Being A Spectator, or Bearing Witness BY B. NIMRI AZIZ

 They are watching us. At least, they were. Before they became overwhelmed with grief, before they collapsed, wounded, dazed by hunger, confusion and fear. By now, they must have completely given up on our world of voyeurs, including those taking a moment to glimpse that relentless slaughter day-after-day-after-day over there.

They know how we live—our pools and malls, our raucous ball games. Gazan graduates win scholarships to study here. Women and men locked in that smoldering prison have relatives in the US, families who managed to emigrate war-after-war since 1967. They know how determinedly relatives toiling overseas month-after-month send some savings back to Jabalia, back to Khan Younis, back to Rafah, back to Deir al-Balah, to Beit Lahia and Gaza City. They drink Fanta and Coke and Maxwell coffee; they buy foreign-made diapers for their infants and children’s outfits embossed with American brand names. They welcome secondhand clothes shipped by charities from church-after-church, mosque-after-mosque, country-after-country. Mothers follow Arabic-dubbed Turkish series-after-series, while youngsters gather to cheer Mission Impossible’s heroes-after-heroes. They huddle together to ‘facetime’ with uncles and cousins in Dearborn, in Austin, in Brooklyn, in Minneapolis, city-after-city. Before: at home and in the tea shops, they debate comments by senators and secretaries of state, quote their promise-after-promise and their excuse-after-excuse, list their AIPAC cash, election-after-election.

Now?

Palestinians under occupation perpetually looked to the United States. Not only because family members had settled and prospered here. They believed in American democratic ideals; they were beneficiaries of US charities; they watched the US government assume the leadership, brokering treaties – ostensibly to secure Palestinian sovereignty – with Israel. They saw one US president agonize over the trashing of the treaties he sponsored. Then they watched with renewed promise when a Black man occupied the White House, expecting that the history of his race would align him with their dispossession – only to be spurned by him.

Palestinians know better than anyone about the schemes and habits of Israel. So, when they lost faith in outside powers’ ability to coerce, bribe or otherwise convince Israel to forge a real peace, their appeals to Allah were steadfast. This, even as they tried non-violent resistance alongside military strategies.

Now?

What percentage of Gaza and West Bank Palestinians celebrated the valiant attack by Hamas last October, I don’t know. How prepared they were for the overwhelming Israeli military onslaught through these months, I doubt. Can they glimpse any light at the end of this endless corpse-strewn fire-tunnel? Do they regret evacuating their home to trudge, naked and humiliated, mile-after-mile towards more danger, now wishing: ‘better to have stayed, better to perish under our own crushed photos, books, potted plants, and furnishings’?

However severe their hardships, they will fast in Ramadan and visit ancestors in quiet cemeteries – before. A few may still dream to perform Hajj. Once, if they survive this.

That every Palestinian killed in these seven months is embraced as a martyr – joining tens-of-thousands martyred in past assaults and assassinations – may help sustain those who still breathe. We’ve glimpsed snippets of their steadfast courage – exhausted medics, gritty journalists, wounded ambulance drivers, humble burial attendants, patient care-givers (some children themselves) and food distributors along with those boys scavenging through rubble for a trace of the untraceable. We receive horrific images direct from blood-soaked places where, through screams and prayers, men and women determinedly aim their phone cameras to show us unwelcome realities. Day-after-day, after most journalists have been assassinated or banned from entry, with scanty IT connections, they insist to thrust those agonizing images at the world.

Maybe, when they still had the means, those 2 million plus Palestinians under assault witnessed with some hope South Africa’s presentations to the ICJ. They may have heard the unequivocal early condemnation of Israel by a sole Irish parliamentarian, then noted the steady rise day-by-day of other voices against genocide. Their expectations surely surged by what seemed to be a flood of protests city-after-city worldwide. Their Nakba became part of global vocabulary and even children learned the dreaded word ‘genocide’. Their Palestinian flag-after-flag and keffiyeh scarf-after-scarf became symbols of victory.

Now?

They realize that by now that one more massacre would make little difference to outsiders. One more sabotaged humanitarian shipment, another world court judgement, a further UN Security Council vote: none would either deter Israel or shame Western leaders to do what they know is politically and morally right.

They know many of us are following the war. On our side, we – voyeurs are what we are, let’s face it – gather some cash for humanitarian aid that has little chance of reaching its destination, share stories of another dead infant, cite further proof of genocide, post our heartfelt poems, declare how our eyes have been opened, sign another petition. We hail a college valedictorian for their strong words, we endorse the unequivocal statement of the single American congressperson who cries out so eloquently “I am never going to stop saying Palestinians deserve freedom, that we need to free Palestine… no armaments to kill Palestinians”.

They are watching us, as, however modest or feeble our efforts, we cannot but turn our head away in shame. If not shame for our personal inadequacy, then shame for our membership in this government and our duplicitous press. A Palestinian youth of about 16, struggling through rubble, face streaked with ash and sweat, fist raised, grits at a camera: “We will get you; we will get you; you cannot destroy us”.

B. Nimri Aziz is a New York based anthropologist and journalist. Her latest book is Justice Stories, a children’s book about Nepali women rebels. Find her work at www.barbaranimri.com. 

In Gaza, Israel Trials New Face of America’s Imperial Laboratory BY YOAV LITVIN

 On Saturday, October 7 2023, a significant shift occurred in the Palestinian-Israeli narrative.

A normalised, gradual genocide over 76 years of Zionist colonialism, peppered by savage episodes of “mowing the lawn”, obscured by liberal Zionist propaganda and backed by imperial Washington, became an unapologetic, even gleeful mass murder of Palestinians, grotesquely captured on video for the world to witness.

Throughout its history, the Zionist movement has exploited fear-mongering and the lure of land and resource theft to subjugate and entice its populace into compliance.

In the aftermath of October 7, Israeli propagandists escalated their gaslighting of Palestinians and their allies, silenced opposing viewpoints in the media, concocted atrocity propaganda to justify Israel’s brutality and rallied support for extensive military action utilising Judaic motifs of revenge and trauma.

For nearly eight months, Israel’s settler colonial, white supremacist genocide has systematically shattered international taboos with its military accused of committing war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of genocide.

Israel has sought to obliterate Palestinian society by bombing hospitals, aid trucks, churches, mosques, schools, universities, UN facilities and tent encampments, while targeting women, children, the elderly, the sick, the disabled, journalists, healthcare workers and academics, among others.

Yet, in the process, Israel has done more than devastate the besieged Gaza Strip. It has intensified an inevitable unravelling of its internal apartheid fabric, with significant implications for global neoliberal dominance.

As Israeli actions continue with impunity – backed by financial, diplomatic, and military support from Western countries, led by the United States, and complicity of many countries in the Global South – they threaten to trigger a cascade of global acts of fascistic aggression.

The ethical fabric of human society 

An orderly society shares a common ethical fabric, upheld by taboos at its extremes. Taboos shape human communities by regulating behaviour, defining identity, maintaining social control, preserving cultural practices, protecting communities, and influencing norms.

Ethical boundaries define the societal mainstream and are typically codified by laws and enforcement practices. For example, the United States Constitution defines rights and restrictions, with evolving interpretations empowering or disempowering individuals within society.

Taboos can be broken in various ways: (i) Violation: Deliberate acts against the taboo, like incest or forbidden rituals; (ii) Ignorance: Unintentional breaking due to lack of awareness; (iii) Rebellion: Acts of defiance against societal norms; (iv) Cultural change: Evolution of societal values can modify or eliminate taboos, and; (v) Contextual exceptions: Taboos may be relaxed in specific contexts, such as religious ceremonies.

Breaking taboos can lead to social progress and dismantling oppressive norms but also cause social tensions and conflicts. Societies constantly face conflicts between forces aiming to stretch or shrink ethical boundaries to serve specific agendas — ideological, social, political, or economic. Taboos are deeply embedded in the human psyche, making their erosion a process that requires both resistance and persistence.

Trial balloons

Breaking taboos and redefining behavioural boundaries often start with experimentation – trial balloons. Successful experiments, where society is conditioned to accept change while maintaining structural integrity, set precedents that shatter taboos. If these experiments face little resistance and set precedents, ethical and moral boundaries may stretch, shifting society in a regressive or progressive direction.

Importantly, trial balloons are effective within a broader context of a society primed for a particular change. In addition, an experiment must receive sufficient support so as to withstand a variety of challenges to its integrity, whether from within the society or external to it.

For example, bombing of hospitals has been deemed a war crime. To justify targeting hospitals in the Gaza Strip, Israel initially claimed, with no proof, that there were Hamas command centres underneath Gaza’s hospitals.On October 17, a massive explosion hit Al Ahli Hospital, causing hundreds of casualties. Israeli officials suggested a failed rocket launch by Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) caused the explosion, while Palestinian authorities, reports from the ground and several independent investigations (e.g. see here) attributed it to an Israeli airstrike.

Regardless, the event was used by Israeli leaders as a trial balloon to assess public and imperial reaction to such a grave violation of a societal taboo.

Since it deemed opposition to it, most significantly the US, inconsequential, and despite the negative reaction of the West to a Russian attack on a maternity hospital in Ukraine in 2022, the Israeli military has targeted many more hospitals throughout the strip.

The Ahli Hospital incident was one of many trial balloons the Israelis carried out in Gaza, including the targeting of schools, UN facilities, universities and aid delivery convoys.

How Israel scapegoats to obscure criminality

 The calculated dehumanisation and scapegoating of the Palestinian people echo a historical pattern of white supremacist colonial atrocities masking subsequent land grabs and gangster-like corruption of society from its highest echelons.

In fact, current Israeli genocidal aggression against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank have served to conceal failures preceding October 7, and have extended to targeting any perceived and manufactured threats to the colony.

This signals an impending escalation of conflict between Israeli military/Zionist militias and opposition to apartheid and genocide in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and within Israel itself.

Of particular concern are Arab citizens of Israel, constituting over 20% of Israel’s population, primarily identifying as Palestinian but also encompassing Druze, Circassians, other Muslims, Christian Arabs, and Armenians, all of whom are already subjected to an array of discriminatory laws. Such an escalation may very well unravel the existing apartheid structure of Israeli society, leading to civil chaos and its ultimate collapse.

Further, the genocidal imperial laboratory in Gaza could serve as a template for future aggressive episodes in the Global South and against dissent in the imperial core, potentially marking the beginning of the end for the neoliberal mirage of “the West” in which, under the guise of “promoting democracy” and “humanitarian interventions,” the United States and its allies in the global north have aimed to extend their capitalist dominance whilst disrespecting and attacking international legal bodies.

In this scenario, naked fascism constructed of US-imposed taboos and lack thereof would prevail, propelling a colonial race to plunder global resources while scapegoating BIPOC communities. Israeli actions thus serve as a trial balloon for continued US imperial corruption and exploitation on the road to climate change-induced international turmoil.

Resistance to erosion of taboos on the one hand, and the promotion of accountability for criminal actions toward decolonisation on the other, may serve to blunt this dangerous downward spiral toward lawlessness and violence.

This piece first appeared in The New Arab.

Yoav Litvin is a Doctor of Psychology/ Behavioral Neuroscience. For more info, please visit yoavlitvin.com/about/  

The Untold ICC Story BY RAMZY BAROUD

 Even the most optimistic of political analysts did not expect that the International Criminal Court’s Chief Prosecutor would be uttering these words:

“I have reasonable grounds to believe that Benjamin Netanyahu (…) and Yoav Gallant (…) bear criminal responsibility for (…) war crimes and crimes against humanity …”

Aside from the two Israelis, Karim Khan has included three Palestinians on his application requesting arrest warrants from the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber. That is important, but we must remember that, per western thinking, Palestinians have always been the guilty party.

Evidence of the above claim is that the west has long portrayed Israel as a country at war in self-defense. Consequently, Palestinians – though occupied, dispossessed and disinherited – are the aggressors.

This bizarre logic is not strange if seen within the larger power paradigm which has defined the west’s relationship with Palestine and, by extension, the Global South.

For example, out of 54 individuals indicted by the ICC since its inception in 2002, 47 are Africans, a fact that has rightly agitated governments, civil societies and intellectuals throughout the Global South for many years.

On Western duplicity, Aimé Césaire, a Martinican intellectual and politician, wrote, “they tolerated (..) Nazism before it was inflicted on them, they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimized it, because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples”.

WWII inspired new thinking on the part of the west. The International Court of Justice (ICJ), the ICC, among others, have been the direct outcome of that terrible western war. It was the west’s way of trying to protect the new status quo which was established by the victors.

The Global South joined in anyway. “Africa had a particular interest in the establishment of the court, since its peoples had been the victims of large-scale violations of human rights over the centuries,” a representative of the Organization of African Unity said in Rome, the birthplace of the Rome Statute, in 1998.

Predictably, however, the ICC turned into a platform where former colonial masters cast judgment on the non-European world. In that sense, justice was hardly served.

As always, Palestine has, and continues to serve as the litmus test of the international order. For over 15 years, Palestinians have been seeking to enlist the ICC’s help to hold Israel accountable for its military occupation and various crimes in Palestine.

The Palestinians have done so simply because any attempt at establishing a practical mechanism to end the Israeli occupation through the United Nations has been met with a cruel American veto.

As the Israeli occupation turned into a permanent one, and racial apartheid spread its tentacles to cover every inch of Palestine, the US’ support of Israel has become a first line of defense against any international criticism, let alone action, aimed at reining in Israel.

Even though the US has refused to join the ICC, it still has great influence over the organization, either through sanctions or pressure imposed by its allies which are members of the Court.

Thus, the ICC procrastinated. Decisions that should have taken only months, took years to be made. The institution, which was created to deliver swift justice, became a bureaucratic legal apparatus that did everything in its power to escape its responsibilities towards the Palestinians.

The persistence of Palestinians and the massive solidarity they have obtained from countries throughout the Global South, eventually paid off.

In 2009, Palestinians filed their first application to join the ICC. Yet, it took over three years for then-Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo to reach his decision, in 2012, denying Palestinians such urgent membership on the account of their legal status as mere observers at the UN.

The rest of the world rallied behind Palestine again and, later that year, the UN General Assembly granted Palestine its ‘non-member observer state’ status.

It took another three years for Palestine to officially join the ICC. Four years later, in 2019, then-Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda stated that the so-called statutory criteria needed to begin an investigation in Palestine were satisfied. But, instead of opening an investigation, Bensouda sent the matter back to the Pre-Trial Chamber for further confirmation.

An official investigation was not opened until March 2021, but was grounded to a halt when Karim Khan replaced Bensouda as the chief prosecutor later that year.

So what happened between March 2021 and May 20, 2024 that allowed the ever-reluctant Khan to go as far as requesting arrest warrants?

First, the Israeli genocide in Gaza, where victims are measured in the tens of thousands.

Second, the credibility of the west-enshrined legal system which has governed the world since WWII, was at stake. This explains the emphasis made by Khan in his May 20 statement: “If we do not demonstrate our willingness to apply the law equally (…) we will be creating the conditions for its collapse.”

Third, the solidarity of the Global South, which has served as the backbone of all Palestinian efforts at international legal institutions.

After decades of a one-sided approach to global conflicts, the pendulum is finally shifting. Indeed, when we say that Gaza is changing the world, we mean it.

Who By Fire? The Burning of Rafah’s Tent People BY JEFFREY ST. CLAIR

 “Oh hell, what do mine eyes

with grief behold?”

– John Milton, Paradise Lost

People were saying their evening prayers when the IDF attacked the refuge camp at Tel al-Sultan in southern Gaza, where thousands had fled from the Israeli invasion of Rafah. They were told by the Israelis this was a safe zone, a secure place to shelter their children and grandparents. 

“For your safety, the Israeli Defense Force is asking you to leave these areas immediately and to go to known shelters in Deir el Balah or the humanitarian area in Tel al-Sultan through Beach Road,” read one of the leaflets dropped in Rafah a few days before. “Don’t blame us after we warned you.”

The safe zone was a tent city amid the dunes–one of dozens scattered along more than 16 kilometers up the Gaza coast. The tents were made of plastic, which whipped and frayed in the coastal winds–a thin layer of protection against the sun and sand that soon turned into a death trap. 

The lure of safety was the only thing Tel al-Sultan had going for it. The conditions in the camp were wretched. Thousands of starving people crammed together with little fresh water, meager rations, few toilets and nothing much to do except scavenge the beach for scraps of food, dig pit toilets in the sand and pray that someone will intervene to put an end to the war.

When the Israeli bombs strafed the safe zone, the plastic tents caught fire, sending flames leaping two meters high, before the melting, blazing structures collapsed on the people inside, many of them children who’d just been tucked in for the evening. 

There was no water to put the flames out. No firetrucks to stop the inferno. No ambulances to rush the wounded to the hospital. No functioning hospital to treat the burned and the maimed.

At least 45 people, most of them women and children, were killed and nearly 300 injured with shrapnel wounds, burns, fractures and traumatic brain injuries.

“No single health facility in Gaza can handle a mass casualty event such as this one,” said Samuel Johann of Médecins Sans Frontières. “The health system has been decimated and cannot cope any longer.”

The attack came two days after the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to halt its military operations in Gaza, open the border crossings so food, water and medicine could reach the starving Palestinians and allow human rights investigators into the Strip. This malicious act of defiance against the edicts of international law occurred on the same day Israeli tanks entered the central region of Rafah in what the Israelis had basely billed as a “limited military operation.” In the first 48 hours after the ICJ ruling, Israel bombed Rafah at least 60 times.

Tel al-Sultan in western Rafah is an official displacement camp, so designated by the Israelis. The Israelis called it: “Block 2371.” It is located next to UN aid warehouses. Desperate Palestinian families were told they would be safe here. Then the Israelis set it on fire, claiming they were targeting two Hamas operatives. The IDF said it didn’t think civilians would be harmed when it bombed the refuge camp it had told civilians to flee to. 

Disingenuousness is the IDF’s calling card these days. Yet after one massacre after another, perhaps only the Biden administration believes it. Most Israelis don’t. Some prominent Israelis cheered the burning of civilians. The Israeli TV journalist and newspaper columnist Yinon Magal posted a video of the burning refugee camp with the caption: “The central bonfire this year in Rafah”–a reference to the traditional bonfires for the Jewish holiday of Lag Ba’Ome.

“I lost five family members,” said Majed al-Attar of the “bonfire.” “We were sitting in tents when suddenly the camp was bombed. I lost five family members, all burned completely.  Among the victims were pregnant women. They kept telling us this area was safe until we were bombed.”

Israel said its targets were two Hamas operatives: Khaled al-Najjar and  Yassin Abu Rabia. Al-Najjar was said to be a “senior staff officer.” Abu Rabia, the Israelis claimed, was Hamas’ West Bank staff commander. Were they really part of Hamas’ leadership? Who’s to say? It is known that both men had been released from Israeli prisoners in 2011 by Netanyahu in the prisoner swap that freed captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Both men were also originally from the West Bank and had been expelled by the Israelis to Gaza. Had long had Abu Rabia and al-Najjar been on the IDF’s so-called “target bank,” a hit list of Palestinians the Israeli army and intelligence can kill at will for acts committed years in the past.

“Bombing a tent camp full of displaced people is a clear-cut, full-on war crime,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, former head of disaster relief for US AID. “Even if Hamas troops were present, that does not absolve the IDF of the obligation to protect civilians. It does not turn a tent camp into a free fire zone.”

Who picked the targets? Who tracked them to the tent camp? Who okayed the airstrike? Was it the Israelis  Lavender AI software program, which permits 20 “uninvolved civilians” to be killed for each targeted junior member of Hamas and 100 civilians to be killed “in exchange” for a senior member? 

“We were sitting safely and suddenly we find bodies thrown on the ground, blood splattered on the ground — heads cut off, hands cut off,” said Malak Filfel. “This is not a life. There is no safety. We’re not getting out. No matter where we go, we will die here.”

Video of the attack showed babies thrashing in pain, women with their skin blackened to a crisp, men with their faces melted to the skull, a decapitated child, parents clutching the bodies of their burned children in their arms, a boy screaming in anguish as he watches his father being burned alive inside a flaming tent.  “We pulled out children who were in pieces,” Mohammed Abuassa told the Associated Press. “We pulled out young and elderly people. The fire in the camp was unreal.”

Israel defended itself by saying the murderous attack stayed within the boundaries Biden and Blinken had outlined for such massacres. They used small bombs (smaller at 250 pounds than the 2000-pound blockbusters Biden briefly decried to CNN, anyway) that were precision-guided to their target (a refugee camp in the humanitarian zone they had designated). 

And so they did. The GBU-39 bombs that burned the Rafah tent camp were made in the US by Boeing (a company the Portland State students targeted in their occupation of the campus). Biden has sold Israel more than 1,000 of these incendiary weapons since October. “They send us chickpeas,” one Palestinian said. “And to the Israelis they send weapons.”

Still, days after CNN and the New York Times confirmed that Israel bombed the tent camp with US-made weapons, the Biden administration refused to cop to it, claiming ignorance. The State Department’s hapless PR flack Vedant Patel was sent out to try, ineptly, to deflect attention from Israel’s use of a bomb made and designed in the US which the Biden administration has repeatedly urged the Israelis to use more frequently in its war on Gaza–a bomb designed to spray shrapnel fragments as far as 2,000 feet.

Reporter: Do you have any comment on CNN and NYT’s reports that the Israelis used US weapons in the Rafah attack?

Patel: I’m gonna let the IDF speak to their investigation…

Reporter: I’m asking you, was this a US weapon?

Patel: It’s not for us to speak to. We can’t speak to individual weapons load-outs to individual Israeli aircraft. So I will let the IDF speak to their investigation’s findings and indicate anything they have to share about what weapons were used.

Remains of the Tail Actuation System of the GBU-39 guided missile at the Tel-Sultan tent camp. A weapon made and designed by Boeing.

The US largely stands mute as Israel turns evacuation zones into zones of extermination. Instead, Biden continues to repeat discredited stories of Israeli children burned in ovens or decapitated by Hamas, while saying nothing about actual Palestinian children decapitated and burned alive by US-made weapons.

After the images of burning tents and charred bodies spread across the world igniting a new round of global indignation and disgust, Netanyahu made a rare, if half-hearted, attempt at damage control, calling the bombing a “tragic mistake.” Once is a mistake, twice a “tragic mistake.” 15,000 times is a genocide.

In eight months of war, Israel has killed thirty times more children in Gaza than Russia has killed Ukrainian children in two years and years months of war. Gaza’s population is just 1/18th the size of Ukraine’s. But instead of sanctioning Israel, Biden and Blinken have threatened to sanction the one agency that’s tried to hold it accountable: the ICJ. Every atrocity Israel gets away with encourages it to do something even more grotesque.

Two days after the firebombing of Tel al-Sultan, Israel attacked another tent encampment for displaced Palestinians, this time in Al-Mawasi, a Bedouin village in a coastal area on the outskirts of Rafah. Like Tel al-Sultan, Al-Mawasi was a designated humanitarian zone, packed with families, when it was struck by at least four Israeli tank shells, probably the highly destructive 120 mm shells supplied by the Biden administration. At least 21 Palestinians were killed in the shelling inside what Israel has designated a civilian evacuation zone and another 65 were injured, 10 of them critically. Twelve of the dead were women.

Biden’s National Security Advisor John Kirby said there was nothing in the massacres on Sunday or Tuesday that would prompt the United States to rethink its military aid to Israel.

Reporter: How does this not violate the red line the President laid out?

John Kirby: We don’t want to see a major ground operation in Rafah and we haven’t seen one.

Reporter: How many more charred corpses does he have to see before the President considers a change in policy?

John Kirby: I take offense at the question…

Typically, Kirby took offense at the question, but not the children carbonized by US-made bombs.

Biden has voluntarily tied himself to a regime that burns children to death as they sleep in tents they were forced to move into by the people who incinerated them. His red lines are drawn in the blood of Palestinian babies.

Jeffrey St. Clair is editor of CounterPunch. His most recent book is An Orgy of Thieves: Neoliberalism and Its Discontents (with Alexander Cockburn). He can be reached at: sitka@comcast.net or on Twitter @JeffreyStClair3.