Existence vs Expansion 152


In its reaction to the International Court of Justice’s crystal clear ruling on occupied Palestine, the Labour government has disgracefully attempted to ignore the ruling and to continue the Tory policy of total support for Israel.

The UK statement says that:

The Foreign Secretary was clear on his visit to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories earlier this week that the UK is strongly opposed to the expansion of illegal settlements and rising settler violence.

But of course it is not the expansion of Israel’s illegal settlements that is at issue. It is their existence.

New Labour’s position is that the 800,000 Israeli illegal settlers currently in the West Bank and East Jerusalem should stay in their illegal settlements. That is the opposite of what the International Court of Justice said in its Opinion, which is that Israel must undertake restitution.

270. Restitution includes Israel’s obligation to return the land and other immovable property, as well as all assets seized from any natural or legal person since its occupation started in 1967, and all cultural property and assets taken from Palestinians and Palestinian institutions, including archives and documents. It also requires the evacuation of all settlers from existing settlements and the dismantling of the parts of the wall constructed by Israel that are situated in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as well as allowing all Palestinians displaced during the occupation to return to their original place of residence

Plainly “It also requires the evacuation of all settlers from existing settlements” is fundamentally different from the Lammy/Starmer line that Israel must not further expand the illegal settlements.

This is extremely important. Maximum pressure must be brought on the Labour government to align with the ICJ. The official policy is that the UK does respect and follow ICJ judgments.

MPs need immediately to press ministers on this precise point. Does the UK accept the ICJ ruling that all illegal settlers must be removed from all settlements?

You can help by writing to your MP asking for their view on this specific question, pointing out the UK’s legal obligation to follow the rulings of the ICJ.

Furthermore the Court specifically stated that states may not trade with Israeli interests in the Occupied Territories. The ICJ said at Para 278 that all states are obliged:

…to abstain from entering into economic or trade dealings with Israel concerning the Occupied Palestinian Territory or parts thereof which may entrench its unlawful presence in the territory…and to take steps to prevent trade or investment relations that assist in the maintenance of the illegal situation created by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Again the Labour government must be pressed to meet its legal obligation to comply with the ICJ ruling. I fully support direct action by activists to destroy products in shops imported from Occupied Palestine, and thus ensure compliance with international law.

The second part of the British government statement is an attempt to maintain the position which was roundly rejected by the International Court of Justice. The Zionist states had attempted to argue before the court that the general principles of international law had been superseded in this case by the Oslo Accords.

The British government is striking for the “safety” of this position in the second part of its statement, where it says:

This government is committed to a negotiated two-State solution which can deliver a safe and secure Israel alongside a viable and sovereign Palestinian state.

The problem is that there can be no equality of negotiation between the occupier and the occupied, particularly when the occupied are subject to the apartheid and systematic despoilation outlined at length in the ICJ judgment.

The British government position is precisely the same as arguing that the general principles of international law were negated by the “negotiated settlement” that set up Vichy France.

The ICJ directly addressed and overruled these objections put forward by the UK and partners to its acting in this case:

38. Some participants have contended that the Court should decline to reply to the questions put to it because an advisory opinion from the Court would interfere with the Israeli-Palestinian negotiation process laid out by the framework established in the 1993 Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements (hereinafter the “Oslo I Accord”) and the 1995 Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (hereinafter the “Oslo II Accord”), and may exacerbate the Israeli-Palestinian disagreement, thereby compromising the outcome of negotiations.

39. In the view of other participants, an advisory opinion from the Court would not interfere with the negotiation process and the Court should not decline to give one on this basis. They have suggested that, on the contrary, an opinion from the Court is all the more necessary in light of the fact that Israeli-Palestinian negotiations have been stalled for many years.

40. In the present circumstances, the question of whether the Court’s opinion would have an adverse effect on a negotiation process is a matter of conjecture. The Court cannot speculate about the effects of its opinion. In response to a similar argument in another case, the Court stated:

“It has . . . been submitted that a reply from the Court in this case might adversely affect disarmament negotiations and would, therefore, be contrary to the interest of the United Nations. The Court is aware that, no matter what might be its conclusions in any opinion it might give, they would have relevance for the continuing debate on the matter in the General Assembly and would present an additional element in the negotiations on the matter. Beyond that, the effect of the opinion is a matter of appreciation. The Court has heard contrary positions advanced and there are no evident criteria by which it can prefer one assessment to another.”
(Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, Advisory Opinion, I.C.J. Reports 1996 (I), p. 237, para. 17.)
In light of the foregoing, the Court cannot regard this factor as a compelling reason to decline to respond to the General Assembly’s request.

41. It has been contended by some participants that the Court should exercise its discretion to decline to answer the questions before it, while others have argued that, even if the Court were to reply to these questions, it should take care that its reply does not interfere with the established framework for negotiations, since it is the Security Council, and not the General Assembly, which has primary responsibility for issues relating to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. According to these participants, an advisory opinion from the Court could negatively affect or interfere with the negotiation framework that the Security Council has established for resolution of the dispute. Other participants who have addressed the question have argued that the Court’s opinion would not be detrimental to the work of the Security Council. In their view, the Security Council does not have exclusive responsibility under the Charter with respect to the maintenance of international peace and security, since the General Assembly may also address, alongside the Security Council, issues of such concern.

42. This argument is similar to the one examined in section 3 above, in so far as the negotiating framework is concerned, but also concerns the respective competences of the Security Council and the General Assembly in the maintenance of international peace and security. The Court addressed the latter issue in its Wall Advisory Opinion as follows: “Under Article 24 of the Charter the Security Council has ‘primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security’”
(I.C.J. Reports 2004 (I), p. 148, para. 26).
However, the Court emphasized that “Article 24 refers to a primary, but not necessarily exclusive, competence” (ibid.). The General Assembly has the power, inter alia, under Article 14 of the Charter to “recommend measures for the peaceful adjustment of any situation”. The Court further stated that “there has been an increasing tendency over time for the General Assembly and the Security Council to deal in parallel with the same matter concerning the maintenance of international peace and security” and that this “accepted practice of the General Assembly, as it has evolved, is consistent with Article 12, paragraph 1, of the Charter”
(Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Advisory Opinion, I.C.J. Reports 2004 (I), pp. 149-150, paras. 27-28). This is indeed the case with respect to certain aspects of the Palestinian question.

43. The Court also recalls that Article 10 of the Charter confers on the General Assembly a competence relating to “any questions or any matters” within the scope of the Charter and that Article 11, paragraph 2, specifically provides it with competence to “discuss any questions relating to the maintenance of international peace and security brought before it by any Member of the United Nations”. This is the case with respect to the questions posed by the General Assembly in the present proceedings. As the Court has stated previously,
“[w]here, as here, the General Assembly has a legitimate interest in the answer to a question, the fact that that answer may turn, in part, on a decision of the Security Council is not sufficient to justify the Court in declining to give its opinion to the General Assembly”
(Accordance with International Law of the Unilateral Declaration of Independence in Respect of Kosovo, Advisory Opinion, I.C.J. Reports 2010 (II), p. 423, para. 47).
As pointed out in paragraph 40 above, whether the opinion of the Court would have an adverse effect on the negotiation framework is a matter of conjecture on which the Court should not speculate.
Moreover, in view of the fact that the General Assembly has the competence to address matters concerning international peace and security, such as those raised in the questions it has posed, there is no compelling reason for the Court to decline to give the requested opinion

I have given the link to the full Opinion of the ICJ. This is an excellent summary from Law For Palestine. The Opinion is extremely lucid and decisive.

The ball is now back in the court of the UN General Assembly, which requested the Opinion. The General Assembly now should move to suspend Israel’s membership of the United Nations. That is the next project on which I shall be working.

 

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152 thoughts on “Existence vs Expansion

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  • Anthony

    Sir Keir Starmer is bought and paid for by the Israel lobby, as is virtually every person he has appointed to the cabinet. That is why on the day of this ICJ ruling he said it was a priority of his government to build a Holocaust memorial in Britain — even as he abetts the zionist holocaust in Gaza and denies it even constitutes collective punishment.

    • willie

      Too right that Sir Keir Starmer is bought and paid for by the Israel lobby. And as we will find out he is bought and paid for by the neo liberal corporate elites.

      Already Mr Starmer has backtracked on reversing draconian benefit caps like the two child family restriction. That did not make it to the King’s speech and there will be much much more of that to come. And folks will take it like dogs because that in truth is what they have become in neo liberal Britain.

      And in Gaza the killing, the maiming and the destruction of houses and hospitals will continue. Who cares about the Palestinian dead. Not Sir Keir Starmer that’s for sure.

      Writing to your MP Craig. Good idea but frankly utterly ineffective and in reality a well intentioned waste of time. Democracy does not work. You know that. Democracy and the even handed state put you in prison, attempted to jail and destroy Alex Salmond and many others. That is an other reality that goes on unpunished. And they would do it again, Time maybe that alternative democracies were deployed.

      So sadly, writing to your MP will not stop the slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza. It would be about as effective to writing to Heinrich Himmler to ask him to stop the implementation of the Final Solution. Yes in theory it might work but in reality no. There’s money to be made slaughtering and displacing Palestinians.

      The international community need to step in. Folks here need to step in. Had the Nazi’s been stopped earlier we might not have had the horror of WW2 and the holocaust. Time folks thought about that – or do we believe we just want to destroy Russians?

      • Stevie Boy

        Anyone who has written to their MP in the last five years will know what a frustrating and pointless exercise that is. Most of them just follow the party line, and that’s it.
        I’d suggest labour will attempt to put into law the Israeli agenda so that it cannot be changed.
        Starmer is personally a zionist jew in everything but name, his policy on Israel won’t change.

      • Anthony

        Agree, you may as well write a letter to John Bolton or Mike Pompeo. Sir Keir is a similarly cold psychopath prepared to do anything to curry favour with DC chickenhawks.

        His disregard for Palestinian and Ukrainian lives could not be more obvious. He also knows very well the cost to British lives of austerity, and what the cost would be of letting United Health take over the NHS.

        Destroying lives is no dealbreaker for Sir Keir and I doubt his very carefully selected MPs are any different to him.

    • M.J.

      Sir Keir and many cabinet members may indeed be powerfully influenced and financed by the Zionist lobby. But they are vulnerable to voters who could turn against them at the next election. That is why it is important for constituents to write to Labour MPs (including Starmer) to remind them of that important fact, and to encourage them to respect traditional Labour values and principles.

      • Bayard

        “But they are vulnerable to voters who could turn against them at the next election.”

        The next election is as far away as it could possibly be. At the rate at which the Israelis are killing the Palestinians, how many do you think will be left in five years’ time?

        • Stevie Boy

          ‘The establishment’ is chipping away at the election process. The last GE was different from the previous GE. More and more state controls will ensure that the citizens follow the approved script.
          Anyone who places their faith in the electoral system and western democracy are going to be continually disappointed. Our ‘leaders’ are appointed they are not elected.

          • Bayard

            Even without Establishment meddling, the election process is hardly democracy. The people choosing who is going to totally ignore their wishes for the next five years, once in one of those five years is in no way “ruling”. Abolishing elections altogether would hardly make much difference. Indeed, the example of China show that it may actually be an improvement.

    • Squeeth

      No, it’s a pretence, the zionists are a proxy who work for American Caesar and who have been co-opted by the people who run Britain to do their dirty work. Such power that the British legislature has left is being castrated, same as Congress in Septicland; the zionist antisemites are an important part of the process.

  • Brendan

    In the paragraph after the one that you quote from the Advisory Opinion, the ICJ offers Israel a way of getting out of some of its obligations including the evacuation of settlers:

    “271. In the event that such restitution should prove to be materially impossible, Israel has an obligation to compensate, in accordance with the applicable rules of international law, all natural or legal persons, and populations, where that may be the case, having suffered any form of material damage as a result of Israel’s wrongful acts under the occupation.”

    Many Israelis and other Zionists would have no problem with that. They would claim that the “facts on the ground” that they created by building settlements are irreversible. They would also say that a small country like Israel cannot afford to pay so much compensation, so other Western countries would have to foot the bill – just as they’ve done for decades by donating billions of dollars every year in aid to Israel.

    • Nota Tory Fanboy

      Does it not refer to the inability to resurrect dead Palestinians? I.e. You can’t practically return land, immovable property and cultural assets to dead people so their living friends and relatives should be compensated as a result (not that anyone can really be compensated for the death of a friend or relative…) ?

      • Brendan

        Yes, if take the words “materially impossible” literally. But Israel’s twisted interpretation of international law has been accepted by other countries for so long that it could get away with saying that evacuating the illegal settlers is just not possible. I think the ICJ should have been more explicit in the details.

  • James

    “You can help by writing to your MP”
    Yes, saying a few prayers might also help.

    The main hope now rests with the Houthis. They just hit Tel Aviv with a large drone bomb, one person was killed.
    There is no diplomatic solution – the Israeli regime won’t negotiate.
    If I could donate to the Houthis, I would.

    • Jimmy

      James, be careful about expressing sympathy with this or that group – unless, that is, you know you can’t be traced. The laws are getting stupid! In the U.S., the Houthis are now a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) group. Search for “Biden administration re-designates Houthis as Specially Designated Global Terrorists.”

    • Franc

      I totally agree with you James, and the so called attack on Israel by the Houthis is probably a fake, anyway. A lie that allows American, British & the Israeliers to murder Yemini
      people.
      A good source of information can be found from the Palestinian born Reporter, Laith Marouf ( Latest News )

  • Ian

    Well done, Craig.
    Labour ‘friends’ of Israel will be getting their memo on how to deflect and dissemble from this shortly. No doubt the usual waffle about two state solutions (which Israel has destroyed), ceasefires which aren’t really ceasefires, and tiptoeing around the genocide and calls for the thug Netanyahu’s arrest. Emphasis on Israeli ‘suffering’, denial of the heinous carnage and slaughterhouse in Gaza, bulldozing bodies out of the media’s way, deliberate starvation and the spread of disease. While also ignoring what the Israeli Minister of Social Equality said, ” I am personally proud of the ruins of Gaza, and that 80 years from now, they will tell their grandchildren what the Jews did” (Some translations claim that she actually said ‘the holocaust of Gaza’). Has a murderous official ever had such a deeply ridiculous and obscenely inappropriate job title?
    Wantonly and indifferently massacring defenceless innocent people, while making sure they have zero medical or humanitarian facilities, food, water, shelter or hygiene, when a few miles away there is an abundance of them, must be the most immoral, vile policy of any army in the long history of global atrocities. That is what we will remember ’80 years from now’. This is what you are ‘proud’ of, ‘Israel’?

    • Jeff

      Can someone please explain why it has taken decades to obtain this “advisory” from the ICJ? And why has no country actually brought a case against Israel in the ICJ well before now , as did SA recently re Gaza?

      • Calgacus

        That is not true, it is forgetting the 2004 “Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” Advisory Opinion of the ICJ.

      • Mike T

        American global influence is visibly receding.

        The UNGA is rather less biddable than once it were, as a majority of national governments are willing to be seen as dissenters to the Stae Department’s chosen line. I think that has allowed genuine horror at the circumstances of the Palestinians to come through in a way it has failed to do before.

  • M.J.

    I’ve written to my MP asking if Labour accepts the findings of ICJ in full.
    But a related item across the pond: ex-Secretary of Labour Robert Reich has predicted that Biden will pack it in within a week (see 23:05 onwards):
    https://open.substack.com/pub/robertreich/p/how-could-a-convicted-felon-who-attempted?r=pq0g2&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
    Biden will hopefully be replaced by someone (like Kamala Harris) who won’t be not a self-confessed Zionist, and will act more effectively to end the suffering of Palestinians.
    Good luck with your next project, to help end Israeli apartheid by UN sanctions, as South African apartheid was ended.

  • gareth

    We are so modern now. The “International Court of Justice’s crystal clear ruling” is a thing of today; I’m sure it’s well argued and based on the best modern views. The “International Court” can descide which of the sides of the dispute is right and which wrong. We should clutch our pearls and demand that all agree.

    I look back to the fall of Constantiople. The “International Court of Justice” was not a thing in the 15th centuary. The Turk overran the land wall and won, the last Christian emporer lost in the fray. Real-politik and the end to the wars.

    So what solution to the current dispute? What would bring sustainable peace? My view – the Jewish “Turk” should own the land, from The River to The Sea and expell all who (often violently) disagree – whom we would hope will be welcomed as refugees by the neighbouring states.

    I offer no view of who is good and who is bad, nor who started it etc. Just a practical solution.

    • James

      Just like all Western leaders, supporting the Zionist entity, have “the best modern views” lol

      “I look back to…”
      Look back to the holocaust, loads of Jews died – was that ok as well? FFS

      “the Jewish “Turk” should own the land” yeah, good luck with that, they’re losing and will lose completely in the end.

    • glenn_nl

      Another solution to the current dispute would be for every member of either side, or both, to all spontaneously drop dead. But that’s hardly ideal, no more than your “kick out the natives” colonialist ‘solution’.

      Even taking your disgusting suggestion at face value, the idea that neighbouring states should take in the expelled is pretty racist, you know. Why should Britain, Germany and America not have to take them in instead? After all, those three are primarily responsible for the problem. Not neighbouring states which have also been subjected to Israel’s murderous foreign policies.

    • M.J.

      This “practical solution” was seriously attempted over the past 100 years. You will find a good exposition in the books and Youtube videos by Ilan Pappé. The result: look at Palestine now. The best comparison is apartheid South Africa (outside Gaza), and the Warsaw Ghetto, within Gaza (during the Nazi suppression of the rebellion there).
      A good film on people brought up to believe in the “practical solution” is Erin Axelman’s Israelism featuring the activist Simone Zimmerman. See it, if you get the chance!

    • kodlu

      @Gareth; Off-topic maybe but couldn’t resist: Of course there was no ICJ back in 1543. However, it is interesting that this is the only example you bring up, how do you feel about the various Christian empires behaviour in the whole world over the last 3 centuries. They did much much worse than the Ottomans in Constantinople, demostrably, totally wiping out cultures and religions while Christianity and Judaism in fact survived and after a point thrived in the Turkish Empire, which was more enlightened than most of the Christian empires, and specifically the Genocidal Inquistioners of Spain.

      • Tom Welsh

        Well of course, kodlu, you have put your finger right on the sore, inflamed spot. It’s hard for leaders and citizens of nations like the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc. to deny the right of Jewish people to invade Palestine, do their best to exterminate its people, and steal all their property, when that is exactly how their own ancestors acquired “their” countries. Or, indeed, the UK or most of the European nations which supplied and supported the invading colonial settlers. There was a prevailing ideology, shared by Teddy Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and the Nazis, as well as most right-thinking people of 1900, that the “white Aryan race” (and possibly its British variant) was the only one even capable of civilisation.

        The Israeli policy towards Palestinians is, mutatis mutandis, exactly the same as the US policy towards Native Americans. It’s crude, rude, and politically unspeakable, but the truest description of that policy has always been the old saying, “The only good Injun is a dead Injun”.

        “The nigger, like the Injun, will be eliminated: it is the law of races, history, what-not: always so far inexorable—always to be. Someone proves that a superior grade of rats comes and then all the minor rats are cleared out”.
        – Walt Whitman, 1888 (“With Walt Whitman in Camden, vol. 2” (1915)) http://www.whitmanarchive.org/criticism/disciples/traubel/WWWiC/2/med.00002.56.html

        “I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place”.
        – Sir Winston Churchill

        “Proprium humani ingenii est odisse quem laeseris”.
        (“It belongs to human nature to hate those you have injured”).
        – Tacitus (Agricola Chapter 42); reported in Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

        “I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indian is the dead Indian, but I believe nine out of every ten are, and I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth”.
        Theodore Roosevelt, in a campaign speech given in New York, January 1886

        “The Whites, by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the American continent, and the best safety of the frontier settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians. Why not annihilation?”
        – L. Frank Baum (author of the “Oz” stories), Saturday Pioneer (20 December 1890)

        “The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extirmination of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth. In this lies future safety for our settlers and the soldiers who are under incompetent commands. Otherwise, we may expect future years to be as full of trouble with the redskins as those have been in the past”.
        – L. Frank Baum (author of the “Oz” stories), Saturday Pioneer (3 January 1891)

    • Tom Welsh

      “I offer no view of who is good and who is bad, nor who started it etc. Just a practical solution”.

      But of course you do, implicitly and very clearly, offer a view of what is good and what is bad. As soon as you use words like “should” or “ought”, you are invoking ethics.

      If you argue that the Israelis should get everything they want, you are saying that might is right. Because they can – maybe – they should.

      This is exactly the shaky argument used by Thrasymachus in Plato’s “Republic”.

  • Wilshire

    In fact, the General Assembly can only vote – at a two-thirds majority – suspension or revocation of the membership privileges of a nation when such measures are recommended by the Security Council. Which is obviously not going to ever happen in the foreseeable future.

  • glenn_nl

    I’m glad to see the Blackburn result hasn’t got you down for long. Lesser people might be tempted to conclude “screw it”, and pursue their own interests, at least for a while.

    I hope the voters in Blackburn that selected the ultimate victor can see, now, that you were genuine about fighting for justice. I also hope Adnan Hussain is putting in at least this much effort, now that he’s got the job, and is using his position to good effect.

    • Nota Tory Fanboy

      It might well be worth Mr. Murray maintaining a presence – at least, a new media presence – in Blackburn so that residents understand precisely this point.

  • Brian Red

    When they’re used to denote only the position in the West Bank and Gaza, the words “settlement” and “occupation” are both Israeli propaganda.

    Here’s why: it’s because Zionism has always been, and continues to be, about settlement, occupation, land theft, expansion, expulsion, ethnic supremacist rule. I wonder how many people reading this are aware that Palestinians living in the areas assigned to Arabs by the UN which were occupied by Zionists in 1948 existed under Israeli military rule until 1966. Did those areas stop being “occupied” because Arabs there were given the vote? And what is a kibbutz but a settlement by occupiers? Israel is an occupationist regime and every square metre of territory it runs is occupied.

    Meanwhile, Netanyahu will address the US Congress on Wednesday. Biden may already be out of office by then. Brace for an upscaling of the slaughter in Gaza and possibly also elsewhere, e.g. in Syria and Yemen. The pro-Israeli press is saying there’s a problem between Biden and Netanyahu regarding Gaza. It’s clear what the first choice is for how to interpret that.

    The talk about what the Democrats will do, and whether Harris is the right candidate given her poll scores, and whether there will be an open convention, and whether Biden will resign the presidency or merely withdraw his candidacy, is all chaff. Biden will resign, Harris will be president, and she will also be the Democratic candidate. Current poll scores are of little importance, given that the question “Would you vote for the current vice president to become the new president?” is different from the question “Will you vote to re-elect the sitting president?” When she takes over as president, which is likely to be in the next few days, Harris’s message won’t be “I’m a really good candidate and I’m going to win the election in November.” It will be “This is what I am doing as president right now”.

    • glenn_nl

      That would be a good move. Kamala Harris would be the 47th president, which would really mess up Trump’s whole advertising/ merch efforts so far, which hail Trump as the 47th president. It’ll tick him off a treat and confuse the Maga halfwits no end if that all has to be changed to 48th.

      Biden should have resigned just as Trump was approaching the podium for his acceptance speech. No time to re-write it, and the entire week’s anti-Biden hate-fest suddenly redundant.

      • Brian Red

        Biden should have resigned just as Trump was approaching the podium for his acceptance speech. No time to re-write it, and the entire week’s anti-Biden hate-fest suddenly redundant.

        Yes, but it’s possible that some in the Trump team would have planned for that, assuming Trump is capable of rehearsing two different speeches.

        Now that Biden has withdrawn his candidacy for the Democratic nomination, I still think his resignation as president is imminent. Maybe the fact he’s done the first but not yet the second has to do with protocol among the Democrat bigwigs or simply a view that the optics look better and there’s more media mileage in two separate announcements.

        Alternatively, perhaps it would be considered disrespectful of Netanyahu not to let all reasonably possible Democratic candidates shuffle into his presence on Wednesday, kiss his ring, set out their respective stalls, and wait respectfully for the white smoke to rise from the embassy once the decision has formally been made. That’s even if everyone knows who the candidate will be.

        Whatever. I can’t see the Democratic nomination going to anyone other than Harris, nor Biden staying in office for more than a few days from now.

  • Charlie

    The creeping spread of Israeli settlers into Palestine strongly resembles the Nazi doctrine of ‘lebensraum.’
    Am I alone in thinking that the horror, and then the decades-long tearful compassion, generated by the Holocaust, is steadily being eradicated by the vile genocide of Palestinian civilians?
    How strangely, but frighteningly, history reverses in such a short time.

    • Bayard

      Unfortunately, the lesson of the Holocaust seems to be “what to do” not “what not to do”. History teaches us that the predominant effect of oppression and persecution is the generation of a desire to swap places with the oppressors and persecutors, rather than a determination that others should not suffer what they have suffered.

      • Stevie Boy

        One of the most distasteful aspects of the rise of the zionists is that the Holocaust has been trademarked and is constantly used by the extremists and apologists to cover up and justify every act of Jewish extremism and lawlessness.
        Nothing was learned other than every disaster presents an opportunity for the unscrupulous.

          • Stevie Boy

            Unfortunately, in a lot of cases they are not.
            Not all zionists are Jewish.
            Not every jew is a zionist.
            But.
            Every Israeli is Jewish, and the overwhelming majority of Israelis are zionists.
            Go figure.

          • will moon

            “Every Israeli is Jewish”

            Surely not Stevie Boy?

            Arab Israelis constitute the largest minority in the country, at around 20% of the population and Druze serve in the armed forces of the state. These Arab Israelis are generally Moslems with a small number of Christians

      • Brian Red

        That’s a bit unfair on the Armenians and Tutsis.

        But then look at the horrible story of the fall of Jericho as if it’s good to capture somewhere and slaughter everyone who lives there.

        That said, a big shoutout to people like Vera Sharav. Although their voices are almost drowned out by those of Zionists, there have been some Jewish-descended survivors of the Nazi holocaust (in the real sense of “survivor” – not someone born to rich parents in New York in 1970) who have empathised with others who have been at risk of meeting the same fate, and who haven’t given the slightest toss for things like the continued existence of the Israeli regime or for that matter the Jewish identity.

  • Ian

    Politico has just published an account by two American surgeons who volunteer in war zones:

    https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/07/19/gaza-hospitals-surgeons-00167697

    Warning: this is not for the faint-hearted. But is an utterly devastating eye-witness account of the consequences of the Israeli doctrines of total destruction and annihilation of life in Gaza. It is beyond bestial savagery and inhumanity. Children shot in the head, nurses kidnapped, tortured and then dumped by the side of the road with untreated fatal wounds, left to die. People so traumatised they are just willing their own deaths. And this was earlier this year, when there was one half-functioning hospital left. Now there is none.
    It is vital that this information is put in the public domain, circulated and made known to all, as well as to be used in the coming legal judgements of this atrocity exhibition which the israeli army is perpetuating with a terrifying moral vacuity and indifference to human life. As one of the doctors, who happens to be Jewish, is now persuading his colleagues – this has nothing to do with support for israel or judaism. (It is of course the exact opposite, and has destroyed any claim, if there was ever one, for israel’s existence in its current form of extreme apartheid and overwhelmingly violent anti-human barbarism.) You cannot believe any human being could behave like this, but they do, as we know from history, it stains us all. When will the perpetrators be arraigned and charged?

    • AG

      Was about to post it too.

      What I find remarkable is the ownership of POLITICO by German Springer media giant who is one of the staunchest Israel supporters in Europe due to their founding principles which infamously every employee has to agree with by signature and abide to as in-house work “ethics” go. However the level of atrocities must have caused some maneuvering in the company, depending on the outlet concerned. I guess Politico has more freedom.

      Besides on this Foreign Policy reported 2 years ago:

      “(…)Although Döpfner (CEO) has said that Politico staff must abide by Axel Springer-wide guiding principles—support for a united Europe, Israel’s right to exist, and a free-market economy, among others—they at least won’t be required to sign a written commitment to the principles the way German personnel must. Döpfner, however, told the Wall Street Journal that people with a fundamental problem with any of these principles “should not work for Axel Springer, very clearly.” Döpfner apparently doesn’t see a contradiction between insisting upon this political line and “editorial independence and nonpartisan reporting,” which he has promised at Politico.(…)”

      https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/01/06/axel-springer-politico-media-scandal-germany-bild/

      I assume it´s simply better business-wise to be less rigid outside Germany.

  • Andrew F

    Julian Assange would definitely have something to say about this ICJ ruling.

    Craig, you have good inside connections to Assange.

    Have you spoken to him since he was freed? It’s been nearly a month now, do you have any word on how he’s going and when he is expected to speak freely for himself?

    • Stevie Boy

      We should wait and see.
      Don’t assume Assange is free to do as he pleases. Remember he was released into the clutches of one of his oppressors. At some point he will have to decide where on the planet he can be relatively free. The West isn’t that place.

      • Andrew F

        That’s part of the reason I don’t want to “wait and see”.

        Three and a half weeks and not a public word or appearance? Everyone saw him getting on and off the jet and most would also have heard the audio of him speaking in the US Court in Saipan. He also spoke by phone with the Australian Labor PM upon landing. He looked and sounded perfectly capable of making even a brief speech for himself without still being spoken about by other people, apparently on his behalf and in the third person. They said he needed some time to “rest and recover”. That is probably fair enough for a short time, but by now it’s getting to be a bit of a worry.

        I don’t want to be alarmist, but Australia has laws (see the ASIO Act for example) under which a person, not even necessarily suspected of a crime, can be held incommunicado indefinitely for “questioning” in relation to “national security” which is so broadly defined as to mean pretty much “because we want to”. It’s also a crime to tell anyone that you have been detained in this manner.

        The “plea deal” documents, and the public statements from both his lawyers and the US Judge, make it clear that he is “free without any restrictions”. So he either is “free”, or he isn’t (see above). At some point, thinking people are going to start wondering where Julian Assange is. He is not really free until he is free to speak for himself.

        • Bayard

          “Three and a half weeks and not a public word or appearance?”

          Perhaps he’s hobnobbing with Sergei and Julia Skripal.

          • Andrew F

            Here in Australia we had a hugely popular 1980s soap opera called “Neighbours” starring, at the time, Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan as the love-struck teenagers who got married. The episode “Scott and Charlene’s Wedding” was a massive ratings hit at the time. The network milked it successfully for months. The script had them going off to Queensland for their honeymoon.

            In the end the stars both moved on with their careers, which left the script writers and network with a bit of a problem.

            The clever solution was that for a few years they could write in a scene with a phone call or some other “news from Scott and Charlene”!! The ratings would go up because a big chunk of the audience believed their favourite stars had just appeared in an episode, when it was just other actors pretending they had heard from them. But it worked, the fans actually believed “Scott and Charlene” were still on their TV’s.

            It feels the same with Assange. No direct word, no public appearance, just the illusion that he is somewhere sunny walking on a beach – because someone else said so.

          • Stevie Boy

            Andrew. I’m sure he’ll have plenty to say when he and his family are somewhere safe, and as you say Australia is not that place. Your worries are justified, but OTOH consider, here is a man who has spent virtually 13 years imprisoned, has had a stroke, and has had little contact with his family. Maybe a quiet month on a beach is what is needed !

    • Ian

      Julian has done his bit, and suffered for it. Leave him be, don’t demand that he acts as a figurehead for you. Other people can take up the mantle now. He will need a long time to recover from deep trauma and ill health, allow him what time he has to enjoy his family life. if he wants to write a book or whatever in due course, I will welcome that. Otherwise I hope he is happy. That’s all I want to hear.

      • Andrew F

        Maybe you are all correct after all.

        Let’s just all forget about Julian Assange the real person. Let’s just all imagine that he is somewhere having a rest that might take a long time, years maybe. Just because he is obviously able to say this for himself and he hasn’t done so – in fact he basically vanished at the Canberra airport on 26th June 2024 – that doesn’t suggest any valid reason to ask the question of where he is and when he might be able to speak freely on his own behalf.

        Sorry but I can’t do that. I didn’t just spend 14 years tirelessly advocating for Assange’s right to be free and to speak freely so that I could be patted on the head and told “nothing to see here” when he actually disappears.

        Back to my original question: Craig, you have a direct line, have you spoken to Julian yet? How is his recovery coming along? Any idea when he will be speaking for himself in his own voice?

        • Ian

          Nobody is suggesting we forget about him. Hardly. But he doesn’t owe you or any campaigner anything and it is unfair and insensitive to suggest he does. We all campaigned for justice and human rights, not for someone to do what we demand of him. It’s not as if he has even been out for long, from a long, traumatising and deeply damaging incarceration. Have a little sympathy.

          • Andrew F

            Nobody is “demanding” that Julian Assange do anything he doesn’t want to.

            Nelson Mandela was imprisoned in far worse conditions, and for much longer, 27 years. On the day of his release, February 11 1990, he gave a historic half hour speech. The same day he was released.

            Julian hasn’t said a single word on his own behalf since landing in Australia (even though he is quite obviously capable of doing so). He doesn’t even have control of his old “twitter” account back.

            He used to post like crazy on “twitter” right up until the day he was gagged on 18th March 2018.

            Of course I have sympathy for Julian’s condition. But I have greater sympathy for his lack of ability to speak freely with his own voice for the last six years.

          • Ian

            You don’t know if a single word of what you’ve written is true. Just a shed load of assumptions and – yes – demands, that he does what you want.

          • Andrew F

            Ian, I know that every word I’ve written is true.

            You can’t point to any assumptions or “demands” that I have made here.

            If my questions cause you pain, maybe you should ask yourself why that is rather than get angry at the questions.

    • glenn_nl

      If we never heard directly from Assange again, that would be entirely his own business, and it’s rather presumptuous to expect otherwise.

      • Andrew F

        Apparently the CIA wanted to kill him. The entire persecution of the man for the last 14 years, and most particularly his being gagged the last 6 years, was intended to silence him.

        They wanted to take away his most powerful weapon against them – his voice.

        And here we are. He has vanished without a trace, been silenced, and “supporters” – instead of asking the perfectly logical questions (Is he OK? Where is he? When will he be able to speak freely for himself?) – are content to imagine that he MUST be alright and having a rest in a nice place somewhere, and maybe he’ll never be heard from again.

        That is a level of illogical contortions I just can’t grasp, sorry.

        That narrative seems to give a scary number of people perfect comfort. But unlike them, I actually care very much for the wellbeing of the man himself, and I am concerned.

  • David

    Just a question – why do the judgements only go back to the pre-1967 borders, and not take account that much of what is Israel was gained by war in the 1940s, and is far larger than the partition plan agreed by the UN

    • Anthony

      Indeed, it effectively legitimates the Nakba. They must think the world remains totally unaware of what was done to the Palestinians in 1948. Very odd.

  • GreatedApe

    I think I read it was British Christians who first promoted the popularisation of Zionism, on supposedly biblical grounds. Some Jews warned that it could cause remainer Jews to be perceived as even lesser citizens, patriots? I guess that came true even though e.g. German Jews had fought valiantly for Germany I gathered.

    Was that early British support actually geopolitical to use Jews as a foothold in the middle east?

    • Laguerre

      The British did have their colonies in the Middle East in the wake of the 1WW, without Zionist help. Only they were then partially deprived of them, by Woodrow Wilson’s principles, and they had to be called “mandates”, and presented as on the path to independence. In fact the British (and French) miscalculated the situation. The Arabs wouldn’t accept being colonised, the mandates lasted only a limited time, and indirect influence was a longer-lasting path.
      As I have to repeat endlessly, Zionism played no role with the British colonial authorities in the Middle East, who promised the opposite to the Arab powers, such as the Hashemite Sharifs of Mecca. It was a policy that came straight from London, decided, as you say, by evangelical Christians, notably Lloyd George, who knew little and cared less about the Middle East. It is the same source of success for the zionists as today in the US.

      • GreatedApe

        Why did the evangelicals promote it then? The leading Zionist Weisman reportedly said “I think the causes responsible for this ready understanding of our purpose and aspirations are manifold, but chiefly they are that Mr. Lloyd George is a great son of a small people. He comes from the hills of Wales, so similar to the hills of Judea; reared in the traditions of the Bible and the Prophets. Intuitively he understood the essentials of the Zionist movement coupled with the tribulations of the Jewish people in the war “

      • will moon

        “ by evangelical Christians”

        Laguerre, in the foreword to Yergin’s “The Prize, he quotes the First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill speaking in 1912 who noted that control of oil was the key to global dominance.

        “ To build any large additional number of oil-burning ships meant basing our naval supremacy upon oil. But oil was not found in appreciable quantities in our islands. If we required it we must carry it by sea in peace or war from distant countries. We had, on the other hand, the finest supply of the best steam coal in the world, safe in our mines under our own land. To commit the Navy irrevocably to oil was indeed to “take arms against a sea of troubles.” Yet, if the difficulties and risk could be surmounted, “we should be able to raise the whole power and efficiency of the Navy to a definitely higher level; better ships, better crews, higher economies, more intense forms of war power”—in a word, “mastery itself was the prize of the venture.” ”

        A few years later, in the middle of WW1 the Manchester Guardian was pushing the idea of “a fiercely patriotic race” being planted in the region to give Britain access and control of the oil, which at that time had become the primary strategic resource for an erstwhile global empire.

        Consider also the often stated prejudice against Jews expressed by the British Establishment, eg Balfour, who apparently was keen to see the Jews leave Britain and go to Palestine. Many historians point this out.

        Though Christian Zionists were in the vanguard of this geopolitical movement, actualisation of the project came from the concentrations of imperial wealth and power. In 1900 the major global supply was from the Caspian region and it was immensely profitable. International investors had all seen what sort of revenue could be generated by oil. I link the promotion of Zionism by imperial factotums like Lloyd George and CP Scott etc directly to this perception amongst the investor class

        Interestingly Lloyd George was worth over a £100,000,000 in the 1920’s, which today would make him a multi-billionaire. I don’t think he came from money, so he acquired this immense fortune while being “in politics”

    • DunGroanin

      GreatedApe,
      You are not far off at all – I have posted plenty about it in the past, so won’t do it again here unless asked with links to actual history and cabinet office minutes.

      It is hard to remember history. It’s almost as if there is a constant re-narrativising to obscure it. So here are a few basic historical facts:

      ‘ In 1838, an Arab revolt took place in Greater Syria, run by Muhammad Ali, the Ottoman viceroy of Egypt.
      British Foreign Secretary Palmerston offered the Sultan of Turkey British help in putting down the revolt, and in return, Britain was given the right to establish a vice-consulate in Jerusalem.
      Once this beachhead for the Empire was secured, the British decided to use a fledgling Zionist movement as their proxy, to increase their presence in the Holy Land.
      
In 1840, Palmerston sent a letter to the British ambassador in Constantinople, instructing him to contact the Sultan:

      “There exists at the present time among the Jews dispersed over Europe, a strong notion that the time is approaching when their nation is to return to Palestine…. It would be of manifest importance to the Sultan to encourage the Jews to return and settle in Palestine because the wealth which they would bring with them would increase the resources of the Sultan’s dominions; and the Jewish people, if returning under the sanction and protection and at the invitation of the Sultan, would be a check upon any future evil designs of Muhammad Ali or his successor. I have to instruct Your Excellency strongly to recommend the Turkish government to hold out every just encouragement to the Jews of Europe to return to Palestine.”

      
In 1845, Edward Ledwich Mitford, one of Palmerston’s collaborators in the Foreign Service and a political supporter, published “An appeal in Behalf of the Israel Nation in Connection with the British Policy in the Levant.”
      The piece called for the “final establishment of the Jewish nation in Palestine as a protected state under the guardianship of Great Britain.”

      Mitford reasoned that such a state would “place the management of our steam communication entirely in our hands and would place us in a commanding position in the Levant from whence to check the process of encroachment, to overawe open enemies and, if necessary, to repel their advance.”

      Etc.

      Look at the DATES it is a long long long planned colonisation.
      The above led to the Balfour Declaration about a century LATER!
      It was opposed by many of Britain’s elites and Jews who knew what the ziofascists were about

      • GreatedApe

        Other Euro countries were also trying to secure the area though, right? Apparently England, Russia, France, and Prussia (Germany), even Greece under the papacy or something. And the english evangelicals wanted the Jews to convert to Christianity but they eventually gave up on that hope. But so why do you call the Jews as facists in their efforts?

  • Mr Mark Cutts

    The main question is; Who is going to carry out the “removing?”

    The US? The UK? The United nations? Or Iran and Hezbolla.

    The latter seems more likely at this stage of Netanyahu’s Career. If so, then the big question is whether the US will put its troops etc. in harm’s way?

    Personally I think not but they will continue to supply bigger – better and nasty weapons to attempt to keep the Israel attacks on the road.

    If Israel is getting a pasting then out come the nukes.

    • Tom Welsh

      All the rest of the world need do is to impose a boycott. Yes, sanctions – in a good cause for once. If nobody would trade with Israel, it would collapse like a wet paper bag.

  • Goose

    The ICJ ruling also punches another hole through the UK’s obnoxious, already threadbare challenge, to the ICC’s authority.

    I don’t think the British people are aware of just how outrageous the Tory initiated, now Labour mulled, objection to the ICC’s authority actually is.

    The ‘sinister’ UK Foreign Office is preposterously arguing that the Oslo accords (1993-95) preclude Palestinians from prosecuting Israelis; therefore, the power can’t be ceded to the ICC on their behalf. Basically, this is akin to the UK arguing Israel should have carte blanche to continue killing, maiming and committing countless war crimes and they can never be held accountable. In pursuing this, the UK is on a par with the worst dictatorships and regimes the world has ever seen. It’s evil nonsense, that only the most fanatical of Zionists would venture.

    The US and UK are behaving like rogue states. No politicians in the UK and US seem to care about international law and the doctrine of proportionality when it comes to Israel. The Hague Conventions (1907) and Geneva Conventions, established that states do have a right to unilaterally respond; but only insomuch as the response is ‘proportionate to the injury suffered’. Israel’s typical 10x the damage retaliation – in the case of Gaza, 1000x the damage, flies in the face of international law – and the US, UK and EU should be thoroughly ashamed for letting Israel flout international law with impunity.

    • Goose

      On the subject of disproportionate responses: 20 Israeli warplanes, including F-35s, F-15s, and aerial refueling tankers, participated in the strikes on a port in Al Hudaydah, Yemen, yesterday. The strikes destroyed oil storage facilities and the power station for the city resulting in a complete loss of power in Al Hudaydah.

      As well as being completely disproportionate; attacking power stations amounts to a deliberate collective punishment of a civilian population. This, is allegedly in response for the drone that hit Tel Aviv, apparently killing one person. The UK’s role is unclear, but the US has issued a statement saying they weren’t involved in these actions. Although, how a country that supplies the F-35s, F-15s and guided 2000 lb bombs, can say its not involved, I don’t know? We’re constantly presented with ‘Iranian-backed Houthis’, then surely it should be US/UK-backed Israel?

      • Brian Red

        Or “Israeli-backed USA”, or for that matter “Israeli-backed Russia, Britain, France, China, etc.”, because Israel sells military surveillance technology to all of those countries. Source: The Palestine Laboratory by Anthony Loewenstein.

        The term “Iranian-backed Houthis” is a) anti-Iranian (furthering the “Netanyahu Doctrine”) and b) an ethnicisation.
        A better term is “Yemen”.

      • Tom Welsh

        “This, is allegedly in response for the drone that hit Tel Aviv, apparently killing one person…”

        You must bear in mind that, for many Jews, the value of a Jewish life is literally infinitely greater than that of a Gentile. Rabbis are telling them all the time; and it’s in the Jewish holy writings.

        It’s funny, in a bitter way. We are told that Jews can do no wrong, because Holocaust. Yet the israeli government, and apparently most of its citizens, have if anything an even more extreme belief that they are the Master Race than the Nazis did.

  • Ewan2

    An extract from Einstein’s letter to the NYTimes makes me wonder if today’s politicians know what they support the present Israeli government.

    ” During the last years of sporadic anti-British violence the IZL and Stern groups inaugurated a reign of terror in the Palestine Jewish community. Teachers were beaten up for speaking against them, adults were shot for not letting their children join them By gangster methods , beatings, window-smashing and widespread robberies the terrorists intimidated the population and exacted a heavy profit.”.”

    Today the letter would probably be counted as anti-semitic, while the terrorism against Jews and British is memory-holed, or is seen as an acceptable sacrifice.

    Perhaps an MP could read it out in Parliament.

    • Bramble

      Obviously, Einstein was an anti Semite. Will the Zionists excommunicate him post-mortem and claim all who accept his theory of relativity are anti-Semitic by association. Prevent is going to have its hands full with all those physicists.

  • Brianfujisan

    No Wonder I read Si-Fi books to escape..
    What Evil Israel need are True warriors Comming against them – Onna-Bugeisha Want a Fight Evil ones

  • Bob (original)

    Post-Brexit, all the UK government will do is desperately hang onto the USA coattails, including following the American lead on all things israel.

    And for its blind loyalty, the UK will get manoeuvred off the Security Council as a permanent member, whenever the USA decides that another nuclear power, which also has the largest population on the planet – India – could be more useful for Washington’s purposes?

  • Ian

    Another blatant, disturbing and vile example of Israel’s deliberate cruelty towards the native population of the region:

    https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-07-21/ty-article/.premium/idf-to-vaccinate-israeli-soldiers-after-polio-found-in-gaza-sewage/00000190-d490-decf-a7b2-d5b797d50000

    Israel is vaccinating its troops against polio because the virus has been found in the sewage of Gaze, which is everywhere, as of course they have destroyed all sanitation, clean water supplies and medical treatment. As the ICJ judgement points out Israel as the occupying power has the responsibility and obligation to treat the civil population with the same care as it treats its own, because both populations are overseen and controlled by them. Denying Palestinians and of course in particular children access to polio vaccination, or clean water and sanitation, as part of a deliberate policy to render living there impossible, is of course a very serious war crime. And on any level of basic, common humanity, just deplorable, sick, fascist, inhuman depraved behaviour. But entirely of a piece with their whole campaign and mindset. Strike them off the register of human beings.

    • Ian

      I mean what is there left to say about people who feel nothing and do nothing about children who will drink polio-infected water caused by deliberate annihilation of their basic right to life? When they have the means and supplies to do something, but reserve it for themselves. They are inoculating themselves against being human. And then give us BS about being ‘moral’. How have they reached this abyss of calculated cruelty and depravity? No human being is born to be like this. They are educated and socialised to be this way.

      • Ian

        For those interested in this systematic and deliberate attempt at allowing disease to spread with no healthcare, this is a very good summary of this unbelievably cruel and depraved policy, which affects children more than any others
        :
        https://mondoweiss.net/2024/07/polio-and-the-destruction-of-gazas-health-infrastructure/

        (Polio was previously eradicated in Gaza…
        Polio according to the WHO “mainly affects children under 5 years of age” but can infect “anyone of any age who is unvaccinated”. Furthermore, “One in 200 infections leads to irreversible paralysis (usually in the legs). Among those paralyzed, 5-10% die when their breathing muscles become immobilized”. )

        “On November 19 Giora Eiland wrote in his Israeli newspaper column to exhort the government to continue its siege on the Gaza Strip, emphasizing that “severe epidemics in the southern Gaza Strip will bring victory closer and will reduce the number of IDF casualties.” The enthusiastic identification of an entire society as a military target, and the determination to inflict maximum levels of suffering to compensate for Israel’s military failures, has been a common refrain among Israel’s senior political and military leaders.

        Central to this campaign has been the eradication of Gaza’s health infrastructure. The WHO speaks of the “continued dismantling of the health system”. In late May Doctors Without Borders (MSF) put it thus: “In the last seven months the healthcare system in the Gaza Strip has been systematically dismantled. ”

        Monstrous sadists and torturers are apparently the ‘most moral army in the world’.

    • Brian Red

      That is interesting. I wonder if it is only polio that they are vaccinating their soldiers against.

      Recall that the Zionists used biological weapons during the slaughter and expulsions they carried out in 1948. This included the use of typhoid in the battle for Acre.

      Turning off the water supply (with Starmer applauding) and severely restricting the food supply (as they are already doing) also help spread infectious disease even if specific bacteria and viruses aren’t spread deliberately. Anyone who is any doubt about this should think about what happens when most people don’t have the water they need to wash themselves and get rid of their waste, at the same time as they are getting weaker because of their decreasing access to food and drinking water.

      Yes this is genocide.

    • AG

      His son. So they don´t have to print new leaflets.
      If they were smart – for once they´d take Sanders – but they won´t. M. Obama would have been funny but any different than a Biden administration? Just more dogs on the WH lawn. So it´s Clinton v. Trump redux. Or what?

      • M.J.

        He’s endorsed Kamala Harris, and so have the Clintons. Biden has had warm tributes from Nancy Pelosi, Elizabeth Warren and Gavin Newsom.

      • JK redux

        I would vote for Bernie but unfortunately he is too far left to be electable in the US.

        Harris has a lot of opposition directed at her, I’m not sure why.

        Biden is a decent man (wrong on Gaza) but past his sell by date.

        Amusing that Trump is now the old guy running for office.

        • Brian Red

          It’s not 100% that Trump will be the Republican candidate on election day. And if for any reason he isn’t, Vance wouldn’t necessarily be his replacement.

          Biden is likely to resign the presidency this week in my opinion. It makes sense media-wise to create a big whoosh of momentum promoting Harris. First establish her as the more or less unchallenged Democratic candidate, and then make her the president. Other leading Democrats such as M Obama and H Clinton are likely to endorse her before she takes over the Oval Office. I have no doubt that the Democratic leadership does want to win this election.

          Dunno whether Harris will become president before or after his imperial excellency Netanyahu visits on Wednesday.

          There are angles that I’m not following closely. What insulting epithet is the Trump side using against Harris? Or haven’t they deployed one yet? Perhaps they’re waiting until the run-up to a debate?

          • Brian Red

            It seems the insulting epithet of choice may focus on Harris’s laughing:

            https://archive.is/T5HhE

            …framing her as unserious and confused
            …focusing on one or two things she has said over the course of several years that she has expressed incoherently
            …and pronouncing her name wrong (“Ka MAH la” instead of the correct “Comma-luh”).

            This should be pretty easy for the Democrats to oppose, at least among voters who aren’t already MAGA nutters, especially once Harris has taken over as president and is seen to lay out a few points that are at issue in this election.

          • zoot

            Ilan Pappé has one for you, Brian … “I do not remember an age like this, when politicians were of such low calibre. Intellectually morally shallow reductionist people who have very little to offer society apart from their own careers.”

          • will moon

            Brian, Harris had a controversial spell as a prosecutor, where she prosecuted minorities at greater rates for the same crimes than whites, with some media commentators at the time stressing she did this to overcompensate for her own minority status, to show she was not biased lol! – a safe pair of hand at the tiller

            Have you seen the montage of Harris repeating the phrase “unburdened by what has been” in various different speeches. It did not reflect well on this politician’s attitude, appearing as gross complacency to me – semi-modular rhetoric, suitable for any occasion a Veep must bleat. If she is to become Prez can she perform in the spotlight, particularly rhetorically, with pressure from Trump and supporters? – Murdoch is for MAGA, Adelson is for MAGA, Trump is for MAGA, all three mega-zionists, so MAGA is for Israel first? To make America great, Israel must be first made great?

            I imagine Harris is an Israel-first kind of politician but she ain’t MAGA.

            You can have any colour you like as long as it is red, so said Henry Ford, an American oligarch much admired in the Third Reich and in Stalin’s Soviet Union. It’s true today of America, Britain etc – they can have any leader they like, as long as that leader is a fanatical Zionist

          • Bayard

            “You can have any colour you like as long as it is red, so said Henry Ford”

            Black, the Model T’s were black.

  • Jack

    20 years ago the same court dealt somewhat with the same issue: Sadly nothing has changed, the corrupt palestinian authority/Arab League did nothing with it.

    2004:“The International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an advisory opinion today that Israel’s building of a barrier in the occupied Palestinian territory is illegal and said construction must stop immediately and Israel should make reparations for any damage caused.”
    https://news.un.org/en/story/2004/07/108912

  • Goose

    As Biden announces he’s quitting in his 2024 bid. It’s difficult to imagine a worse presidency than his for the Palestinians – specifically Gazans. Biden’s perceived statesmanship and credibility, in European capitals, over that of his predecessor, has facilitated an indifference about the ongoing genocide in Gaza. European leaders, who have seemed mostly incapable of criticism of Israel or the US, act as if they remained convinced and sought solace in the fact that, however awful Biden’s response was, it had to be better than that of a President Trump.

    Even the wholly inadequate Trump/ Kushner peace plan looks optimistic given where we’re at now:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_peace_plan

    The only thing positive about these and similar more generous proposals, is how, If implemented, they’d at least give Palestinians a basic territorial foothold. As the years pass the territorial claim and situation on the ground worsens, as shown above, so putting down a marker, any marker, increasingly matters. The Swiss cheese of Israeli settlement ‘enclaves’ are far from ideal and deeply problematic. But they’d be a whole lot less attractive to new settlers situated in a Palestinian state. If anything, it’s likely most Israelis would voluntarily leave; knowing the expansionist dream well and truly over.

    • Goose

      More on Biden…

      He, or more accurately, his administration, have completely screwed over Europe to America’s competitive advantage too. Ably assisted by the likes of von der Leyen and others. The unnecessary – for want of very nearly signed peace agreement – ongoing war in Ukraine, has been disastrous for Europe. Ending cheap energy for Germany’s manufacturers; then the still unsolved Nord Stream blasts acting as an insurance policy, ensuring no early resumption of those cheap supplies? The US now happily ‘fills the gap with its pricier LNG. The ongoing war has enlarged NATO, with Finland and Sweden becoming members; further deepening US control over EU govts and strengthening their foreign policy influence, through an abusive codependency. It’s also massively driven up defence spending, resulting in full US order books, overflowing in fact. If this were all planned to put the US on top, it’s working out perfectly.

      • JK redux

        Hmm.

        Sweden and Finland had no interest in joining NATO since its founding.

        What could possibly have pushed them to reconsider?

        Brutal US bullying?

        Or the unprovoked and illegal invasion of a neighbour by a revanchist authoritarian Russkiy regime?

        Damn but that’s a difficult question….

        • Goose

          JK redux

          Paradoxically, they’re probably less safe now than they were outside. As now they’ll be designated as adversaries and targeted should hostilities break out.

          They’ll certainly sacrifice a large degree of their sovereignty by joining too; as the US will view maintaining pro-NATO govts in these now NATO countries as being of vital US security interest. These leads to Pro-Washington thinktanks, pro-NATO political & military networks and cabals who’ll plot against any hostile politician. Plus all the other negatives for democracy that flow from getting close to the US.

          It’s been discussed before here, at length. But there was both internal: Azov; Pravyi Sector and Svoboda; and external: US, UK pressure, put on Zelensky to reject any compromise deal, or other peaceful solutions, in favour of confrontation. Regrettably, Russia took the bait and invaded. But the US and UK did all they could to antagonise the situation to guarantee that outcome. Boris Johnson’s role and late interventions were despicable.

        • David Warriston

          So why didn’t Sweden and Finland join NATO following Soviet military incursions inside Hungary (1956) and Czechoslovakia (1968)?

          • Goose

            David Warriston

            I guess you are addressing that to JK redux?

            But, to answer, I agree, and that’s a very good point. For things were far more dangerous back then.

            My guess, is those countries had better, wiser, more organic leaderships back then. The US meddles massively in Europe’s politics today, as does the equally unscrupulous Israel and their lobbyists. Those leaderships back then, probably realised if you let the US in, they’ll shape your politics in their own interests, and you won’t even know how they’re doing it. Joining NATO really is a Faustian bargain.

            And if Europeans are, God forbid, pushed into a nuclear war by these corrupt US agents of influence operating in our governments, Europeans may realise the warped nature of that bargain too late.

          • Brian Red

            Regarding Sweden – a country owned by one family, the Wallenbergs – the answer probably lies in contracts achievable by weapons manufacturer Bofors.

            Finland is a different case and pro-US interests had doubtless strengthened their position there for years.

            “Revanchist” is a term that might turn out to be more applicable to Finland than to Russia.

            Recall that the war between Ukraine and Russians started in 2014 and it was friends of Kolomoisky and the Kiev government that started it – by attacking Russians in the East. Thinking the war started in 2022 is mistaken. The belief that it started because uncouth Mr Putin hopped over his neighbour’s fence is for Daily Mail and Sun readers only.

          • Goose

            David Warriston

            I find it ironic how we were sold leaving the EU as a means to restore the UK’s sovereignty. Yet the biggest impediment to the UK exercising sovereignty, is the delusion that is the UK elite’s ‘special relationship’ with the US, and being a leading member of NATO.

            Our foreign policy is decided in Washington. I’ve given the example before, of how a then PM Cameron shared a pint in his local Oxfordshire pub, with China’s leader, Xi Jinping, in September 2015. Xi Jinping was here on an official State visit and lavished with all the trimmings accordingly. PM Cameron and Osborne hailed a ‘new golden era’ of UK-China relations. Fast-forward a year later (2016), Trump is elected ; Trump’s platform and rhetoric was very anti-China. What does the UK and its new golden era of relations do? The UK’s position changes to China hostile, and its been ramped up ever since.

            If Trump and Vance win and reach a deal with Putin over Ukraine, including security guarantees, you should expect the UK to immediately fall into line again. And the likes of JK redux et al, will be left scratching their heads.

          • Goose

            Brian Red

            Idd.

            Too many politicians and military officials in Europe won’t accept, or simply deny, the fact the 2013-14 Maidan coup wasn’t universally supported throughout Ukraine. Or the fact that it was inevitably going to lead to a secessionist response in parts of the East.

            Ursula von der Leyen is one of the most deceitful people when it comes to revisting these realities. She uses the Orwellian ‘Revolution of Dignity’ terminology to describe what was, when you strip away the EU sugar-coating: a brutal overthrow of a democratically elected President.

            It shouldn’t be a question now of whether Kyiv should hold onto: Luhansk, Donetsk ; Zaporizhia and Kherson. As Kyiv forfeited that right by overthrowing the president the East elected. It should be about what the people want, as they were never asked.

          • AG

            A recommended conversation about Finland and the threat of going to war. By Neutrality Studies, 60 min.:

            “Globalists Are Prepping FINLAND To Be The Next Proxy-War
            with Prof. Tuomas Malinen”
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6JBaYkraIQ

            Initially it might appear a bit off. But it does make sense after listening to the guy for a few minutes and if one is willing to think with the twisted minds of the scenario-writers of NATO who are paid to think what is not to be said in public untill it´s too late.
            And Tuomas Malinen is a great character to listen too. One can actually learn about Finland.

            And as a minor reminder, NATO despite officially being a defensive alliance:
            1) has only conducted wars of aggression
            2) wars exclusively on territory NOT NATO
            3) violated the Paris Charter and the NATO treaty calling to prioritize peaceful solutions

            They have done none of that. Ever.
            The Stoltenberg puppet himself stated that the War in Ukraine was caused by NATO expansion.

            The majority in Eastern and Southern Ukraine were against Maidan, which they called “Euro-Maidan” and therefore they did an “Anti-Maidan” in response, which however was totally ignored in the West.

            p.s. See this crisp short piece by Swiss Ralf Bosshard, retired lieutenant colonel of the Swiss army and a former senior OSCE official:

            “Revising history is the West’s strategy for preparing for war”
            https://dan–news-ru.translate.goog/stories/peresmotr-istorii–eto-strategija-zapada-dlja-podgotovki-k-vojne/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp

          • David Warriston

            Yes Goose,
            My comment was put below yours in timing: it was addressed to JK Redux, our resident pseudo Bernie Sanders supporter. NATO with a human face type of thing.

            NATO’s credibility was holed below the waterline the minute Putin decided to send his troops into Ukraine and there is nothing Stoltenberg can do to stop it. Of course Ukraine is not a NATO country (although many in the west may think that it is) but it would have made no difference whether it was. NATO is about defending the USA. And that means keeping Russia at arms length. If Sweden or Finland were invaded tomorrow morning then the NATO response would be the same as we have seen Ukraine. Lots of weapons and big talk.

            No one in the USA or Western Europe is prepared to die for these countries. Any attempts, such as conscription by other means now being floated by the MIC, will be resisted on the streets of western capitals. NATO has lost in Ukraine, where its fighters were best trained and historically most committed. They have run out of corpses. What chance Sweden or Finland who have not fought a war in living memory?

          • JK redux

            Interesting question David.

            Fear of a Soviet reaction I suppose.

            The USSR had twice the population of present day Russia (and additionally controlled most of E Europe) and was only deterred from invading W Europe by the prospect of nuclear retaliation.

            The happily much reduced present day Russia is no longer able to threaten W Europe as a whole with conventional arms so it is rational for Sweden, Finland and the Baltics to put reliance on NATO as a deterrent against Russian salami tactics. Sweden and Finland also have significant military resources which (in coordination with NATO) make a Russian invasion far more risky (for Putin).

          • JK redux

            David,
            you said that ” If Sweden or Finland were invaded tomorrow morning then the NATO response would be the same as we have seen Ukraine. Lots of weapons and big talk.
            No one in the USA or Western Europe is prepared to die for these countries. Any attempts, such as conscription by other means now being floated by the MIC, will be resisted on the streets of western capitals. ”

            A bit of on the one hand, on the other hand there.

            First you say that NATO would not respond vigorously to a Russkiy invasion of Sweden or Norway.
            Then you say that any attempt to impose conscription would be resisted on the streets.

            You omit the middle ground; that NATO’s volunteer professional militaries would finish what’s left of Russia’s depleted (by the UA) military tout de suite if Putin was mad enough to attack Sweden or Finland.

          • Tom Welsh

            “And that means keeping Russia at arms length”.

            My, what long arms you must have, Uncle Sam!

            Except that they can’t do much about the Bering Strait… or undetectable Russian submarines armed with (potentially thermonuclear) hypersonic missiles that might be anywhere in either ocean, perhaps within a few miles of New York, Washington, San Diego…

            Not to mention Poseidon:
            https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2022/03/russias-new-poseidon-super-weapon-what-you-need-to-know/

          • Brian Red

            @Jack, isn’t it true that Swedish service personnel have been using mostly NATO-standard arms for decades?

            War is coming. This much is clear. I’m not sure anywhere in Europe is safe now. Perhaps Ireland and Iceland will stay out of it.

          • Goose

            Jack

            You’ve got to remember that neither the UK, nor the US, are truly representative democracies. Don’t mistake the free choice of consumerism, for democratic choice.
            We’ve just had a general election in the UK, in which the ‘winning’ Labour party somehow obtained 2/3rds of the (650) seats with 1/3 of the vote or 33.7% . No sensible person would argue that result is in any way representative of how the country voted. We have a US born politician, Tobias Ellwood, who polices mis/disinformation, as part of the army’s sketchy 77th Brigade. Ellwood lost his seat in the election and this what he’s put out in an opinion piece in the guardian today:

            “But let’s remember Labour was totally unelectable in 2019. Yet it reinvented itself to secure a thumping landslide in just one parliament.”

            Labour got half a million less votes in the recent election, than they did in 2019! And there’s a larger electorate today. These people just create false narratives to suit their own agenda.

            In the US, the two-party system looks designed to lock out meaningful choice. Up to 70%, in some polls, complain they feel like they’re always being asked to vote for the lesser evil. And furthermore, many say they long for real choices and multiple parties to choose from. The expression the ‘uniparty’ has become common parlance for good reason.

          • Tom Welsh

            Subversion, I think, Jack. Subversion pure and simple.

            Nations are not solid homogeneous lumps, although it is often convenient to speak about them as if they were.

            Nations are exceptionally complicated systems of systems of systems, and at the bottom level they consist of people. I gather that Sweden has a population of about 10.5 million – about the same as North Carolina or Michigan. How many of those individuals do you think exercise decisive power in the matter of such things as international relations, trade, finance, and military power? Probably a few dozen. The people who own the USA are past masters at subversion, and – being capitalists – they love to get more for less. Thus they are very expert at putting money and threats where they exert most leverage.

            No Swedish or Finnish patriot would ever dream of antagonising Russia. It does no good, and it could do a very great deal of harm.

            Like so many other nations, they are not ruled in the interests of their people, but in the interests of a few powerful individuals most of whom live far away. Money – is there anything it can’t do?

        • Tom Welsh

          Which neighbour of Sweden and Finland did Russia invade?

          “Out of 193 countries that are currently UN member states, we’ve [Britain] invaded or fought conflicts in the territory of 171”.
          — “All the Countries We’ve Ever Invaded: And the Few We Never Got Round To”, by Stuart Laycock.

          Only 22 nations were never invaded by the British: Andorra, Belarus, Bolivia, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Guatemala, Ivory Coast, Kyrgyzstan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Mali, Marshall Islands, Monaco, Mongolia, Paraguay, Sao Tome and Principe, Sweden, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Vatican.

          “All the Countries the Americans Have Ever Invaded: Making Friends and Influencing People?”, by Christopher Kelly and Stuart Laycock

          There is a nice map here:
          https://vividmaps.com/countries-attacked-by-the-us/

  • Republicofscotland

    You’re barking up the wrong tree if you in anyway think that Starmer’s government are going to toe-the-line with regards to the ICJ’s (opinion) ruling. Oh Labour might pay it lip service but behind the scenes the support will go on.

    In truth the only way the genocide will be stopped is by force.

  • nonclassical

    …thanking you yet again, sir, proving our contributions well spent!

    On the subject of daily issue; allow me to remind Kamala Harris received not one committed delegate during 2020 primary candidacy run. In other words, she meets only one “quality” of contemporary candidacy; (“thems that brung her”)…

    • M.J.

      According to The Hill, as of last night Kamala Harris already had 531 of thr 1986 endorsements she needs, to be sure of getting the Democratic Party’s nomination:
      https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4785260-vice-president-harris-delegates/
      Kamala’s progress to the nomination looks very likely and increasingly so. If, as I hope, she wins in November and saves America from fascism (and thereafter Ukraine as well, from the Russian variety) I see the possibility of seeing an award winning series “Madam President”, perhaps written by someone like Aaron Sorkin, in the next decade!

      • David Warriston

        M.J.
        There is a gushing piece by Simon Tisdall in today’s Guardian which may be to your taste.

        But whatever the merits of Ms Harris (and they appear as dubious as the ‘decency’ accorded to President Biden) it is rather late in the day to save America from fascism. The choice is more a case of deciding between Himmler or Goebbels.

        Your reference to Russia as fascist is often used in the west but has at least one serious stumbling block. Every state ever designated as fascist immediately represses organised labour which in the case of Ukraine includes banning the Communist Party and criminalising the singing of ‘The Internationale.’ This is not the case in Russia where the Communist Party remains the main opposition group. In fact the Presidential election won by Boris Yeltsin was disputed at the time (but not in the west obviously, who preferred a drunk to a communist.))

        • M.J.

          That reminds me of a joke. Updated for today, an American in Moscow says to his Russian host ‘Any American can stand on the steps of the Capitol and shout abuse at President Biden.’ The Russian replies ‘But in Moscow, anyone can shout abuse against President Biden!’
          I understand why Ukraine would suppress Communism, for the harm it caused for generations. Besides, a former KGB agent mounted an invasion of Ukraine in an insane attempt to recreate the former Russian empire, which is ongoing. May Ukraine drive the invaders out and preserve democracy.
          Слава Україні!

          • David Warriston

            It’s a good anti-soviet joke, well known in Moscow. I suspect it emerged from the magazine Krokodil which satirised the system from a left libertarian angle for 70 years and occupied a similar role to the TV programme Spitting Image under the Thatcher regime. (BTW, is it conceivable that a programme like Spitting Image would be allowed on UK television today?)

            Putin’s reflections on the USSR, which he did indeed serve as a KGB agent, are not in line with your claimed motivation for him sending troops inside Ukraine.

            Driving the Russian ‘invaders’ out of eastern Ukraine might prove problematic since at the last referendum the people voted to become integrated into the RF. This was in line with their refusal since 2014 to be occupied by a right wing nationalist government which had overthrown the previous regime through violence. (Or ‘democracy’ as you called it, perhaps with a grain of truth.) It will be one almighty army which takes on the task of ‘re-liberating’ the peoples of eastern Ukraine.

          • Tom Welsh

            I’ll match your joke with another, which I think is a lot more germane to this discussion.

            A Soviet citizen finds himself sitting next to an American on an airliner bound for the USA. They get talking, and the American asks, “Why are you travelling to the USA?” The Soviet man replies: “To study American propaganda”. Startled, the American asks, “What American propaganda?”

            And the Soviet says, “Exactly”.

        • Pears Morgaine

          Communist states repress organised labour by taking unions into state control; they get reduced to being conduits for party policy. The same thing happened in Fascist Italy, in Nazi Germany unions were banned and replaced by a state controlled entity which inevitably sided with employers. The current ‘independent’ association of trade unions in Russia is closely aligned with the Ruling United Russia party.

          • David Warriston

            There’s some truth in what you say about trade unions, although Nazi Germany on occasion settled on the workers’ terms rather than face a challenge.

            However no Fascist State can tolerate a Communist Party, even a nationalistic leaning one like in present day Russia. The leaders of any CP are arrested and the party itself banned under a fascist system. Historically, the USA has tended to arrest the leadership but did not ban the CP itself- possibly because its control of media narrative made that unnecessary. But across the western world the grip on media narrative has faltered due to the internet hence the invention of new crimes which amount to the ‘Thoughtcrime’ described by Orwell.

          • Bayard

            Saying “A and B are like chalk and cheese” does not imply that A is like chalk, nor B like cheese.

        • Tom Welsh

          “Every state ever designated as fascist immediately represses organised labour…”

          Actually, that sounds much more like the USA, where on many occasions demonstrating or striking workers have been shot down in heaps by actual soldiers.

  • Peter Mo

    “Safe and secure Israel” Now being a logical man I would have thought given the massive destruction and devastating loss of lives that “safe and secure” should apply to Palestine. But no Labour policy is only “safe and secure” for Israel.

  • Reza

    Green Party leader Carla Denyer salutes Genocide Joe, after his valedictory 9 months of mass slaughter and lies

    “I wish President Biden well and thank him for his many years of public service.
    This cannot have been an easy decision for him. But to take a decision that is personally difficult, but that is in the public interest, is a true sign of leadership.”

    This is the degree of parliamentary opposition that Starmer and Lammy must somehow navigate during the next 5 years.

    • nevermind

      Hi Reza, I am equally appalled at Cara Denyer’s comment regarding Biden’s long record of support for every war the US has got itself into, most of them by shady means. She has probably never heard of the Gulf of Tomkin false flag.
      Maybe history is not her strong point. I shall write her a little message.

  • nevermind

    The situation’s dire in Palestine and Ghaza, with war at just about every border that has been illegally expanded.
    The situation internally is equally insecure as forced conscription is demanded by Netanyahu’s cabinet, with the majority of the population demanding an election, wanting rid of him.
    He will fly and meet with Kamala Harris, another sworn Zionist in his pocket. He will ask her for more bombs and missiles, so he can carry on killing women and children in Ghaza, attack Lebanese and Syrian positions at will and collectively punish the civilian population in Yemen some more.
    His plan is to start a war with Iran, regardless what anybody in the world says about his murderous Zionist campaign.
    He has the US, UK, Germany, and to a large extent NATO, eating out of his hands, running and ruining their countries by undermining their institutions and interfering in their resolve.
    The fascists are devouring their own civilian populations, controlling them with police and military.
    They’re forever expanding their global network of military bases in the hope of controlling Chinese and Russian economic affairs with more threats.
    Something will have to give soon. I would advise to actively create petitions that asks our newly elected MPs to look by Starmer on all those points he steadfastly ignored, not just one person, but as many signatures and support you can gather. Copy it and send the original to your MP. Then publish the petition online and send it to the local press, the more the better.
    DO IT ASAP.

  • Robert Dyson

    As I saw it too. A majority of the UN General Assembly members asked the ICJ for an opinion on the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory as defined prior to the 1967 war. The ICJ was obliged to, and rightly, gave the question considerable study and responded fully. It is for the UN General Assembly to decide what to do next, to decide on the politics of the judgement. Actions taken to stop Israeli takeover of territory now have legal backing. This ruling supersedes any other agreements that might have been made – like the Oslo agreement. The ruling is not an end point but the start of a process that will certainly result in freedom for Palestine even if it takes many years. The hegemony of the USA and its allies is at an end, the other power block, BRICS, that is ascending I am sure will support this ruling.

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