US duplicity and Arab cowardice facilitating genocide in Gaza

President Biden, looking somber, keeps urging Israel to avoid civilian deaths and to use targeted strikes on Hamas. Yet he keeps supplying Israel with 2,000 pound bunker buster bombs that are designed to kill indiscriminately and over a wide area. 

He reels against nuclear proliferation and vows to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Yet the United States will not even acknowledge the fact that Israel possesses over 200 nukes, let alone endorse a longstanding Arab and Iranian proposal to declare the region a nuclear-free zone, simply to facilitate Israel to threaten its neighbors of risk of a nuclear war. 

The United State says it wants an end to hostilities and civilian deaths, largely those of women and children in the Gaza war that is not a war because what we have is an army of well-equipped soldiers massacring defenseless women and children. Yet at the United Nations Security Council, the US has exercised vetoed three resolutions demanding an immediate ceasefire.

The world recognizes that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank is illegal and the US says these settlements should not be expanded, yet it is overlooking proliferation of settlements.

Lately, at the International Court of Justice, the US rushed to Israel’s defense—urging the 15-judge panel not to call for Israel’s withdrawal from occupied Palestinian territory. The American State Department lawyer in support of Israel argued that the solution was not an Israeli withdrawal but that a sovereign Palestinian state living safely and securely alongside Israel would bring about lasting peace, repeating longstanding US platitudes that Netanyahu and two of his cabinet ministers have said will never be allowed by Israel.

The US espouses these words in public in support of a Palestinian state, yet does nothing to make it a reality. 

The US officials say that they have limited power over Netanyahu and Israel. Why doesn’t Biden announce: 1) US will no longer support Israeli intransigence at the United Nations, 2) US will suspend all financial and military aid to Israel (amounting to around US$300 billion over the years), and US will no longer sell arms to Israel?

Netanyahu will do as he is told. If Netanyahu does not do as told by the US and if Israel then loses US backing, Israelis would feel so naked and vulnerable that they would demand a change of government, it is that simple.

Regrettably, no US president dares taking such a stand because of the power of the Jewish lobby. It’s time for the US citizens to wake up and demand their government treat Israel as an ally but not as the 51st state.

It will not be wrong to say that the US foreign policy toward the Middle East is in large part subservient to Israeli demands and the Jewish lobby.

Palestinians have also received little or no effective backing from their Arab and Muslim brethren. Most Arab and Muslim countries have supported South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and others have voiced their anger at Israel’s attack on Gaza, but there is much more that they could do if they had a little courage and compassion in the face of the massacre of innocent civilians, largely women and children. 

If Arabs and Muslims want to force a change in the US policies and create a Palestinian state forthwith, they should: 1) recall their ambassadors to Washington (and to Tel Aviv for those having relations), 2) expel all US military personnel (bases) from their territories, 3) follow up with both primary and secondary economic sanctions on Israel, and 4) bring cases at the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Israeli leaders and American and European heads of state for complicity in Israeli war crimes, ethnic cleansing and genocide.

Cognizant of the fact that Israel and the US are not members of the ICC, enforcement of the court verdicts is difficult, still a conviction would be a black mark that no one would want.

Some Arab countries would be wise to consider these steps sooner rather than later as they may face growing domestic demands for action, while may lead to unrest.

Courtesy: Tehran Times

 

Most Palestinians Support Hamas

Joe Biden, President, United States, declared on X (formerly Twitter) on Friday, "The overwhelming majority of Palestinians are not Hamas." He elaborated, "I won't mince words. The overwhelming majority of Palestinians are not Hamas. And Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people. They're also suffering as a result of Hamas' terrorism. We need to be clear-eyed about that reality."

The Jerusalem Post writes in its editorial, “President Biden, though most Palestinians aren’t Hamas, as you claimed, a vast majority of them agree with almost any question regarding their basic ideology after October 07”.

Suppose most Palestinians, as well as most Israelis, are against a Two State Solution. In that case, you should probably speak to your advisors and ask them to think of a more practical solution - since on the ground, here in the Middle East, a two-state solution isn’t realistic if even an option.

Throughout the conflict, there has been significant debate both within Israel and internationally regarding the extent to which Hamas represents Palestinians in Gaza, the level of support for Hamas among Gazans, and the proportion of the death toll in Gaza comprising Hamas operatives.

The discussion about Gazan support for, and involvement with, Hamas has intensified recently, particularly with the looming yet uncertain ground operation expected in Rafah.

Following the president's statement, various public figures disagreed on social media. Among them, former Miss Iraq, now a human rights advocate and ally to Israel, Sarah Idan, countered with, "Tell that to the Palestinians in my inbox telling me Hamas are heroes and are freedom fighters…"

Though not all Palestinians are members of Hamas or even support it, most of them agree with its basic ideology. Several surveys, as well as monitoring of social media, found that Biden’s remarks are off.

According to a November 14 survey by the Arab World for Research and Development, most Palestinians supported the killing and kidnapping of Israelis on October 07, and just a tiny percentage supported a two-state solution.

The survey posed the question, how much do you support the military operation carried out by the Palestinian resistance led by Hamas on October 07?

The findings revealed substantial support among Palestinians for the attack.

In the West Bank, 83.1% expressed their support to varying degrees, while only 6.9% were strongly or somewhat opposed, and 8.4% remained neutral.

In the Gaza Strip, though support was slightly less unanimous, a majority of 63.6% still backed the attack, either strongly or to some extent. Another 14.4% were neutral, and opposition was slightly higher at 20.9%. Overall, 75% of respondents supported the October 07 attack in some capacity.

Regarding gender perspectives, the difference in support between Palestinian men and women was negligible, with 75.2% of men and 74.9% of women supporting the attack to some extent.

Only a minority, 0.9%, believed the attack aimed to halt the peace process, and 0.7% thought it was to prevent settlement. Additionally, 5.1% perceived the attack as benefiting Iran's interests.

When it came to the concept of a two-state solution, 74.7% favored a single Palestinian state "from the river to the sea," with higher support in the West Bank (77.7%) compared to Gaza (70.4%). Support for a two-state solution was 17.2%, with Gazans (22.7%) more favored than West Bank residents (13.3%). Only 5.4% backed a "one-state for two peoples" solution.

The perception of the conflict's nature varied, with only 18.6% viewing it as between Israel and Hamas. A majority, 63.6%, saw it as a conflict between Israel and the Palestinians at large, and 9.4% interpreted it as a conflict between the Western world and the Arab world.

Inquiries about the motive behind the October 07 operation revealed that 31.7% of West Bank respondents and 24.9% from Gaza identified "freeing Palestine" as the primary reason.

Additionally, 23.3% from the West Bank and 17.7% from Gaza pointed to "breaking the siege on the Gaza Strip" as the motive, while 35% overall cited "stopping the violations of Aqsa" as the reason, referring to issues surrounding the Al-Aqsa mosque's access.

 

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.”

 

 

Oil slick from sinking ship in Red Sea

A cargo ship that was struck by a Houthi ballistic missile on Monday has created an 18-mile long slick in the Red Sea. It remains unclear what kind of substance is causing the slick.

Rubymar — a Belize-flagged, UK-registered, Lebanese-owned vessel — was carrying 41,000 tons of fertilizer when it was struck on Monday by one of two ballistic missiles fired from Houthi territory in Yemen.

The damage sustained by the Rubymar is potentially the most significant to a vessel caused by an attack launched by the Houthis, who have been targeting commercial shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden for months.

US Central Command said this week that the Rubymar sent out a distress call after the attack and was assisted by a coalition warship and another merchant vessel, which took the crew to a nearby port.

It appeared to be the first time a crew has been forced to evacuate a ship after it was hit by the Houthis. Many of the ships struck by Houthi missiles have been able to continue their voyage.

Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said Thursday that the Rubymar was taking on water as we speak.

“It’s creating an environmental hazard with the leakage of all the fuel that it’s carrying,” Singh said. “On top of that, it was carrying, to my understanding, fertilizer. Houthis are creating an environmental hazard right in their own backyard.”

The Houthis’ attacks have been ongoing for months and despite several rounds of strikes by the US and UK on their capabilities, US officials told CNN it’s unclear how much weaponry the militia group still has.

“The US campaign against the Houthis appears to bear the hallmarks of many of these highly circumscribed, scrubbed campaigns of the past where we seek to avoid causing them actual pain,” a former US military official told CNN.

The Houthis’ attacks have increased in recent days; Singh said Thursday there has certainly been an increase in attacks from the Houthis over the last 72 hours. And while the Houthis have said they are conducting the attacks in support of the Palestinian people and targeting ships connected to Israel, many of the vessels attacked have instead been connected to other countries.

Another ship hit by the Houthis on Monday — the Sea Champion, a US-owned, Greek-flagged bulk carrier — was carrying grain to Yemen. A CENTCOM release on the attack said the Sea Champion has delivered humanitarian aid to Yemen 11 times in the past five years.”

“So, again, they’re saying that they’re conducting these attacks against ships that are connected to Israel,” Singh said Thursday. “These are ships that are literally bringing goods, services, aid to their own people, and they’re creating their own international problem.”

Egypt: Walled buffer zone along Gaza border

Egypt is building a massive miles-wide buffer zone and wall along its border with southern Gaza, new satellite images show, as fears grow over Israel’s planned ground offensive in Rafah where more than half of Gaza’s population is sheltering.

The images show a significant section of Egyptian territory between a roadway and the Gaza border has been bulldozed.

If the buffer zone — which stretches from the end of the Gaza border to the Mediterranean Sea — is completed, it will completely engulf the Egyptian-Rafah border crossing complex.

Additional satellite imagery reviewed by CNN shows that bulldozers arrived on site on February 03, and the initial excavation of the buffer zone began on February 06. There was a significant uptick in excavation over the last five days.

Videos released by the Sinai Foundation for Human Rights show construction of the border wall, which they claim is five meters (16 feet) high.

The organization, a non-governmental human rights group made up of activists, researchers and journalists, said that two local contractors told them that it was commissioned by the Egyptian armed forces.

The construction comes as fears grow that the already horrific humanitarian situation in Gaza will worsen, causing thousands of deaths and a mass exodus of Palestinians to Egypt’s border.

All eyes are on Rafah, situated along the new buffer zone, where nearly 1.5 million Palestinians are crammed into a massive tent city.

Despite international pressure, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reiterated plans for a military ground offensive in the southern Gazan city, saying it is Hamas’ “last bastion.”

Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Lt. Col. Peter Lerner told CNN earlier that the military aims to create a plan that evacuates civilians “out of harm’s way” and differentiates civilians from Hamas militants. However, it has not yet presented its evacuation plan to the government, he told CNN.

The city is the last remaining refuge in Gaza for displaced Palestinians, and panic is soaring as many decide whether to stay or leave ahead of the planned ground offensive.

Families struggling with shortages of food, water and medicine are living in tents just meters from the barbed-wire fence separating them from Egypt. Most have trekked to Rafah after being displaced by the war elsewhere in Gaza.

Rajaa Musleh, the Gaza representative for the nonprofit organization MedGlobal, currently based in Rafah, painted a vivid picture of the situation in the besieged town, saying that health workers who are still alive “may still be breathing, but we are dying inside.”

“The situation we are enduring in Rafah is horrific and getting worse every day. We do not have water to drink or food to eat, and our health care facilities can hardly operate,” Musleh said.

A growing number of countries and international organizations have called on Israel to avoid a ground operation in what is now Gaza’s most populated city, with the International Committee of the Red Cross regional director Fabrizio Carboni saying “countless lives are hanging in the balance.” The leaders of Australia, Canada and New Zealand warned on Thursday that such an incursion “would be catastrophic.”

Egypt has already condemned Israel’s move to push Palestinians southward in the enclave, suggesting it is part of a plan to expel Gazans and that it would spell the end of the Palestinian cause. Egypt has now sounded alarms again as Israel prepares for its military operation in Rafah.

Egypt began boosting its security presence at its border with Gaza as a precautionary measure ahead of the expected Israeli ground operation, Egyptian security officials told CNN. As part of its security buildup, the officials said, Egypt has deployed more troops and machinery in North Sinai, bordering Gaza.

Checkpoints leading to the Rafah border crossing on the Egyptian side were also fortified with more soldiers and the areas around the main road were being prepared for the deployment of tanks and military machinery, a witness told CNN.

It comes as Netanyahu continues to rail against Egypt for not closing the Philadelphi Corridor – the strip of land between Egypt and Gaza and the besieged enclave’s only non-Israeli-controlled border. In a press briefing on January 13, Netanyahu said that Israel would not consider the war over until it was closed.

Israel has been accused of constructing its own buffer zone, but within Gaza, which would effectively shrink the enclave’s borders. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said in a February 08 statement that the IDF had been destroying Gaza buildings that are within a kilometer of the Israel-Gaza fence, clearing the area with the objective of creating a buffer zone.

Caretakers outperform PDM in debt management

In a rare comparison before leaving portfolio on completion of about six months, caretaker Finance Minister Dr Shamshad Akhtar on Thursday claimed better debt management — domestic and external — from all aspects than her predecessor Ishaq Dar in the PDM-led coalition government.

“Borrowings in the caretaker government’s term have been lower as compared to the preceding period”, although they inherited tougher conditions, said the Ministry of Finance in a statement.

It said the bulk of the borrowings raised in the last few months of caretakers was to meet debt repayment obligations including principal and interest expense liabilities as the caretaker government focused primarily on fiscal consolidation measures including revenue mobilization and expenditure rationalization.

Shamshad added US$300 million to foreign loans as against US$3 billion by Dar.

“The caretaker government inherited a policy rate of 22pc, which was the highest ever since 1972. The average policy rate during the preceding period was almost 19.5%,” the MoF said.

The caretaker finance minister did not blame the principal accounting officer (PAO) Imdadullah Bosal for ‘inferior performance’ under Ishaq Dar, nor gave him credit for ‘better management’ under Shamshad Akhtar.

As Secretary Finance, Bosal served under Dar for four months and with Dr Akhtar for six months. As such, the comparison is left entirely between Senator Dar and Dr Akhtar.

Improved profiling

“Over a short stint, with careful debt management operations, the caretaker government has managed to improve domestic debt profile,” said the statement, adding that the three-pronged approach — extending the maturity of government securities, raising debt on margin below the policy rate and tapping non-bank and retail investors through the capital market.

It said the focus was on reducing borrowings from government securities through the banking sector. As a result, the borrowing through government securities fell by 67% in the caretaker government’s term as compared to the preceding period”.

It said that the Dar-led Ministry of Finance contracted PKR19.862 trillion worth of domestic debt through government securities and paid out PKR14.031 trillio, with a net addition of PKR5.831 trillio. As against this, Dr Shamshad-led MoF contracted slightly lower domestic debt of PKR19.83 trillio in similar coupons but paid out an amount of PKR17.934 trillio, with a net reduction of PKR1.896 trillion.

Likewise, the “caretaker government successfully retired short-term Treasury Bills (T-Bills) amounting to PKR1.6 trillio, contrasting with around PKR3.3 trillio raised in the preceding period” under Dar’s oversight. This helped in reducing the gross financing needs of the government.

Domestic borrowings

Moreover, the caretaker government claimed that it shifted its domestic borrowing to long-term debt securities for the financing of fiscal deficit. Out of medium to long-term instruments, major borrowing remained from floating rate securities, while fixed rates instruments were borrowed on average at 3 to 4 percent below the central bank’s policy rate during the caretaker government period, it said.

Resultantly, the average time to maturity of domestic debt has increased to around 3 years by the end of January 2024 as compared to 2.8 years at the end of June 2023. This is in line with the targets mentioned in the Medium-Term Debt Management Strategy (MTDS) FY23-FY26 and a step in the right direction to meet the end-June 2024 target of 3.1 years.

It said the Dar-led MoF borrowed PKR3.877 trillion through Pakistan Investment Bonds (PIBs) and Ijara Sukuk in six months preceding August 16, against the outflow of PKR1.353 trillion, showing net inflows of PKR2.524 trillion. In comparison, Shamshad-led MoF borrowed PKR6.017 trillion in Sukuk and PIB against an outflow of PKR2.517 trillion, showing a net inflow of PKR3.5 trillion.

External debts

On the external side, the share of external debt in total public debt was 38.3% as of end-June 2023 which was reduced to 36.7% at end December 2023. This helped to reduce the foreign currency risk of the total public debt in line with the targets defined in the MTDS FY23-FY26.

“During caretaker government, the net external debt inflows were around US$0.3 billion, which was lower as compared to (more than US$3 billion) preceding period. Furthermore, no expensive external borrowing was raised from commercial banks and international capital markets during the caretaker government,” the statement said.

Giving details, the statement said the external public debt inflows were at US$8.4 billion in the concluding six months of the previous government against US$5.4 billion outflows, leaving a net addition of US$3 billion. However, inflows during the caretaker government stood at US$3.9 billion as compared to US$3.6 billion outflow, a net increase of US$300 million.

Based on the comparison, the ministry advocated for prudent debt management including breaking the nexus with the banking sector for excessive borrowing.

“Besides fiscal and external current account sustainability and privatizing state-owned companies, it is critical to pursue prudent debt management backed by reducing sovereign-bank nexus to avoid overburdening banks with public sector debt, while reducing private sector crowding out,” the caretaker finance minister’s office concluded.

 

Pakistan likely to sink deeper into debt trap

Despite remaining under International Monetary Fund (IMF) surveillance for decades, the successive governments in Pakistan have failed in undertaking ‘structural adjustment programs’ that could allow the country to live without entering into one after another bailout packages.

The most regrettable point is that the lender of last resort has not come up, at its own or facilitated Pakistan, in coming up with any ‘home grown plan’. Every time the country is told to undertake a slew of measures that include revising its budget (curtailing developmental expenditures and subsidies), hike in interest rate, and increases in electricity and natural gas tariffs.

Neither the IMF nor the policy planners understand that all such measures erode competitiveness of Pakistani manufacturers and push more and more people poverty the poverty line. On top of all no quantitative restrictions are imposed on the import of unnecessary/ luxury goods.

According to Bloomberg News, Pakis­tan plans to seek a new loan of at least US$6 billion from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to repay billions in debt due this year, which can be termed, borrowing more to pay off the outstanding liabilities.

The country will seek to negotiate an Extended Fund Facility with the IMF, the report said, adding that the talks with the global lender were expe­cted to start in March or April.

Although a default was averted last summer thanks to a short-term IMF bailout, but the program expires in April and the country will have to negotiate a long-term arrangement to keep pay off the outstanding loans.

The country’s vulnerable external position me­ans that securing fina­ncing from multilateral and bilateral partners will be one of the most urgent issues, Fitch said on Monday.

“A new deal is key to the country’s credit profile, and we assume one will be achieved within a few months, but an extended negotiation or failure to secure it would increase external liquidity stress and raise the probability of default,” it said.