebanon and Gaza right now is full of hundreds of Canadian components. We’re here as Jews to say this violence cannot continue in our name. And we’re here as people of conscience to say that the absolute bare minimum Canada needs to be doing right now is stop arming a genocide.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Haggai Matar, your response to these kinds of actions occurring abroad? Does this have an impact on the Israeli public?

HAGGAI MATAR: Well, first of all, I want to commend the activists on the ground now in Ottawa. It’s incredible. This is the exact kind of protest that people should be taking on in Canada, definitely in the U.S., which is the biggest supplier of weapons and funding and diplomatic support to Israel. So, yes, this is what we should be seeing more of.

I’m afraid that in Israel, again, these protests are usually seen as antisemitic or, in the case of Jews protesting, of self-hating Jews or people that are unhinged. That’s the way it’s being perceived. It’s our job as Jewish Israelis on the ground, talking in Hebrew, talking to people in our communities, to try and help them understand that it’s not the world that has gone mad, it’s us.

(continued in right column)

Question related to this article:

How can war crimes be documented, stopped, punished and prevented?

How can a culture of peace be established in the Middle East?

(continued from left column)

AMY GOODMAN: Interesting that the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, just met with President-elect Trump in Mar-a-Lago in Florida. Rachel Small, we’re looking at the group of people. One of them, I think, says “Jews for a Free Palestine.” What has been Trudeau’s position? And what’s going to happen to you this morning?

RACHEL SMALL: We have seen an unprecedented wave of resistance across Canada over the past 13 months, many, many thousands of people across the country not only petitioning their MPs, not only protesting, not only meeting with them, but actually holding blockades at weapons factories, doing just really everything we can to get Canada to stop arming Israel.

And that pressure has resulted in the Canadian government taking a stance that we would have not thought possible a year or two ago. They have committed to stop arming Israel. They have, in fact — the foreign affairs minister recently, in fact, said that Canadian weapons are not going to be going and used in Gaza.

Unfortunately, it’s not true. Unfortunately, we know that they have not tackled all the permits, and they have continued to conveniently send weapons to the U.S. without even requiring a permit. Those are going into every F-35 Israel is using. That is going into Israel’s primary weapons of war.

So we have backed the Canadian government into a corner where they know what the right stance is. They know they need to stop arming Israel. And we’re here to make sure they do it. The broad Arms Embargo Now coalition has come together across the country and has, in fact, gotten 45 parliamentarians to formally endorse the call for an arms embargo. We just need the government to step up and take that action to actually cut off the flow of all weapons to and from Israel. It’s the bare minimum they need to be doing.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Rachel Small, member of Jews Say No to Genocide Coalition. If you’re having a little trouble understanding her, she’s inside the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa. There are scores of people behind her, lead Canadian organizer with World — with the group World Beyond War. And in the studio with us in New York, though usually in Tel Aviv, is Haggai Matar, Israeli journalist, activist, executive director of +972 Magazine, a conscientious objector himself. Juan?

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yeah, Haggai, we only have about a minute left, but I wanted to ask you about President-elect Trump’s decision to select former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee as the next U.S. ambassador to Israel. Huckabee is not only a leading U.S. Christian Zionist who’s openly advocated for Israel’s annexation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, he declared in 2008 that there’s really no such thing as a Palestinian. What do you expect from this kind of ambassador from the new Trump administration?

HAGGAI MATAR: So, obviously, Trump appointments and Trump policies are terrifying to us and should be, too, to anyone who cares about the rights of Palestinians. I do want to also point out, however, Trump policies have an inherent contradiction. As an isolationist, Trump does not want to get involved in too many wars. As someone who wants to break deals with Saudi Arabia and Arab Gulf states, he may want to ensure that they don’t drift into the Iran-China field of influence. And those two policies, being pro-annexation and pro-settlements and pro-Israel and being pro-war and wanting to sign deals, they collide. And I think it’s our role on the left to kind of put a wedge in there and try and make sure that it becomes more and more apparent how those policies conflict with each other.

AMY GOODMAN: Haggai Matar, I want to thank you so much for being with us, Israeli journalist, activist, executive director of +972 Magazine, former conscientious objector, refused to serve in the Israeli army.

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HUMAN RIGHTS, Mideast, North America,

C­o­m­p­a­n­i­e­s P­r­o­f­i­t­i­n­g f­r­o­m t­h­e G­a­z­a G­e­n­o­c­i­d­e

. . HUMAN RIGHTS . .

An analysis by the American Friends Service Committee

The companies listed here have provided Israel with weapons and other military equipment used in its attacks on Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria since October 2023.

Last updated on June 6, 2024

*Companies marked with (*) are included in our divestment list. The list below is not intended to be used as either a divestment list or a boycott list, as it includes many privately-owned companies as well as companies with a very minor or one-time involvement.

Since October 2023, Israel has waged unprecedented aerial and ground attacks on Gaza after Hamas-led attacks on Israel. Tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza have been killed at a historic pace, mostly unarmed civilians, and most of the Gaza population has been displaced. These attacks may amount to a genocide, according to a preliminary ruling by the International Court of Justice, a , as well as dozens of U.N. experts and legal scholars. Israel’s attacks in Gaza have been accompanied by a surge of Israeli violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, clashes between the Israeli military and militant groups in Lebanon, and Israeli aerial strikes in Syria.

Shortly after Oct. 7, the U.S. government started transferring massive amounts of weapons to Israel. By Dec. 25, Israel received  more than 10,000 tons of weapons in 244 cargo planes and 20 ships from the U.S. These transfers included more than 15,000 bombs and 50,000 artillery shells within just the first month and a half. These transfers have been deliberately shrouded in secrecy to avoid public scrutiny and prevent Congress from exercising any meaningful oversight. Between October and the beginning of March, the U.S. approved more than 100 military sales to Israel, but publicly disclosed only two sales. A list of known U.S. arms transfers is maintained by the Forum on the Arms Trade.

Much of these weapons were purchased using U.S. taxpayers’ money through the Foreign Military Sales program, while some were direct commercial sales purchased through Israel’s own budget.  An undisclosed amount of weapons was also transferred from U.S. military stockpiles already stored in Israel, known as War Reserves Stock Allies-Israel (WRSA-I). The use of WRSA-I to provide Israel with weapons serves to further obfuscate the full picture of U.S. arms transfers, as there is no public record of these stockpiles’ inventory.

The scale of destruction and war crimes in Gaza would not be possible without this continued flow of weapons from the U.S. Despite massive public protests, the Biden administration has been working to give Israel over $14 billion to buy more weapons. This is on top of the $3.8 billion the U.S. already gives to the Israeli military annually. Israel is required to use this money to buy U.S.-made weapons. This is a form of corporate welfare not only for the largest weapons manufacturers, like Lockheed Martin, RTX, Boeing, and General Dynamics, which have seen their stock prices skyrocket, but also for companies that are not typically seen as part of the weapons industry, such as Caterpillar, Ford, and Toyota (see below).

As a Quaker organization with a long history of work in Palestine and Israel, including in Gaza, AFSC supports a full arms embargo to both Israeli and Palestinian militant groups. This list focuses on weapons used by Israel because all Palestinian militant groups are already sanctioned and receive no support from Western governments or corporations.

(continued in right column)

Question related to this article:

How can war crimes be documented, stopped, punished and prevented?

How can a culture of peace be established in the Middle East?

(continued from left column)

This research relies on media sources, social media, and other open sources. Information was also collected by Who Profits and the Database of Israeli Military and Security Export, a project of the Israeli organization New Profile. We welcome any additional information, please contact us.

(Editor’s note: The AFSC website includes descriptions for each of the following companies. The links below to these descriptions do not work, but there is an index of links on the left side of the AFSC website that go directly to the descriptions.)

  • AeroVironment (NASDAQ: AVAV)
  • Agilite
  • Aimpoint
  • AM General
  • *BAE Systems (LSE: BA)
  • *Boeing (NYSE: BA)
  • *Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT)
  • *Colt (PSE: CZG)
  • Corsight
  • Day & Zimmermann
  • DJI
  • *Elbit Systems (NASDAQ & TASE: ESLT)
  • Emtan
  • Flyer Defense
  • Ford (NYSE: F)
  • *General Dynamics (NYSE: GD)
  • *General Electric (NYSE: GE)
  • General Motors (NYSE: GM)
  • Ghost Robotics
  • Google/Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG)
  • *Honeywell (NASDAQ: HON)
  • Hyundai (KRX: 329180)
  • InfiniDome
  • Israel Aerospace Industries
  • JCB
  • *L3Harris Technologies (NYSE: LHX)
  • *Leonardo (BIT: LDO)
  • Leupold & Stevens
  • *Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT)
  • MDT Armor
  • Mercedes (FWB: MBG)
  • NextVision
  • Nordic Ammunition Company
  • *Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC)
  • Oshkosh (NYSE: OSK)
  • *Palantir (NYSE: PLTR)
  • *Paz Oil (TASE: PZOL)
  • Plasan
  • Rafael
  • *Renk (FRA: ZAR)
  • Rheinmetall (FWB: RHM)
  • *Rolls-Royce (LSE: RR)
  • *RTX (NYSE: RTX)
  • Shield AI
  • SK Group
  • Skydio
  • SMARTSHOOTER
  • SpearUAV
  • *Textron ( NYSE: TXT)
  • *ThyssenKrupp (FWB: TKA)

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    HUMAN RIGHTS, Mideast

    Head of Nuke Abolition Group Decries Gaza Suffering After Winning Nobel Peace Prize

    . . HUMAN RIGHTS . .

    An article by Julia Conley from Common Dreams

    Calling for peace in war zones around the world and an end to the proliferation of nuclear weapons, a grassroots group organized by survivors of the United States’ atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday.

    Nihon Hidankyo was established in 1956 after a number of local organizations of hibakusha, the Japanese name for “bomb-affected people,” joined together.

    Toshiyuki Mimaki, the group’s leader, was three years old when the U.S. killed 100,000 people in Hiroshima with a nuclear weapon, and his message after learning Nihon Hidankyo was the 2024 Peace Prize winner was straightforward.

    “I am not sure I will be alive next year,” said  Mimaki, 82. “Please abolish nuclear weapons while we are alive. That is the wish of 114,000 hibakusha.”

    Mimaki focused not only on the plight of the estimated 650,000 Japanese people who survived the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks, but also people—particularly children—facing war now.

    “It has been said that because of nuclear weapons, the world maintains peace. But nuclear weapons can be used by terrorists,” said  Mimaki. “For example, if Russia uses them against Ukraine, Israel against Gaza, it won’t end there. Politicians should know these things.”

    “In Gaza, bleeding children are being held [by their parents],” he added. “It’s like in Japan 80 years ago.”

    Mimaki said he had believed “the people working so hard in Gaza” would be awarded the Peace Prize, referring to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which was also nominated.

    The U.N. agency has struggled  to continue providing humanitarian services to Palestinians in Gaza this year after unverified claims by Israel that 12 UNRWA workers were involved in a Hamas-led attack last year prompted countries including the U.S. to suspend its funding. A majority of countries—but not the U.S., the agency’s biggest donor—have restored funding after an independent probe found Israel had not provided evidence  for its accusations.

    (continued in right column)

    Question related to this article:

    Presenting the Palestinian side of the Middle East, Is it important for a culture of peace?

    Where in the world can we find good leadership today?

    (continued from left column).

    Kazumi Matsui, the mayor of Hiroshima, said that with the average age of hibakusha now 85, “there are fewer and fewer people able to testify to the meaninglessness of possessing atomic bombs and their absolute evil.”

    “People in coming generations must know that what happened is not just a tragedy for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but one that concerns all humanity that must not be repeated,” said Matsui.

    The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 for its efforts to ensure countries comply with the U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, applauded  the Nobel Committee for recognizing Nihon Hidankyo’s “lifelong work to bring the world’s attention to what nuclear weapons actually do to people when they are used.”

    Several years after the nuclear bombings, rates of leukemia diagnoses rose considerably  in Japan among survivors. After a decade, other cancers were also detected at higher-than-normal rates. Pregnant women who were exposed to radiation from the bombings also had higher rates of miscarriage and their infants were more likely to die.

    Cancer rates have continued to increase among hibakusha throughout their lives.

    “It is particularly significant that this award comes at this time when the risk that nuclear weapons will be used again is as high, if not higher, as it has ever been,” said Melissa Parke, executive director of ICAN.

    As Nihon Hidankyo was honored “for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again,” the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) announced  it would be holding its annual nuclear exercise, “Steadfast Noon,” on October 14 over Western Europe.

    On “Democracy Now!” on Friday, Joseph Gerson, president of the Campaign for Peace, Disarmament, and Common Security, said  the award “could not come at a better time.” [See CPNN ]

    “What most people don’t understand is the increasing danger of nuclear war at this point,” said Gerson. “Among all the nuclear powers, the threshold for nuclear use is decreasing, and all the nuclear powers are in the process of so-called ‘modernizing’ their nuclear arsenals. This is a very dangerous moment.”

    “We must, as the hibakusha say, recognize that human beings and nuclear weapons cannot coexist,” Gerson added, “and we have to work for their abolition.”

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    East Asia, FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION, HUMAN RIGHTS, Mideast,

    ‘Keep Your Eye On Calendar, Palestine Will Be Free’: Arundhati Roy’s PEN Pinter Prize Speech

    . . HUMAN RIGHTS . .

    An article from the Timeline Daily

    “They fight on because they know that one day—From the river to the sea Palestine will be Free. It will. Keep your eye on your calendar. Not on your clock. That’s how the people – not the generals – the people fighting for their liberation measure time,” asserts Arundhati Roy, the noted Indian author and activist, during her PEN Pinter Prize acceptance speech delivered on October 10 at the British Library.

    After announcing her name for the prize that English PEN established as an annual award in honor of playwright Harold Pinter, Roy declared her share of the prize money will be donated to the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund.

    During her award acceptance speech after he thanked the members of English PEN and the jury for the Prize, Roy began by greeting Egyptian author and activist, Alaa Abd El-Fattah, writer of courage, and her fellow awardee. She said she was speaking of her friends and comrades in prison in India—lawyers, academics, students, journalists – Umar Khalid, Gulfisha Fatima, Khalid Saifi, Sharjeel Imam, Rona Wilson, Surendra Gadling, Mahesh Raut we well as thousands of incarcerated people in Kashmir and across the country.

    Speaking about the ongoing Israeli offensive in Gaza, the Indian author said the US and Israel unflinching ongoing “televised genocide in Gaza and now Lebanon in defence of a colonial occupation and an Apartheid state”

    Describing the fatalities of over 42000 lives including women and children, Roy stated the US and Europe have prepared the ground for another situation to assuage their collective guilt for their early years of indifference towards one genocide—the Nazi extermination of millions of European Jews.

    “Hostilities could end right this minute. Israeli hostages could be freed, and Palestinian prisoners could be released. The negotiations with Hamas and the other Palestinian stakeholders that must inevitably follow the war could instead take place now and prevent the suffering of millions of people,” she affirmed.

    The Indian author goes on saying that like every state that has carried out ethnic cleansing and genocide in history, “Zionists in Israel – who believe themselves to be “the chosen people”—began b by dehumanising Palestinians” before driving them off their land and murdering them.

    Roy quoted statements of former Israeli ministers to show how the Jewish state treated Palestinians as a justification to dehumanise them. Former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin called Palestinians ‘two-legged beasts’. Yitzhak Rabin called them ‘grasshoppers’ who ‘could be crushed’. Golda Meir, the fourth Prime Minister of Israel said ‘There was no such thing as Palestinians’.

    (continued in right column)

    Question related to this article:

    Presenting the Palestinian side of the Middle East, Is it important for a culture of peace?

    Where in the world can we find good leadership today?

    (continued from left column).

    Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the so-called famous warrior against fascism, said, ‘I do not admit that the dog in the manger has the final right to the manger, even though he may have lain there for a very long time’ and then went on to declare that a ‘higher race’ had the final right to the manger. Once those two-legged beasts, grasshoppers, dogs and non-existent people were murdered, ethnically cleansed, and ghettoised, a new country was born, Roy said, quoting the zionists and their supporters

    Roy went on how the West and their media support, arm, applaud Israel, despite floods of evidence for Israeli brutalities. “No wonder Israeli soldiers seem to have lost all sense of decency,” she says, adding that for them the history only began when the Hamas attack Israel on October 7, killing Israeli civilians, triggering the ongoing genocidal war.

    “I refuse to play the condemnation game. Let me make myself clear. I do not tell oppressed people how to resist their oppression or who their allies should be,” Roy says. Noting that when US President Joe Biden met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli war cabinet during a visit to Israel in October 2023, he said, ‘I don’t believe you have to be a Jew to be a Zionist, and I am a Zionist,’ Roy says she is not going to  declare myself or define myself in any way that is narrower than her writing.

    The celebrated Indian writer then poses some questions; I ask you, which of us sitting in this hall would willingly submit to the indignity that Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank have been subjected to for decades? What peaceful means have the Palestinian people not tried? What compromise have they not accepted—other than the one that requires them to crawl on their knees and eat dirt?

    Roy then asserts Israel is not fighting a war of self-defence. “It is fighting a war of aggression. A war to occupy more territory, to strengthen its Apartheid apparatus and tighten its control on Palestinian people and the region.”

    Roy says not all the power and money, weapons and propaganda on earth can any longer hide the wound that is Palestine. She notes the polls to shows that majority of  the citizens in the countries whose governments enable the Israeli genocide have made it clear that they do not agree with their government’s support to the Zionist atrocities, including a younger generation of Jews. She cites increasing number of protest in the Europe against Israeli aggression in Gaza.

    “The war that has now begun will be terrible. But it will eventually dismantle Israeli Apartheid. The whole world will be far safer for everyone – including for Jewish people – and far more just. It will be like pulling an arrow from our wounded heart,” the award winning author said, underscoring that the war could stop today if the US government withdrew its support of Israel.

    “When Benjamin Netanyahu holds up a map of the Middle East in which Palestine has been erased and Israel stretches from the river to the sea, he is applauded as a visionary who is working to realize the dream of a Jewish homeland. But when Palestinians and their supporters chant ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’, they are accused of explicitly calling for the genocide of Jews,” Roy said.

    The PEN Prize awardee concluded her speech expressing her conviction that From the river to the sea Palestine will be Free.

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    Europe, HUMAN RIGHTS, Mideast, South Asia, , ,

    UN General Assembly demands Israel end ‘unlawful presence’ in Occupied Palestinian Territory

    . . HUMAN RIGHTS . .

    An article from the United Nations

    The United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday [September 18] voted overwhelmingly to adopt a resolution that demands that Israel “brings to an end without delay its unlawful presence” in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

    With a recorded vote of 124 nations in favour, 14 against, and 43 abstentions, the resolution calls for Israel to comply with international law and withdraw its military forces, immediately cease all new settlement activity, evacuate all settlers from occupied land, and dismantle parts of the separation wall it constructed inside the occupied West Bank.

    [Editor’s note: Click here for a full listing of how the countries voted.]


    UN Photo/Evan Schneider Result of the General Assembly vote on a draft resolution on the ICJ advisory opinion on the legal consequences arising from Israel’s policies and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territory

    The General Assembly further demanded that Israel return land and other “immovable property”, as well as all assets seized since the occupation began in 1967, and all cultural property and assets taken from Palestinians and Palestinian institutions.

    The resolution also demands Israel allow all Palestinians displaced during the occupation to return to their place of origin and make reparation for the damage caused by its occupation.

    The resolution stems from the advisory opinion  issued by the International Court of Justice  (ICJ) in July, in which the Court declared that Israel’s continued presence in the Territory “is unlawful”, and that “all States are under an obligation not to recognize” the decades-long occupation.

    Click here for the full text of the resolution  and here for our live coverage of the meeting.

    Threat to peace and security

    The Assembly “strongly deplored the continued and total disregard and breaches” by the Government of Israel of its obligations under the UN Charter, international law and UN resolutions, stressing that such breaches “seriously threaten” regional and international peace and security.

    It also recognized that Israel “must be held to account for any violations” of international law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including of international humanitarian and human rights laws.

    The text says Israel “must bear the legal consequences of all its internationally wrongful acts, including by making reparation for the injury, including any damage, caused by such acts.”

    The General Assembly highlighted the need for the establishment of an international mechanism for reparations to address damage, loss, or injury caused by Israel’s actions.

    It also called for creating an international register of damage caused, to document evidence and related claims.

    (continued in right column)

    Question related to this article:

    How can war crimes be documented, stopped, punished and prevented?

    How can a culture of peace be established in the Middle East?

    (continued from left column)

    International conference

    The resolution also includes a decision to convene an international conference during the Assembly’s current session to implement UN resolutions pertaining to the question of Palestine and the two-State solution for the achievement of a just, lasting and comprehensive peace in the Middle East.

    Additionally, the Assembly requested the UN Secretary-General to present proposals for a mechanism to follow up on Israel’s violations of article 3 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, as identified by the ICJ.

    Article 3 refers to racial segregation and apartheid and the undertaking by International Convention’s States Parties to prevent, prohibit and eradicate all practices of this nature in territories under their jurisdiction.

    Call on States

    In its resolution, the General Assembly called upon all UN Member States to comply with their obligations under international law and take concrete steps to address Israel’s ongoing presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

    The Assembly urged States to refrain from recognizing Israel’s presence in the Territory as lawful and to ensure that they do not provide aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by the occupation. This includes taking measures to prevent their nationals, companies, and entities under their jurisdiction from engaging in activities that support or sustain Israel’s occupation.

    Additionally, the Assembly called on States to cease importing products originating from Israeli settlements and to halt the transfer of arms, munitions, and related equipment to Israel in cases where there are reasonable grounds to suspect they may be used in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

    Moreover, the resolution urged States to implement sanctions, such as travel bans and asset freezes, against individuals and entities involved in maintaining Israel’s unlawful presence in the Territory. This includes addressing issues related to settler violence and ensuring that those engaged in these activities face legal and financial consequences.
    Adjournment

    Finally, the Assembly temporarily adjourned its tenth emergency special session and authorized the President of the General Assembly to reconvene the session upon request from Member States.

    The special session is a continuation of the tenth emergency special session of the General Assembly that last met in May amid the ongoing crisis in Gaza, during which it adopted a resolution , laying out additional rights for the State of Palestine’s participation in Assembly meetings.

    That resolution did not grant Palestine the right to vote or put forward its candidature to UN Main Organs such as the Security Council or the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

    It also did not confer membership to the State of Palestine, which requires a specific recommendation from the Security Council.

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    global, HUMAN RIGHTS, United Nations,

    Israeli General Strike Protests Netanyahu’s ‘Cabinet of Death’

    . . HUMAN RIGHTS . .

    An article by Jake Johnson from Common Dreams

    Workers across Israel walked off the job and took to the streets on Monday to protest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s refusal to agree to a cease-fire and hostage-release deal after Israeli forces recovered the bodies of six people who were held captive by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

    Teachers, local government employees, transit workers, and others took part in the strike, which halted departures from Israel’s largest airport, shut down universities and shopping malls, and disrupted the flow of traffic as outraged Israelis blocked roads.


    Israelis gather in the center of Tel Aviv on September 2, 2024 to demand a hostage-release agreement. (Photo: Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu via Getty Images)

    The strike was called by Histadrut, Israel’s largest trade union. Arnon Bar-David, the union’s chairman, said  ahead of the action that “this is not a matter of right or left; it is a matter of life and death.”

    “All the heads of the security establishment support the deal, and it is the government’s responsibility to bring our hostages home,” he continued. “It is inconceivable that our children will not return because of narrow considerations and interests.”

    Yair Lapid, Israel’s opposition leader, expressed support for the strike, saying  that “Netanyahu and the cabinet of death decided not to save” the six hostages whose bodies were recovered from Rafah. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Sunday that Hamas fighters killed the hostages, including Israeli American Hersh Goldberg-Polin.

    Hamas said in a statement  that “we hold the criminal terrorist Benjamin Netanyahu and the biased American administration responsible for the failure of the negotiations to stop the aggression against our people and to release the prisoners in an exchange.”

    “We also hold him fully responsible for the lives of the prisoners who were killed by his army’s bullets,” Hamas added.

    The IDF’s announcement Sunday intensified the fury that hostages’ families and much of Israeli society have directed at Netanyahu, who has repeatedly sabotaged cease-fire talks  with hardline demands in recent weeks. Israeli officials believe around 100 hostages remain in captivity in Gaza, including roughly 35 who are believed to be dead.

    At least some of the hostages have been killed by Israeli forces. In April, Hamas released a brief video  in which Goldberg-Polin appealed to the Netanyahu government for a cease-fire agreement and said at least 70 hostages had been killed in IDF attacks.

    (continued in right column)

    Question related to this article:

    How can war crimes be documented, stopped, punished and prevented?

    How can a culture of peace be established in the Middle East?

    (continued from left column)

    B’Tselem, an Israeli advocacy organization, said in a statement  Sunday that “the six Israeli hostages whose bodies were recovered from Gaza this morning could have been saved if the Israeli government had heeded the pleas of their families and the Israeli public to reach a cease-fire and an exchange deal.”

    “The Israeli government places no value on human life—whether of its Gazan subjects or of its own citizens,” the group added.

    Labor unions in the United States—Israel’s main ally and weapons supplier—expressed solidarity with Israeli workers who walked off the job Monday, with American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten applauding  “this action to halt Israel’s economy to send a message to the Netanyahu government to end this war.”

    “We are devastated by the murder of the six innocent hostages by Hamas, young people, most of whom were at the Nova dance festival,” said Weingarten. “But it is unconscionable that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has refused to seal a cease-fire deal with Hamas that would bring the hostages home and end the humanitarian crisis of Gaza. We have called for an end to this war since January. In Netanyahu’s obstinance, he has refused to listen, even to his own military and security experts.”

    The strike kicked off amid reports that the U.S. “has been talking to Egypt and Qatar about the contours of a final ‘take it or leave it’ deal that it plans to present to the parties in the coming weeks,” according to The Washington Post.

    “Biden officials said it was not immediately clear whether the discovery of the six hostages would make it more or less likely that Israel and Hamas could come to an agreement in the coming weeks,” the Post added.

    Drop Site’s Jeremy Scahill noted  Sunday that “rather than insisting on upholding what [U.S. President Joe] Biden said was Israel’s own proposal in May, the U.S. has appeased Netanyahu’s efforts to allow an indefinite presence of Israeli forces in Gaza and an open-ended campaign of military attacks.”

    Update:

    The chairman of Histadrut, Israel’s largest trade union, instructed workers  to return to their jobs following an order by an Israeli court to end the general strike on Monday afternoon.

    (Editor’s notes:

    In a related development on August 31, “in Tel Aviv, tens of thousands of demonstrators, including relatives of those held hostage in Gaza, gathered at the Hostages Square for a rally demanding their loved ones’ return and pled with the prime minister and negotiating team to reach an agreement before time runs out.”

    A list of businesses affected by the general strike has been published by the Times of Israel.)

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    HUMAN RIGHTS, Mideast

    Rev. Al Sharpton: Jesse Jackson Helped Reshape Democratic Party & Paved Way for Kamala Harris

    . HUMAN RIGHTS .

    An article from Democracy Now licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

    Reverend Jesse Jackson, the civil rights icon who worked closely with Martin Luther King Jr., ran for president twice, in 1984 and 1988, and founded the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, is expected to appear on stage on the opening night of this year’s Democratic National Convention. We play footage of an event held Sunday in Chicago to honor Jesse Jackson, which featured fellow civil rights activist Al Sharpton and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, among many other speakers.


    frame from video of the event. Jackson is in the front row, right center

    “We learned at his feet,” Sharpton said of Jackson’s impact on civil rights activism. “Every time a Black [person] opens their mouth and talks about democracy, Jesse Jackson is talking. Every time we march, Jesse Jackson is walking. And when you see Kamala Harris get on that stage this week, Jesse Jackson is on that stage.”

    Transcript

    AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, “War, Peace and the Presidency: Breaking with Convention.” I’m Amy Goodman, here with Juan González.

    JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, on Sunday, hundreds of people gathered here in Chicago to honor civil rights icon Reverend Jesse Jackson, the founder of Rainbow PUSH Coalition. In the 1960s, Jackson worked closely with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In 1984 and ’88, Jackson ran two groundbreaking presidential campaigns.

    AMY GOODMAN: Reverend Jesse Jackson is expected to appear on stage tonight at the DNC. In 2017, he announced he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s. On Sunday, the Reverend Al Sharpton praised Jackson as Jackson sat in the front row in a wheelchair, hundreds of people around him, family and friends. He praised Jackson for transforming the Democratic Party. This is the Reverend Al Sharpton.

    REV. AL SHARPTON: I became a youth organizer under Reverend Jackson when I was 12 years old in New York. Many people do not understand the magnitude of what Jesse Jackson has done for this country. When Martin Luther King was killed in 1968, there was the vacuum of what was going to happen to the movement. I was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. Some of the ministers, even though I was a young minister, seemed like they were not connected to what was going on in the urban North. Jesse Jackson came from the South but organized in Chicago and knew how to organize in urban centers. There would not have been a continuation of that movement had Jesse Jackson not bridged that gap and started fighting for collective economics at that time.

    (Article continued in the right column)

    Questions related to this article:

    The struggle for human rights, is it gathering force in the USA?

    (Article continued from the left column)

    Way before we started talking about corporate accountability, he was boycotting Fortune 500 companies, dealing with the economic policy, dealing with the exploitation of the poor. He became a national figure holding corporate America accountable. What people are doing now was started by Jesse Louis Jackson.

    But directly, as they start the Democratic convention on tomorrow, let me just talk about his historic reshaping of the party. In 1983, he started saying a Black should run for president. There was, in 1972, the Gary, Indiana, convention, National Black Political Convention. There was the fights between the Black nationalists and those that were in elective office. Reverend tried to bridge that. It led all the way to ’83. He went around the country trying to get certain Blacks to run. In the middle of him doing that, he started a Southern voting crusade. As he was on the bus going through Mississippi, through Louisiana, registering voters, people started saying, “You should run, Jesse.” And we started to chant, “Run, Jesse, run!” Most of the Black elected officials didn’t see it. He ran anyway. And he ran and won many of those primaries, and he put us on the agenda, saying, “Our time has come.” …

    It’s a remarkable career to be born in the Deep South, in the back of the bus, and to grow into being a world figure that literally changed the political structures as we knew it, put two of his sons in Congress — Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., who’s a constitutional scholar, Jonathan Jackson now — reshaped the civil rights movement. What we’re doing now with civil rights organization, we learned at his feet.

    Let me end by saying there’s some people that say that it’s sad Reverend Jackson, from Parkinson’s, can’t walk like he used to and talk like he used to. But I want you to know that every time a Black opens their mouth and talk about democracy, Jesse Jackson is talking. Every time we march, Jesse Jackson is walking. And when you see Kamala Harris get on that stage this week, Jesse Jackson is on that stage. He’s sitting there watching the results of his work. There wouldn’t be no us if it wasn’t for him. Thank you, and God bless you.

    AMY GOODMAN: That’s the Reverend Al Sharpton honoring the Reverend Jesse Jackson last night here in Chicago at a gathering at the Rainbow PUSH Coalition headquarters. Hundreds turned out. Jesse Jackson is expected to appear on stage at the Democratic National Convention tonight. He ran twice for president, in 1984 and 1988.

    Democracy Now! is broadcasting two hours each day from the Chicago convention as we cover the DNC from the inside out. In our other hour today, we’ll be talking with Osama Siblani, who runs a newspaper in Dearborn, will talk about the “uncommitted” movement. We’ll also be talking about two men who were imprisoned for over 40 years and then exonerated, what that means. That does it for our show from Chicago, from CAN TV. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

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    HUMAN RIGHTS, North America

    World Court Condemns Israeli Apartheid

    . . HUMAN RIGHTS . .

    A press survey by CPNN

    Human Rights Watch: The following quote can be attributed to Tirana Hassan, Human Rights Watch Executive Director:

    In a historic ruling the International Court of Justice has found multiple and serious international law violations by Israel towards Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including, for the first time, finding Israel responsible for apartheid. The court has placed responsibility with all states and the United Nations to end these violations of international law. The ruling should be yet another wake up call for the United States to end its egregious policy of defending Israel’s oppression of Palestinians and prompt a thorough reassessment in other countries as well.


    Judges for the International Court of Justice rise before delivering a non-binding ruling on Israeli rule in the West Bank and East Jerusalem at the ICJ in The Hague on July 19, 2024. (Nick Gammon/AFP)

    Amnesty International: Responding to the historic advisory opinion delivered today by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the legality of Israel’s policies and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and the consequences of Israel’s conduct for other states and the UN, Erika Guevara Rosas, Amnesty International’s Senior Director for Research, Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns, said . . .

    “The international community, and in particular Israel’s allies, must now take unequivocal action to ensure Israel ends its unlawful occupation, starting with the immediate halting of the expansion of Israeli settlements and reversing the annexation of Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, and dismantling its brutal system of apartheid against Palestinians. Ending the occupation is crucial in order to stop the recurrent pattern of human rights violations across Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. 

    (continued in right column)

    Question related to this article:

    Israel/Palestine, is the situation like South Africa?

    How can a culture of peace be established in the Middle East?

    (continued from left column)

    “Israel must withdraw its forces from all parts of the occupied territories, including the Gaza Strip and remove all settlers from the West Bank, including from the illegally annexed East Jerusalem. Israel must also relinquish control over all aspects of Palestinians’ lives, as well as ceding control of borders, natural resources, air space and territorial waters of the occupied territory. This means lifting the illegal blockade of Gaza and allowing Palestinians to travel freely between Gaza and the West Bank.” 

    The Times of Israel quoted the ICJ ruling extensively and reported the reactions of Israeli political leaders:

    “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, numerous cabinet ministers as well as settler leaders roundly denounced the ruling, with some calling for the immediate formal annexation of the West Bank in response. . . . Members of left-wing opposition parties insisted, however, that Israeli policy was at fault, with Labor MK Gilad Kariv stating that the government’s “de facto annexation” of the West Bank, “theft of land” and refusal to conduct negotiations with the Palestinians meant that it would by definition be unable to preserve “Israel’s status as an accepted democratic country.”

    As reported by Reuters, the official response of the United States was negative:

    “The U.S. criticized “the breadth” of the top U.N. court’s opinion that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories is illegal, with Washington saying it would complicate efforts to resolve the conflict.”

    The Guardian says that the ICJ decision will have a profound impact:

    “Thorough, detailed and all encompassing, the international court of justice’s advisory ruling on the illegality of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory and settlement building represents a stark refutation of Israel’s claims, and will have a profound impact for years to come. . . . While numerous UN reports and resolutions in the general assembly have made the same point, the ICJ ruling, by virtue of being made in reference to treaty and individual laws, represents a judgment that will be hard to ignore. . . . While non-binding, the ruling will provide ample ammunition for government lawyers already actively examining future sanctions against those linked to Israeli settlement.

    The mention of sanctions by the Guardian brings to mind the important historical precedent that sanctions were of critical importance in the victory over apartheid in South Africa.

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    global, HUMAN RIGHTS, Mideast, United Nations, ,

    When Nothing Else Works to End Israeli Genocide of Gaza, Urge Governments to Use UN General Assembly Res 377 “Uniting For Peace” for Peace in Palestine

    . . HUMAN RIGHTS . .

    An article from World Beyond War

    The crime of genocide is happening. The intentional destruction of a people, in whole or in part, is genocide. The law is meant to be used to prevent it, not just review it after the fact.

    We sent over half a million emails  to key governments urging them to invoke the genocide convention at the International Court of Justice. South Africa did so, charging Israel with genocide. Nicaragua, Mexico, Libya, and Colombia formally filed declarations of intervention in support of the case. Several other nations said they would do so as well. The court has ordered Israel to cease its genocidal acts, and the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has requested arrest warrants. And still the United Nations Security Council does not act, and in fact allows its members to provide Israel with the weaponry needed to continue the crime.

    (continued in right column)

    Question related to this article:

    How can war crimes be documented, stopped, punished and prevented?

    How can a culture of peace be established in the Middle East?

    (continued from left column)

    United Nations General Assembly Resolution 377 (Uniting For Peace) allows the General Assembly to act when the Security Council fails. The General Assembly should NOT escalate the war or deploy armed troops. It should convene an emergency session and use “Uniting For Peace” to impose an arms embargo and targeted sanctions on the Israeli government, suspend the Israeli government from the United Nations, and send to Palestine unarmed peacekeepers   (who have repeatedly  shown their superiority to armed peacekeepers).

    The General Assembly has already voted overwhelmingly for a ceasefire, but not for the actions above.

    Emails sent on the form here will go simultaneously to the governments of South Africa, Nicaragua, Brazil, Belgium, Belize, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Egypt, Honduras, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Turkey, Mexico, Pakistan, Spain, Libya, China, Russia, Algeria, Ecuador, Guyana, Japan, France, Malta, Mozambique, Republic of Korea, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, Switzerland, Canada.

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    global, HUMAN RIGHTS, Mideast, United Nations, ,

    Australian MPs react to Julian Assange’s release

    . . HUMAN RIGHTS . .

    An article of Yahoo News Australia

    Julian Assange has walked free from prison after the WikiLeaks founder reached an agreement with the US Department of Justice, ending a years long legal saga that centred on the release of hundreds of thousands of classified State Department cables, a development that has been welcomed across the Australian parliament.


    Kristinn Hrafnsson, editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, addresses supporters Julian Assange outside Australia House on April 10, 2024 in London, England. (Photo: Leon Neal/Getty Images) Photo reproduced by Common Dreams

    According to court documents filed on Monday, Mr Assange is expected to plead guilty to a single felony of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified information, a violation under the US Espionage Act.

    The plea deal will spare him further time in prison in the UK where he was reportedly suffering health issues and living in solitary confinement.

    Having left prison on Monday after he was granted bail by the UK High Court, Mr Assange then boarded a private jet at Stansted Airport joined by UK High Commissioner Stephen Smith and left the country en route to Bangkok.

    The 52-year-old is expected to front a US Federal Court on Wednesday in Saipan, a self-governing US territory located in the western Pacific, about 2400km east of the Philippines.

    After being sentenced to the 62 months he has already spent in prison, he is expected to return to Australia.

    Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has previously raised Mr Assange’s case in talks with US president Joe Biden. Mr Albanese told parliament in February he hoped that a resolution to the case could be found.

    In a short statement released on Tuesday morning, an Australian government spokesman confirmed Mr Assange’s legal proceedings scheduled in the US.

    “The Australian government continues to provide consular assistance to Mr Assange,” the spokesman said.

    (continued in right column)

    Question related to this article:

    Julian Assange, Is he a hero for the culture of peace?

    Is Internet freedom a basic human right?

    (continued from left column)

    “Prime Minister Albanese has been clear – Mr Assange’s case has dragged on for too long and there is nothing to be gained by his continued incarceration.”

    Coalition frontbencher and Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce on Tuesday thanked those who had supported Mr Assange’s release, including members of a self-funded parliamentary delegation to lobby US Congress for his freedom.

    “There were so many people who were part of this process, and what it showed was people from both sides of politics, for different reasons, arrived at the same place,” Mr Joyce said on Tuesday morning.

    But Mr Joyce warned there were still further steps to be taken before Mr Assange’s freedom was assured.

    “In a 1500m race, you don’t stop and start waving at the crowd with 2½ laps (to go). Wait to the end of the race and then the race is over,” he said.

    Greens senator David Shoebridge also welcomed Mr Assange’s release and remarked that he was “looking forward to welcoming Julian back home”.

    “Let’s be clear, Julian Assange should never have been charged with espionage in the first place or had to make this deal. (He) has spent years in jail for the crime of showing the world the horrors of the US war in Iraq and the complicity of governments like Australia and that is why he has been punished.”

    With Mr Assange en route to Australia, a statement released by WikiLeaks thanked those who had lent their support to co-ordinated efforts to free him.

    “This is the result of a global campaign that spanned grassroots organisers, press freedom campaigners, legislators and leaders from across the political spectrum, all the way to the United Nations,” a WikiLeaks statement read.

    “This created the space for a long period of negotiations with the US Department of Justice, leading to a deal that has not yet been formally finalised.

    “Julian’s freedom is our freedom”.

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    East Asia, HUMAN RIGHTS