Israel vs Palestine/Lebanon/Iran/Yemen/Syria: a New Middle East War

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Since Houthi militants began intercepting Israeli-based shipping last year, over 350 container ships, tankers, bulk carriers, car carriers, and other merchant vessel, have diverted to other routes.

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2...-red-sea-ships
See link for a full report from Aljazeera.

Although the Houthis have caused no deaths, only disruption, the USA/UK have warned the Houthis of "consequences" should they persist.

In the recent past a US led task force has successfully repelled Somali Pirates in the Red Sea, but do they actually have any legal right there, and could the Middle Eastern countries flanking the Red Sea order the USA/allies to leave?

All countries, that are providing aid and assistance to Israel... to commit war crimes ... should be brought before the ICJ....

Good talk Kyle!!!!


BREAKING: US CHARGED WITH AIDING GAZA GEN0CIDE; HEZBOLLAH TARGETS IDF HEADQUARTERS

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=8RWTj7i0EJo

What an amazing human being... . a well stated and principled stance....


'BULL****': Biden Mega Donor SOUNDS OFF On Gaza

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=iN8WwDWhFao

https://x.com/prem_thakker/status/1745166265738559774

https://theintercept.com/2024/01/10/...ocide-lawsuit/

77 Groups Worldwide Back Genocide Lawsuit Against Biden in U.S. Court
The Biden administration is due in federal court later this month, while Israel faces charges of genocide at The Hague this week.

Dozens of legal and civil society organizations from around the world have thrown their weight behind a U.S. lawsuit accusing President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin for failing to “prevent an unfolding genocide” in Gaza.

In late December, 77 groups — representing tens of thousands of lawyers, civil society leaders, and activists from six continents — filed an amicus brief in a lawsuit that Palestinian human rights organizations, residents of Gaza, and U.S. citizens with family members impacted by Israel’s ongoing assault brought against the Biden administration.

In the amicus brief, which is an avenue for groups not directly involved in a lawsuit to give the court information to consider in its ruling, the organizations argue that the plaintiffs establish that a genocide, or serious risk of genocide, of Palestinians in Gaza is occurring. They also argue that the U.S. is violating its duties under international law to prevent and not be complicit in genocide, and that those U.S. failures contribute to the erosion of “long and widely-held norms of international law,” including the Genocide Convention and Universal Declaration of Human Rights, both established in 1948 in the wake of World War II.

The lawsuit is headed for a hearing in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California later this month. Meanwhile, in an 84-page complaint brought by South Africa, Israel faces charges of genocide at the International Court of Justice at The Hague. The court will begin to hear arguments in that case on Thursday and could issue provisional measures. That could include directing Israel to suspend its military operations in Gaza, stop any procedures that are forcibly displacing or starving Palestinians in Gaza, or preserve evidence related to the allegations.

The lawyers overseeing the U.S. lawsuit believe that the decisions rendered by the ICJ could indirectly impact their case as well.

“While the District Court is obviously not bound by the ICJ, it will have to, and the government will have to, contend with the fact that the highest authority, the world court, has issued an order in which it has found that the case of genocide — there’s a plausible case,” said Astha Sharma Pokharel, staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, an organization representing the plaintiffs against the U.S. “It will have implications for the United States around both its failure to prevent this genocide and for its complicity.”

In December, the Biden administration filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that the plaintiffs are asking the court to act beyond its purview to “override the executive branch’s foreign policy and national security determinations.” The administration also argued that the plaintiffs don’t have standing to bring the lawsuit because the court has no authority over the activities of another sovereign state.

Top administration officials have been dismissive of the case before the ICJ as well, with White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby calling it “meritless, counterproductive, and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever,” and Blinken deriding it on similar terms. On Wednesday, Kirby doubled down in his assessment.

Filed in November as the horrifying statistic arose that Israel had killed one out of every 200 people in Gaza, the lawsuit against the U.S. argues that Biden administration officials “repeatedly refused to use their obvious and considerable influence to set conditions or place limits on Israel’s massive bombing and total siege of Gaza.” The plaintiffs — including the Palestinian human rights organizations Defense for Children International – Palestine and Al-Haq, Gaza residents, and U.S. citizens with family members who have been killed and displaced by Israel’s war — cite U.S. vetoes of United Nations resolutions calling for a ceasefire and its actions to “fund, arm, and endorse Israel’s mass and devastating bombing campaign and total siege of the Palestinians in Gaza.”

At the time, the death toll in Gaza was around 11,000. It has now exceeded 23,000. It is believed that one in four people in Gaza are starving, and 90 percent are dangerously food insecure, while most health facilities are no longer functional.

In the months since the lawsuit was filed, the Biden administration has continued to actively support Israel’s mass-killing campaign while obstructing international efforts to stop the carnage. On December 8, the U.S. singlehandedly vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire and hostage release. A day later, the Biden administration approved sending Israel $106.5 million worth of tank shells without congressional approval. On December 12, the U.S. voted against a 153-10 U.N. General Assembly vote for a ceasefire and hostage release.

In late December, the Biden administration delayed a U.N. Security Council vote for humanitarian aid to Gaza for days while working to water it down. The administration negotiated the removal of the word “cessation” in a call to end fighting, as well as a provision that would have allowed an independent inspection of aid going into Gaza, rather than the Israel-administered checks that have slowed aid shipments to a crawl. The changes were made to avoid another American veto — only for the U.S. to abstain from voting.

Both the lawsuit against the Biden administration and South Africa’s case against Israel lay out in extreme detail expressions of genocidal intent by Israeli officials. On October 9, just two days after Hamas’s attack on Israel, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant ordered a complete siege of Gaza, which is home to more than 2 million people. “I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed,” Gallant said at the time. “We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.”

In late October, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu invoked a biblical verse about an enemy of ancient Israel that has long been cited to justify killing Palestinians. “You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our holy Bible,” he said. “And we do remember, and we are fighting.” (South Africa’s ICJ complaint points out that weeks later, Israeli soldiers were recorded in Gaza dancing and chanting, “May their village burn, may Gaza be erased,” and “We know our motto: there are no uninvolved civilians,” and “to wipe off the seed of Amalek.”)

According to Law for Palestine, a human rights and legal advocacy organization, there have been at least 500 instances of Israeli lawmakers, officials, and officers inciting genocide.

Basel Sourani from the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, which signed the amicus brief, told The Intercept that Israel has been emboldened by the lack of consequences for its conduct in Gaza. “We warned from the very first moment that this is a genocide unfolding because of the many statements that we have seen from Israeli political, military, and security leaders,” he said.

Sourani said that the statements by Israeli officials, along with the actual blockade, the indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civilian buildings, the basic lack of safe space, and the mass displacement of millions of Palestinians makes it clear: “All of this is tantamount to genocide.”

The plaintiffs responded to the administration’s motion to dismiss on December 22, arguing that there is precedent for U.S. courts to adjudicate questions surrounding genocide and that their legal challenge is about more than the actions of a foreign state. Rather, the plaintiffs argued, their injuries are “fairly traceable” to the actions of the U.S. government. “The suggestion that the U.S. does not or cannot influence Israel borders on the absurd, not least because the Israeli government acknowledges its actions could not happen without U.S. license and support, and Defendants have boasted about their coordination with and influence over Israel,” the plaintiffs wrote.

The Biden administration has until Friday to issue a response. The Oakland, California-based federal court is set to hear arguments on the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction, and on the Biden administration’s motion to dismiss, on January 26. (The Biden administration is facing another federal lawsuit that accuses it of failing to protect Palestinian Americans stuck in Gaza, drawing a contrast to its efforts to help Israeli dual nationals.)

In the lead-up to the ICJ trial, U.S. officials said that their Israeli counterparts told them they will be shifting away from a wide-scale assault on Gaza to a more “targeted” approach. On Tuesday, the Israel Defense Forces posted a video expressing its concern for the “suffering of civilians in Gaza,” arguing they are “ready and willing to facilitate as much humanitarian aid as the world will give.” Despite such claims, Israel has continued to drop bombs on civilians, reportedly targeting ambulances, hospitals, and Doctors Without Borders shelters with little abandon. As of Wednesday, Israeli forces had killed at least 147 people in the past 24 hours.

https://x.com/RealPepeEscobar/status...94758950006871

https://new.thecradle.co/articles/br...onism-to-court

BRICS member South Africa takes Zionism to court
Pretoria's genocide case against Israel is crucial, not just to stop Tel Aviv's carnage in Gaza, but to plant the first flag of mutipolarism in the globe's courtrooms: this is the first case of many that will seek to halt western impunity and restore international law as envisioned in the UN Charter.
Nothing less than the full concept of international law will be on trial this week in The Hague. The whole world is watching.

It took an African nation, not an Arab or Muslim nation, but significantly a BRICS member, to try to break the iron chains deployed by Zionism via fear, financial might, and non-stop threats, enslaving not only Palestine but substantial swathes of the planet.

By a twist of historical poetic justice, South Africa, a nation that knows one or two things about apartheid, had to take the moral high ground and be the first to file a suit against apartheid Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

The 84-page lawsuit, exhaustively argued, fully documented, and filed on 29 December 2023, details all the ongoing horrors perpetrated in the occupied Gaza Strip and followed by everyone with a smartphone around the planet.

South Africa asks the ICJ – a UN mechanism – something quite straightforward: Declare that the state of Israel has breached all its responsibilities under international law since 7 October.

And that, crucially, includes a violation of the 1948 Genocide Convention, according to which genocide consists of “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”

South Africa is supported by Jordan, Bolivia, Turkiye, Malaysia, and significantly the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which combines the lands of Islam, and constitutes 57 member states, 48 of these harboring a Muslim majority. It’s as if these nations were representing the overwhelming majority of the Global South.

Whatever happens at The Hague could go way beyond a possible condemnation of Israeli for genocide. Both Pretoria and Tel Aviv are members of the ICJ – so the rulings are binding. The ICJ, in theory, carries more weight than the UN Security Council, where the US vetoes any hard facts that tarnish Israel’s carefully constructed self-image.

The only problem is that the ICJ does not have enforcement power.

What South Africa, in practical terms, is aiming to achieve is to have the ICJ impose on Israel an order to stop the invasion – and the genocide – right away. That should be the first priority.

A specific intent to destroy

Reading the full South African application is a horrifying exercise. This is literally history in the making, right in front of us living in the young, tech-addicted, 21st century, and not a science fiction account of a genocide taking place in some distant universe.

Pretoria's application carries the merit of drawing The Big Picture, “in the broader context of Israel’s conduct towards Palestinians during its 75-year-long apartheid, its 56-year-long belligerent occupation of Palestinian territory, and its 16-year-long blockade of Gaza.”

Cause, effect, and intent are clearly delineated, transcending the horrors that have been perpetrated since the Palestinian resistance's Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on 7 October, 2023.

Then there are “acts and omissions by Israel which are capable of amounting to other violations of international law.” South Africa lists them as “genocidal in character, as they are committed with the requisite specific intent (dolus specialis) to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as a part of the broader Palestinian national, racial and ethnic group.”

'The Facts,' introduced from page 9 of the application, are brutal – ranging from the indiscriminate massacre of civilians to mass expulsion: “It is estimated that over 1.9 million Palestinians out of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people – approximately 85 percent of the population – have been forced from their homes. There is nowhere safe for them to flee to, those who cannot leave or refuse to be displaced have been killed or are at extreme risk of being killed in their homes.”

And there will be no turning back: “As noted by the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons, Gaza’s housing and civilian infrastructure have been razed to the ground, frustrating any realistic prospects for displaced Gazans to return home, repeating a long history of mass forced displacement of Palestinians by Israel.”

The complicit Hegemon

Item 142 of the application may encapsulate the whole drama: “The entire population is facing starvation: 93 percent of the population in Gaza is facing crisis levels of hunger, with more than one in four facing catastrophic condition" – with death imminent.

Against this backdrop, on 25 December – Christmas day – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doubled down on his genocidal rhetoric, promising: ‘We are not stopping, we are continuing to fight and we are deepening the fighting in the coming days, and this will be a long battle and it is not close to being over.”

So, “as a matter of extreme urgency,” and “pending the Court’s determination of this case on the merits,” South Africa is asking for provisional measures, the first of which will be for “the state of Israel to immediately suspend its military operations in and against Gaza.”

This amounts to a permanent ceasefire. Every grain of sand from the Negev to Arabia knows that the neocon psychos in charge of US foreign policy, including their pet, remote-controlled, senile occupant of the White House are not only complicit in the Israeli genocide but oppose any possibility of a ceasefire.

Incidentally, such complicity is also punishable by law, according to the Genocide Convention.

Hence, it is a given that Washington and Tel Aviv will go no-holds-barred to block a fair trial by the ICJ, using every means of pressure and threat available. That dovetails with the extremely limited power exercised by any international court to impose the rule of international law on the exceptionalist Washington–Tel Aviv combo.

While an alarmed Global South is moved to action against Israel's unprecedented military assault on Gaza, where over 1 percent of the population has been murdered in less than three months, the Israeli Foreign Ministry has regimented its embassies to arm-twist host country diplomats and politicians to swiftly issue an "immediate and unequivocal statement along the following lines: To publicly and clearly state that your country rejects the outrageous, absurd, and baseless allegations made against Israel."

It will be quite enlightening to see which nations will abide by the order.

Whether Pretoria's current efforts succeed or not, this case is likely to be only the first of its kind filed in courts around the world in the months and even years ahead. The BRICS – of which South Africa is a crucial member state – are part of the new swell of international organizations challenging western hegemony and its ‘rules-based order.’ These rules mean nothing; nobody has even seen them.

In part, multipolarism has emerged to redress the decades-long shift away from the UN Charter and rush toward the lawlessness embodied in these illusory 'rules.' The nation-state system that underpins the global order cannot function without the international law that secures it. Without the law, we face war, war, and more war; the Hegemon's ideal universe of endless war, in fact.

South Africa's genocide case against Israel is blatantly necessary to reverse these flagrant violations of the international system, and will almost certainly be the first of many such litigations against both Israel and its allies to shift the world back to stability, security, and common sense.

https://x.com/KitKlarenberg/status/1745195697421299923

https://x.com/GlobeEyeNews/status/1745130484009742667

Text:
Countries that support South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court.

🇲🇾Malaysia
🇹🇷Turkey
🇧🇴Bolivia
🇳🇮Nicaragua
🇲🇻The Maldives
🇻🇪Venezuela
🇳🇦Namibia
🇯🇴Jordan
🇲🇦Morocco
🇮🇷Iran
🇧🇩Bangladesh
🇵🇰Pakistan
🇸🇦Saudi Arabia

https://x.com/GlobeEyeNews/status/1745163213581529530

https://x.com/MiddleEastEye/status/1745227341444313510

https://x.com/rulajebreal/status/1745240140665020655

¤=[Post Update]=¤

Text:
British-Palestinian surgeon Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah, who spent weeks volunteering in Gaza hospitals, is scheduled to present his testimony to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

🔸Abu-Sittah, who has given testimony to a British war crimes investigation unit, was part of a Doctors Without Borders medical team in Gaza. He is a plastic surgeon specialising in conflict medicine, and has volunteered with medical teams in multiple conflicts in Gaza

🔸In the past three months, Israel's relentless bombardment of the Gaza Strip has killed more than 23,000 Palestinians, including over 9,000 children.

https://x.com/mazzenilsson/status/1745198510733959554

¤=[Post Update]=¤

https://x.com/Snowden/status/1745147093394546791

https://x.com/QudsNen/status/1745230089304912320

https://x.com/QudsNen/status/1745210909050478719

https://x.com/QudsNen/status/1745216625429680317

https://x.com/QudsNen/status/1745224098144260485

https://x.com/QudsNen/status/1745204321619157275

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=A0YpkpPROWM

--12 min--11 jan 2024
'Lord Cameron has moved from his old role of 'destroying Britain's social fabric' to Foreign Secretary, and this week he was interrogated about Israel's onslaught on Gaza.

His responses were completely damning.'

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=4f_yoal4gx8

-LIVE- 11/1/24
The International Court of Justice (ICJ), the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, holds public hearings on the request for the indication of provisional measures submitted by South Africa in the case South Africa v. Israel.

Judge Napolitano interviews Max Blumenthal on Israel's internal politics during the ongoing genocide against Gaza.
They also discuss South Africa's legal case against Israel at the International Court.
One of the best interviews on this matter.

Max Blumenthal: Is Netanyahu In Charge of His Own Government?
https://youtube.com/watch?v=lv8b75bO3dc

Quote:

---

Posted by gini

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=4f_yoal4gx8

-LIVE- 11/1/24
The International Court of Justice (ICJ), the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, holds public hearings on the request for the indication of provisional measures submitted by South Africa in the case South Africa v. Israel.

---

It'll be of extreme interest to see which of the judges on the panel votes for (guilty)/against (not guilty). Norman Finkelstein has done a quick prediction via an interview with Katie Halper where he suggests that around 6 1/2 votes ( :) ) for the motion may be a certainty, but not the 8 required. He cites the dormant case against Russia pending at the ICC resulting in a likely 'No' vote, along with China and the accusation/s of 'genocide' against the Uighur population hanging over them - both nations are represented on the panel.

That said, I think both accusations concerning Russia and China here carry no real weight whatsoever, so they should, in my view, just go all in and find Israel guilty, which they most certainly are.

And then any other nation that fancies hauling for starters France, Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, the UK, and US up before the court, for historic atrocities, should do so. Fairs fair, right?

Re Ravenlocke's Post #2445:

This is a very clever and significant move by BRICS imo. No other country BUT South Africa could have brought this case and this must have been calculated at the outset.

The ICJ may not have enforcement power to stop Israel, but if a clear case of genocide is found and Netanyahu refuses to observe that decision, then sanctions by the BRICS countries may then be brought against Israel and all the other countries who are in support, ie. USA and Europe. It will then be a very long and cold winter for us here in the West but eventually we will be compelled to toe the line as our already scant resources dwindle.

The indigenous Palestinians belong in Palestine.... that's my opinion... Gaza is their native ancestral land... and they should not be displaced ....:worried:


Russia Comes To Gazans' Rescue Amid Israeli Attacks; Putin Aide Reveals Big Plan |

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=BR5LeDL4cZQ

WATCH: Israeli Journalist SLAMS Netanyahu's Brutal Assault On Gaza

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=rSqYjOFGNgE

https://x.com/Megatron_ron/status/1745453832145105325

Text:
BREAKING:

⚡ 🇿🇦🇮🇱 South Africa at ICJ:
"Netyanahu and other israeli officials ORDERED the genocide"

"Netanyahu in his address to the Israeli forces on 28th, October 2023, preparing for the invasion of Gaza edge to the soldiers to remember what Amalek has done to you.

This refers to the biblical command by God to sow for the retaliatory destruction of an entire group of people, known as the Amalekites.

Put to death, men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, females, camels and donkeys. That's an aside that invocation to AMOLED was anything but idle.

It was repeated by Mr. Netanyahu in a letter to the Israeli armed forces on three November 2023."

http://t.me/megatron_ron

https://x.com/Megatron_ron/status/1745406695243702371

Text:
BREAKING:

⚡ 🇿🇦South Africa's justice minister in the opening statement in case before International Court of Justice:

"The Palestinians have experienced systematic oppression and violence for the last 76 year, on October 6, 2023, and every day since October 7, 2023."

http://t.me/megatron_ron

https://x.com/Megatron_ron/status/1745385586167271453

Text:

BREAKING:

⚡ 🇿🇦🇮🇱 South Africa on ICJ:

"Israeli army said: There are no innocent civilians"

"Israeli soldiers proved that they understood the Prime Minister ministers message to remember what Amalek has done to you, as you know cider. They were recorded by journalists dancing and singing.

We know our motto. There are no uninvolved that they obey one commandment to wipe off the seed of Amalek.

The Prime Minister's invocation of Hamelech is being used by soldiers to justify the killing of civilians, including children. These are the soldiers repeating the inciting words of the Prime Minister."

http://t.me/megatron_ron

https://x.com/Megatron_ron/status/1745414461941235814

Text:

🇿🇦🇮🇱 South Africa:

"Israel's genocide is clear"

"The evidence of the specific genocidal intent is clear from the statements by Israeli government officials and soldiers towards Palestinians in Gaza, and which may be characterized as at the very least plausibly genocidal.

This at least plausible, plausible, genocidal intent can also be deduced from the pattern of conduct against Palestinians in Gaza.

It is also, again at the very least plausible that Israel has failed to prevent or to punish genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, direct and public incitement to genocide, attempted genocide, and complicity in genocide."

http://t.me/megatron_ron

https://x.com/Megatron_ron/status/1745421953773539661

Text:

🇿🇦🇮🇱 South Africa:

"The world should be ashamed, Israel kills babies"

"The international community continues to fail the Palestinian people.

Despite the overt, dehumanizing genocidal rhetoric by Israeli governmental and military officials, matched by the Israeli army's actions on the ground.

Despite the horror of the genocide against the Palestinian people, being live streamed from Gaza, to our mobile phones, computers and television screens, the first genocide in history, where its victims are broadcasting their own destruction in real time, in the desperate so far vain hope that the world might do something.

Gaza represents nothing short of a moral failure, as described by the universe, usually circumspect, International Committee of the Red Cross, as underlined by United Nations chiefs.

That failure has, I quote, repercussions not just for the people of Gaza, but for the generations to come, who will never forget these over 90 days of hell, and assaults on the most basic precepts of humanity.

As stated by United Nations spokesperson in Gaza last week at the site of a hospital clearly marked with a symbol of the red present, where five Palestinians including a five day old baby had just been killed.

The world should be absolutely horrified. The world should be absolutely outraged. There is no safe space in Gaza and the world should be ashamed."

http://t.me/megatron_ron

https://x.com/Megatron_ron/status/1745430531284648013

https://x.com/AJEnglish/status/1745506056220926424