Our Wednesday News Analysis | To continue the Gaza genocide, Israel and the US must destroy the laws of war

An Israeli army battle tank operates in southern Israel near the border with the Gaza Strip on 29 May 2024 (AFP)

The world’s two highest courts have made an implacable enemy of Israel in trying to uphold international law and end Israeli atrocities in Gaza.

The ICC prosecutor made clear that he understands all too well what is at stake if the ICC and ICJ turn a blind eye to the Gaza genocide, as Israel and the US want. He told Amanpour:

"If we don't apply the law equally, we will disintegrate as a species."

Separate announcements last week by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) should have forced Israel onto the back foot in Gaza.

A panel of judges at the ICJ – sometimes known as the World Court – demanded last Friday that Israel immediately stop its current offensive on Rafah, in southern Gaza.

Instead, Israel responded by intensifying its atrocities.

On Sunday, it bombed a supposedly “safe zone” crowded with refugee families forced to flee from the rest of Gaza, which has been devastated by Israel’s rampage for the past eight months. The air strike set fire to an area crammed with tents, killing dozens of Palestinians, many of whom burnt alive. A video shows a man holding aloft a baby beheaded by the Israeli blast.

Hundreds more, many of them women and children, suffered serious injuries, including horrifying burns.

Israel has destroyed almost all of the medical facilities that could treat Rafah’s wounded, as well as denying entry to basic medical supplies such as painkillers that could ease their torment.

This was precisely the outcome US President Joe Biden warned of months ago when he suggested that an Israeli attack on Rafah would constitute a “red line”. But the US red line evaporated the moment Israel crossed it. The best Biden’s officials could manage was a mealy-mouthed statement calling the images from Rafah “heart-breaking”.

Such images were soon to be repeated, however. Israel attacked the same area again on Tuesday, killing at least 21 Palestinians, mostly women and children, as its tanks entered the centre of Rafah...

Read more: To continue the Gaza genocide, Israel and the US must destroy the laws of war

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HOW THE ARAB WORLD WILL ENABLE PALESTINE TO WIN ITS WAR OF LIBERATION

Source: Al-Jazeera
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/5/24/how-the-arab-world-will-enable-palestine-to-win-its-war-of-liberation

By Jeffrey Sachs and Sybil Fares
Published May 24, 2024

As long as the Arab world remains steadfast and clear that the US must stop blocking the two-state solution, an independent, sovereign UN member state of Palestine will likely emerge very soon.

Jordanian King Abdullah II meets United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at the 33rd Arab League Summit in Manama, Bahrain, on May 16, 2024 [Anadolu/Royal Hashemite Court/ Handout]

The US is trying one last gambit, the age-old trick of divide and conquer – trying to break Arab unity over Palestine by making a side deal with Saudi Arabia.
The US promises nuclear technology, advanced fighter planes, and a defence pact if the Saudis immediately normalise relations with Israel,
leaving the sovereignty of a Palestinian state to yet another vague peace process.

Israel’s war on Gaza has become Palestine’s Liberation War. The brutality of the war and blatant disregard for international law have shaken global politics to the core. But with Arab unity, Palestine will win its liberation, paving the way to peace and security in the Middle East through a two-state solution.

Even though the United States government acknowledges the need for a two-state solution, it blocks it in practice, being the sole veto last month against Palestine’s membership in the United Nations. Israel counts on the US to continue to prevent the emergence of a truly sovereign State of Palestine. Yet even this obstacle can be overcome.

The Arab nations, with impressive unity, are circumventing US resistance. After a meeting of the Arab League in Bahrain in mid-May, the Arab world is working towards a global conference to implement the two-state solution.

The Bahrain Declaration calls for “an international conference under the auspices of the United Nations to resolve the Palestinian issue based on the two-state solution, which ends the Israeli occupation of all occupied Arab territories, embodying an independent, sovereign and viable Palestinian state in accordance with the resolutions of international legitimacy, to live in peace and security alongside Israel, as a way to achieve a just and comprehensive peace”.

Arab unity on the two-state solution has been strengthening for over two decades. The breakthrough came in 2002 with the Arab Peace Initiative. However, Israel rejected the Arab peace offer of the two-state solution and the US repeatedly backed Israel in its rejectionist policies. After the outbreak of the Gaza War in October, the Arab and Islamic leaders reiterated the peace proposal in a meeting in Riyadh in November.

Since then, Arab-backed diplomacy for the two-state solution has been accelerating, even as Israel’s war on Gaza has continued unabated on the ground. After numerous delays and vetoes by the US, the UN Security Council finally backed an immediate ceasefire on March 25 although Israel brazenly ignored the resolution. On April 18, the UN Security Council voted overwhelmingly for Palestine’s membership in the UN with only the US voting against it and two countries (the United Kingdom and Switzerland) abstaining. On May 10, the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly backed Palestine’s bid for UN membership in a 143-9 vote. On May 22, Norway, Spain, and Ireland announced plans to recognize a Palestinian state, and the Irish prime minister said he’s confident “more countries will follow”...

Read more: How the Arab world will enable Palestine to win its war of liberation

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UNDERSTANDING ISRAEL AND PALESTINE: BRITISH ISRAELISM AND THE ROOTS OF CHRISTIAN ZIONISM

Source: Good Faith Media
https://goodfaithmedia.org/understanding-israel-and-palestine-british-israelism-and-the-roots-of-christian-zionism/

By Keri Ladner
Published May 29, 2024

Stock Photo Illustration (Credit: kutaytanir/Canva/https://tinyurl.com/33a29t8u)

Some of the starkest images from the Capitol Riot of January 6, 2021, were of evangelical Christians and racist skinheads working side-by-side to topple American democracy.

In 1840, a self-educated Scotsman named John Wilson published a series of lectures in the book “Our Israelitish Origins,” wherein he posited that Israel’s 10 Lost Tribes had actually migrated through Europe and one tribe, Ephraim, ultimately settled in the British Isles.

This theory meant that the British people were the descendants of the Israelite nation and heirs to all of the promises in the Old Testament.

… the idea that the British people were indeed God's chosen nation, as spoken of in the Bible, was not difficult to absorb.

The cross and the Confederate flag are two symbols that should never occupy the same place. Their juxtaposition on January 6 revealed that the political agendas of the Aryan Nations and Ku Klux Klan align enough with the goals of a hyper-politicized white evangelicalism for skinheads and Christian nationalists to cooperate.

This would lead spectators to wonder whether there is much of a difference between the Identity theology of many white supremacists and the fundamentalism and Christian nationalism that have come to dominate white evangelicalism.

While politicized versions of white evangelicalism look like softer versions of white supremacism, the Identity theology of groups like the Klan is incompatible with evangelical theologies.

Perhaps the most significant difference between the Identity theology of the Racist Right and the Protestant fundamentalism of the Religious Right is antisemitism versus Christian Zionism...

Read more: Understanding Israel and Palestine: British Israelism and the Roots of Christian Zionism