Iran missile production, is it a hoax call?

According to Reuters, satellite imagery shows major expansions at two key Iranian ballistic missile facilities that two American researchers assessed are for boosting missile production.

Reuters reports, the enlargement of the sites follows an October 2022 deal in which Iran agreed to provide missiles to Russia, which has been seeking them for its war against Ukraine. Tehran also supplies missiles to Yemen's Houthi rebels and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, both members of the Iran-backed Axis of Resistance against Israel.

Images taken by commercial satellite firm Planet Labs of the Modarres military base in March and the Khojir missile production complex in April show more than 30 new buildings at the two sites, both of which are located near Tehran.

According to Reuters, these images show many of the structures are surrounded by large dirt berms. Such earthworks are associated with missile production and are designed to stop a blast in one building from detonating highly combustible materials in nearby structures, said Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.

The expansions began at Khojir in August last year and at Modarres in October, Lewis said, based on images of the sites.

Iran's arsenal is already the largest in the Middle East, estimated at more than 3,000 missiles, including models designed to carry conventional and nuclear warheads, experts say.

Reuters claims that Modarres and Khojir sites are being expanded to boost production of conventional ballistic missiles.

Reuters claims that some of the new buildings would also allow a doubling of drone manufacturing. Drones and missile components would be sold to Russia, drones would be provided to the Houthis and missiles to Hezbollah.

Iran's mission to the United Nations did not respond to a Reuters request for comment on the expansion of the complexes. Tehran has previously denied providing drones and missiles to Russia and the Houthis.

Houthi spokesperson Mohammed Abdulsalam said a boost in Iran's weapons manufacturing would not have any impact in Yemen because the Houthis develop and manufacture aircraft independent of Iran.

Lewis analyzed the Planet Labs imagery with Decker Eveleth, an associate research analyst at CNA, a Washington think-tank, as part of a Middlebury project that monitors Iranian missile infrastructure.

The two US researchers said in separate interviews that it was not clear from the photos what kinds of missiles would be produced at the new facilities, which still appeared to be under construction.

Any increase in Tehran's missile or drone production would be concerning to the United States, which has said that Iranian drones help sustain Russia's assault on Ukrainian cities, and to Israel as it fends off attacks from Iran-backed groups, including Hezbollah.

 

Reuters in February reported that Iran had sent surface-to-surface ballistic missiles to Russia for use against Ukraine. Iran denied providing the weapons. Washington said it could not confirm the transfers but it assumed Tehran intended to provide missiles to Moscow.

On November 12, 2011, a massive explosion destroyed a large swath of Shadid Modarres associated with solid fuel missiles, killing 17 IRGC officers. They included Gen. Hassan Moqaddam, regarded by Iran as the "architect" of its ballistic missile program.

Construction at Shahid Modarres, which began again after the 2011 explosion, accelerated last year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Would Biden like to be remembered "an enabler of genocide by Israel"

There is a growing consensus that Joe Biden, President of United States needs to take back US policy from the Israel lobby and stop backing Israel’s extremist and utterly illegal policies. Israeli leaders have shown not the slightest compunction in killing tens of thousands of innocent civilians, displacing 2 million Gazans, and calling for ethnic cleansing.

The International Court of Justice has determined that Israel may well be committing genocide, and the ICJ could make a definitive determination of genocide in the next year or two. Biden would enter history as an enabler of genocide, yet he still has the chance to be the US president who prevented genocide.

Biden needs to take back US policy from the Israel lobby. The US should stop backing Israel’s extremist and utterly illegal policies. Nor should

The US should not spend any more funds on Israel unless and until Israel lives within international law, including the Genocide Convention, and 21st century ethics.

Biden should side with the UN Security Council in calling for an immediate ceasefire and indeed in calling for an immediate move to the two-state solution, including recognition of Palestine as the 194th UN member state, a move that is more than a decade overdue since Palestine requested UN membership in 2011.

The cabinet of Prime Minister Netanyahu is filled with religious extremists who believe that Israel’s brutality in Gaza is at God’s command. According to the Book of Joshua in the Hebrew Bible, dated by scholars to the 7th century BC, God promised the land to the Jewish people and instructed them to destroy the other nations living in the Promised Land.

This text is used by extreme nationalists in Israel today, including by many of the 700,000 or so Israeli settlers living in occupied Palestinian lands in violation of international law. Netanyahu pursues the religious ideology of 7th century BC in the 21st century.

Of course, the vast majority of the world today, including the vast majority of Americans, is certainly not in line with Israel’s religious zealots. The world is far more interested in the 1948 Genocide Convention than in the genocides supposedly ordained by God in the Book of Joshua.

They don’t accept the Biblical idea that Israel should kill or expel the people of Palestine from their own land.

The two-state solution is the declared policy of the world community, as enshrined by the UN Security Council, and of the US government.

President Joe Biden is therefore caught between the powerful Israel Lobby and the opinion of American voters and of the world community.

Given the power of the Israel lobby, and the sums it expends in campaign contributions, Biden is trying to have it both ways: supporting Israel but not endorsing Israel’s extremism.

Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken hope to entice the Arab countries into yet another open-ended peace process with the two-state solution as the distant goal that is never reached.

Israeli hardliners would of course block every step of the way. Biden knows all of this but wants the fig leaf of a peace process.

Biden also hoped until recently that Saudi Arabia could be lured into normalizing relations with Israel in return for F-35 fighter jets, access to nuclear technology, and a vague commitment to an eventual two-state solution... someday, somehow.

The Saudis will have none of it. They made this clear in a declaration on February 06, stating, The Kingdom calls for the lifting of the siege on the people in Gaza; the evacuation of civilian casualties; the commitment to international laws and norms and international humanitarian law, and for moving the peace process forward in accordance with the resolutions of the Security Council and the United Nations, and the Arab Peace Initiative, which aims to find a just and comprehensive solution and establish an independent Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as capital.

Domestically, Biden confronts AIPAC (the innocuously named American Israel Public Affairs Committee), the lead organization of the Israel lobby. AIPAC’s long-running success is to turn millions of dollars of campaign contributions into billions of dollars of US aid to Israel, an amazingly high return.

Currently, AIPAC aims to turn around US$100 million of campaign funding for the November election into a US$16 billion supplemental aid package for Israel.

So far, Biden is going along with AIPAC, even as he loses younger voters. In an Economist/YouGov poll of January 21-23, 49% of those aged 19-29 held that Israel is committing a genocide against the Palestinian civilians. Only 22% said that in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, their sympathies are with Israel, versus 30% with Palestine, and the remaining 48% “about equal” or unsure. Only 21% agreed with increasing military aid to Israel. Israel has utterly alienated younger Americans.

While Biden has called for peace based on the two-state solution and a reduction of violence in Gaza, Netanyahu has brazenly brushed Biden aside, provoking Biden to call Netanyahu an asshole on several occasions.

Yet it is Netanyahu, not Biden, who still calls the shots in Washington. While Biden and Blinken wring their hands at Israel’s extreme violence, Netanyahu gets the US bombs and even Biden’s full backing for the US$16 billion with no US red lines.

To see the absurdity—and tragedy—of the situation, consider Blinken’s statement in Tel Aviv on February 07.

Rather than putting any limits on Israel’s violence, made possible by the US, Blinken declared that “it will be up to Israelis to decide what they want to do, when they want to do it, how they want to do it. No one’s going to make those decisions for them. All that we can do is to show what the possibilities are, what the options are, what the future could be, and compare it to the alternative. And the alternative right now looks like an endless cycle of violence and destruction and despair.”

Lately, the US used its veto power to kill the Algerian draft resolution in the UN Security Council calling for an immediate cease-fire, with US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield calling the effort to pass the measure "wishful" and "irresponsible."

Biden has put forward a weak alternative, calling for a ceasefire “as soon as practicable,” whatever that means. In practice, it would also surely mean that Israel would simply declare a cease-fire to be “impracticable.”

 

 

Israel is committing genocide

Al Jazeera  has released a list of countries which have welcomed the ICJ case that says Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

It is worth noting that both South Africa and Israel are signatories to the 1948 Genocide Convention which gives the ICJ the jurisdiction to rule on disputes over the treaty.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) based in The Hague will hold its first hearing in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel on Thursday, with several countries welcoming the move amid a global chorus for a ceasefire in Gaza.

South Africa filed the lawsuit end of December 2023, accusing Israel of genocide in its war on Gaza and seeking a halt to the brutal military assault that has killed more than 23,000 Palestinians, nearly 10,000 of them children.

The 84-page filing by South Africa says Israel violated the 1948 Genocide Convention, drawn up in the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust.

All states that signed the convention are obliged to not commit genocide and also to prevent and punish it. The treaty defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.

Here’s what we know about the countries backing South Africa in its case against Israel, and the countries that oppose the case at the world court.

Which countries have welcomed South Africa’s ICJ case against Israel?

The Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC), the 57-member bloc, which includes Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan and Morocco, voiced their support for the case on December 30.

Malaysia in a statement released on January 02, 2024 by the Malaysian Ministry of Foreign Affairs welcomed the South African application. It reiterated a call for an independent Palestinian state “based on the pre-1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital”.

Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Oncu Keceli posted on X on January 03, 2024 welcoming South Africa’s move.

Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said on January 04, 2023 that Amman would back South Africa.

On Sunday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bolivia dubbed South Africa’s move as historic, becoming the first Latin American country to back the ICJ case against Israel.

Besides countries, many advocacy groups and civil society groups worldwide have also joined South Africa’s call. These include Terreiro Pindorama in Brazil, Asociacion Nacional de Amistad Italia-Cuba in Italy, and Collectif Judeo Arabe et Citoyen pour la Palestine in France, reported independent outlet Common Dreams.

Bolivia also pointed out it had earlier filed a request to International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Karim Khan alongside South Africa, Bangladesh, Comoros, and Djibouti to investigate the situation in Palestine. Khan said he received the request on November 30, 2023.

The ICC and the ICJ are sometimes conflated with one another. Both the courts are located in The Hague, Netherlands. While the purpose of the ICJ is to resolve conflicts between states, the ICC prosecutes individuals for committing crimes, according to the University of Melbourne’s Pursuit platform. While states cannot be sued at the ICC, the prosecutor can open an investigation where crimes, including genocide, were likely committed.

The United States has voiced its opposition to the genocide case. National security spokesperson John Kirby called South Africa’s submission “meritless, counterproductive, and completely without any basis” during a White House press briefing on January 03, 2024.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog told US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday, “There is nothing more atrocious and preposterous” than the lawsuit. Herzog also thanked Blinken for Washington’s support of Israel.

 

South Africa initiates case against Israel at ICJ

"No one knows apartheid like those who fought it before," said one Palestinian rights advocate on Friday in response to the news that South Africa has taken a historic new step to hold Israel accountable for its relentless bombardment and violent years long occupation of Gaza—calling on the International Court of Justice to declare that Israel has breached its obligations under the Genocide Convention.

The Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) in South Africa said it is gravely concerned with the plight of civilians caught in the present Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip due to the indiscriminate use of force and forcible removal of inhabitants and called on the ICJ to take action to force Israel to immediately cease its current attacks on Gaza's 2.3 million residents.

The motion was filed as the death toll in Gaza surpassed 21,500 people and tens of thousands of displaced residents fled an Israeli ground offensive, as airstrikes continued in southern Gaza.

Noting that South Africa has consistently condemned all attacks on civilians, including the assault by Hamas on southern Israel on October 7, the country's representatives at the ICJ said Israel's bombardment of Gaza is genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial, and [ethnic] group.

"The acts in question include killing Palestinians in Gaza, causing them serious bodily and mental harm, and inflicting on them conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction," reads the application filed at the ICJ.

South Africa took its latest action regarding Israel less than two weeks after President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the government had submitted documents to the International Criminal Court (ICC) supporting its demand, made in November with several other countries that the court should investigate Israel for war crimes.

While the ICC prosecutes individuals and governments for committing war crimes, the ICJ operates under the United Nations to rule on disputes between countries. The ICJ's orders are binding for Israel, as the country is a UN member state.

South Africa has joined international human rights experts—including the UN's top expert on human rights in occupied Palestine—in saying Israel's blockade of Gaza and violent treatment of those in the enclave and the West Bank is a form of apartheid, comparing Israeli policies to the racial segregation that was imposed for nearly five decades by the white minority that controlled South Africa.

Last month, the government voted to suspend diplomatic ties with Israel until Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government agrees to a permanent humanitarian ceasefire.

"South Africa has continuously called for an immediate and permanent cease-fire and the resumption of talks that will end the violence arising from the continued belligerent occupation of Palestine," the government said Friday.

Journalist Jeremy Scahill was among those who recognized the significance of South Africa's application at the ICJ, noting that the country fought for its own liberation against an apartheid regime supported for decades by the US, which is backing Israel's assault on Gaza despite international outcry and protests within the United States.

"The UN Genocide Convention must be upheld. Israel must be held accountable," said former UN human rights official Craig Mokhiber, who resigned from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in October in protest of the UN's failure to stop Israel's massacre of civilians. International law must be preserved.

At the ICJ, South Africa called for an expedited hearing on Israel's actions and asked the court to indicate provisional measures under the Genocide Convention to "protect against further, severe, and irreparable harm to the rights of the Palestinian people.

Article 2 of the Genocide Convention, adopted in 1948, states that genocide includes acts committed with the intent to destroy, either in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.

Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera's senior political analyst, pointed out Friday that the three leading Israeli officials have declared the intent to wipe out Gaza's population.

Bishara noted that Israeli President Isaac Herzog said in October that all civilians in Gaza are responsible for Hamas' attack on southern Israel, days after Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the military would collectively punish the enclave's population, who he called human animals.

Netanyahu also said this week that so-called voluntary migration of Gaza residents is the ultimate objective of Israel's assault.

On Friday, the spokesperson for Israel's Foreign Affairs Ministry, Lior Haiat, dismissed South Africa's motion as baseless and a despicable and contemptuous exploitation of the court.

Despite top officials' recent statements, Haiat said the government has made it clear that the residents of the Gaza Strip are not the enemy.

Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director for Human Rights Watch, called South Africa's move "a vital step to propel greater support for impartial justice."