Genocide Blog 38 – USA-Israeli Plan for Genocide? How to oppose it!
16.04.2024
It is nearly a month since my last genocide blog. Words sometimes leave me. And they left me when Biden – along with Sholz and Sunak & Co – all proceeded so coldly with supplying the bombs and organizing the starvation of the Palestinian women and children in Gaza, and pretending not to notice the summary execution of trussed-up Palestinian doctors and hospital patients in Gaza nor even the bloody Israeli bombing of Iran’s Embassy in Damascus. I am reduced to speechlessness to see these male leaders, posturing in their suits-and-ties, still backing a Netanyahu busy strangling Palestinians off their land in the West Bank including East Jerusalem, while we watch Gaza being stifled to death.
It is truly beyond words.
The scope of the collapse of the facade of Western “values” is now so vast, so brash, so brazen, it reduces me to this speechlessness. To what does one even appeal? Are these zombies leading the West? I am now obliged to view the Israeli genocide, as a second more broadened round of the collapse of German “civilization”, the peak of western civilization at the time, when the Nazis gradually came to power and carried out their genocide. At that moment too, many were left speechless. The evident fact of the Nazi genocide in the very country at the peak of western “civilization” at that time forces me to see the evident fact of the Israeli-USA genocide perpetrated by those at the peak of the whole of western supposed “civilization” today.
The idea of this blog was that five or six of us in LALIT take it upon ourselves to prepare a regular sharing of updates on the genocide to help “see us through the night”. We knew it would be long and difficult, emotionally, psychologically, even physically. When we said “see us through the night”, the “us” meant ourselves, and also all of us activists that try to stop the genocide, even as it is being unleashed upon the Palestinians. And we were near to failing. I could not write the blog for nearly a month. I could not help see us through the night. We did, during this past month, denounce those in Mauritius who host the US Navy Band on their own premises, even as this same USA arms and justifies Israel in its genocide. We did denounce the Israeli-supporting UN report by the Mauritian, Pramila Patten. We, in SOMALP and Lalit, did organize and participate in the fantastic Free Palestine March last Saturday in the streets of Rose-Hill. But, we did not manage the blog, the blog designed to keep our emotions calm, our minds focused, and our actions perfect.
I have been shaken out of my speechlessness by a few things.
First I am reading Ilan Pappé’s 2007 history of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine that Rajni Lallah ordered for LALIT. I had time to read it because I had to have a wee surgery on my back at Jeetoo Hospital last week, for a funny wart on my shoulder blade. (The free and universal health care at Jeetoo was, as usual, fantastic. The hospital workers were all caring, though understaffed. And I made two friends having similar little biopsies, because we went through the whole palaver together. And then in the Bambous Dispensary queue, I had more time to read, and to make acquaintance with others in the “pansman” queue.) Page by brilliant page of Pappés history, I have read the details of the Israeli and British subterfuge during the 1948 genocide against the Palestinians, and this made me realize that the 1948 genocide is being re-enacted on a vast, industrial, even digital-electronic scale. It is quite uncanny. It is as though Pappé is describing the Israeli and American subterfuge of the 2023-24 Gaza genocide. The same trickery, surveillance, sadism, colonial superciliousness, settler racism, wholesale murder, explosion of people’s houses, intentional starvation, and then land-grabbing. The same old narratives, too. But, now, on a vast scale. And now, signaling the death throes of western “civilization”. This has brought my tongue back. Speech is returning. I have begun to realize that this genocide is a continuation, also, of something else. It is a second, broadened out round of the Nazi reign that did not manage to spread throughout the West in the 1930s and 1940s, and was brought down only by massive armed struggle by mainly the army of the USSR, but also by the armed forces of Britain and the USA.
For me, there was a moment when I realized “they”, meaning “the Western powers”, were all in it together. They are all in the genocide against the Palestinians together. And have always been. It is not just Netanyahu and his Ben G’Vir and Smotrich fascists that are perpetrating the genocide. Not just the IDF, either. But also Messrs Joe Biden, Anthony Blinken, Olaf Scholz, Rishi Sunak and Ms Ursula von der Leyen. And the arms manufacturers behind them.
The proof, if we needed it, was the indecent speed with which these leaders cut off their aid to UNRWA. UNRWA is the organization that since 1948 has been the life-blood of aid distribution to Palestinian refugees from the Nakba of that year. It is the only organization that can prevent the genocide by starvation in Gaza right now. And these countries cut their aid the very moment the ICJ issued its judgment of “plausible genocide” against Israel. They cut their aid on the spot.*
How could we be expected to get our heads around that? I have taken a month to get my head around that.
The very same day that the ICJ – the highest court in the world – instructs Israel to stop the killing, maiming and destruction of life-support of Palestinians, these leaders begin to cut their aid to the only organization that keeps Palestinians in Gaza alive? Are they mad? And they do this, even as many of these leaders continue to supply the bombs and ammunition with which to physically wipe Palestinians out. Then they drop air-lifted food on the starving peoples’ heads, killing some.
We understand the desperation Israel faced with the ICJ judgment.
They were found “plausibly” guilty. Caught red-handed. And they intend to complete the genocide. So, we understand, with horror of course, that they did not want people to find out the details in the ICJ judgment, to read it thoroughly, and then discuss it at length. So, we understand that Netanyahu had to think up how to change the subject fast, and how to continue his genocide by other means all the while. We thus understand that, the very same day of the judgment, Netanyahu was reduced to a mad, desperate and utterly transparent cheap little accusation against UNRWA.
That, we understand. He is guilty. He wants to cover up, and continue with his exaction.
So Netanyahu accuses a dozen, a mere dozen, UNRWA employees of the total of 30,000 – without an iota of evidence, not one – of involvement in the 7 October Hamas-led incursion out of the Gaza prison into Israel. This mad ploy of his was enough to make the perfectly sane leaders of the following Western countries, without even any consultations with anyone else in their state apparatus, to execute something totally impossible to do without aforethought – impossible for the ordinary reason of bureaucratic slowness: they cut their expenditure to UNRWA on the spot, thus announcing the starvation of the Palestinians in Gaza. They did it in a matter of hours, or in some cases a few days. It is a procedure that takes a fortnight on fast-track. But the individual leaders took it on their own heads.
The countries and individual leaders who did this premeditated act of genocide are:
Batch NUMBER ONE:
The United States of America – Joe Biden
Switzerland -- Viola Amherd
UK – Rishi Sunak
Netherlands -- Mark Rutte
Italy – Georgia Meloni
Austria -- Alexander Van der Bellen
New Zealand -- Christopher Luxon
Romania -- Klaus Iohannis
Estonia -- Alar Karis
All the above countries maintain the suspension of their contributions to UNRWA (data up to 11 April 2024**).
Batch NUMBER TWO:
The following countries also cut their contributions with indecent haste.
However, they later re-instated their contributions. But... But they only did so, once Nicaragua on 1 March had begun its prosecution of Germany at the ICJ for complicity with genocide, which is a form of genocide under the Convention.
Germany – Olaf Scholz (later partially reinstated to cover his skin).
European union – Ursula von der Leyen (later partially reinstated, Germany biggest member state.)
Sweden - Ulf Kristersson (later reinstated funding, EU member)
Japan - Fumio Kishida (later reinstated funding)
France – Emmanuel Macron (later reinstated funding, EU member)
Canada – Justin Trudeau (later reinstated funding)
Australia – Anthony Albanese (later reinstated funding)
Finland -- (at the time) Sauli Niinistö (later reinstated funding, EU member)
Iceland -- Guðni Thorlacius Jóhannesson (later reinstated funding, heavily integrated into Europe.)
It is not possible for one country, let alone 17 countries, to coordinate this. It is impossible to take the decision collectively, to ratify it, and organize to suspend their contributions to UNRWA that quickly and in unison, unless it was premeditated. If it was premeditated, this means that all these leaders and their States are consciously part of the genocide. Once the ICJ begins to expose the genocide in the South African case, they simultaneously cut their funds for feeding Gaza, so as to cause the genocide to continue. Some, then change their minds after the second ICJ case, the one that Nicaragua prosecuted against Germany, reminds them that “complicity with genocide” actually constitutes “genocide” according to the Treaty for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide”, a very short treaty well worth reading.***
So, it has been tough realizing the degree of rot that has set in to Western “civilization”. But, there it is. We have to face the fact.
And what gives us our voice back now, is that all over the world the people are acting. Not only in marches, demonstrations, and in elections. Yes, George Galloway of the Workers’ Party in the UK, beat Labour and Conservative candidates soundly in a recent by-election. But now, all over the world people have been blocking roads and bridges, organizing economic sabotage in countries that support Israel in the genocide. In the USA, on April 15th the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco was blocked and the O-Hare International Airport highway in Chicago was too, and the Brooklyn Bridge in New York was blocked, too. In Seattle, the highway to the airport was blocked. So that there were demonstrations in Illinois, California, New York and Oregon on Monday. The aim of the “A-15 demonstrations” was to inform people of the genocide in Gaza, Palestine. It sure worked.
Our voices must be heard. Here, the Government must support the South African case against Israel for genocide. It must cut all ties with Israel. It must take a lead, to get the whole of the African union to stand up against Israel, the USA and all their war-mongering allies. It is urgent. As Netanyahu gets more desperate, he is going to lure a willing USA into an attack against Iran, which is supporting the people of Palestine. The stakes are far too high. Israel and its US backer must be controlled.
The UN is going to have to find a way to declare a “no fly zone”, and a way to impose it. Countries like China and South Africa will have to offer the means to enforce this. Otherwise, the genocide will just go ahead.
And we have to get our voices back, and demand this. We have to organize. As indeed we try to do.
Lindsey Collen, for LALIT
16 April, 2024.
* In our last Genocide Blog of 20 March, we wrote this: “It was already suspicious when, the very moment Israel announced its lame accusation against UNRWA, the USA on the spot cut its funding to UNRWA. Biden did not even need the time to ask Blinken. Blinken did not have the time to ask Austen. Biden just cut the USA’s contribution to UNRWA. Just like that. As if it had decided long beforehand so to do. And the USA got 17 other stupid countries, as if they had already committed to it previously by some SOFA (State of Armed Forces Agreement that the USA cooks up for such moments), to cut their funding literally within hours. They, too, did not take a split-second to discuss the matter. They did not even wonder if this might be the bit of evidence that is a nail in their coffin when they deny being “complicit with genocide”. Each of these subaltern States acted with a celerity not possible for such state bureaucracies. They cut the funds on the spot. Without an iota of proof, even.”
** https://unwatch.org
*** Just google “genocide treaty pdf”
