Our Wednesday News Analysis | World reacts to ICC arrest warrants for Israel’s Netanyahu, Gallant

Former Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant (left) and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (right) addressing a cabinet meeting at the Israeli Ministry of Defence in Tel Aviv

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged “war crimes.”

The court said on Thursday that there were “reasonable grounds” to believe Netanyahu and Gallant “intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival”.

The ICC also issued an arrest warrant for Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif for alleged “crimes against humanity and war crimes”.

Israel said in August that Deif was killed in an air strike in southern Gaza.

ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan first applied for the warrants six months ago. In August, Khan called on the court to make a decision, saying, “Any unjustified delay in these proceedings detrimentally affects the rights of victims.” Since the decision was announced, Israeli officials have slammed the warrants, with Israeli Transportation Minister Miri Regev referring to them as “modern antisemitism in the guise of justice”.

Here are some of the key reactions to the ICC decision:

Israel

Netanyahu’s office rejected the decision and described the move as “anti-Semitic” in a statement. “Israel rejects with disgust the absurd and false actions levelled against it by ICC,” his office said, adding Israel won’t “give in to pressure” in defence of its citizens. In separate comments, Netanyahu’s office said the decision was comparable to “the modern-day Dreyfus trial – and it will end in the same way,” referring to Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish army captain who was wrongly convicted of treason in France...

Read more: World reacts to ICC arrest warrants for Israel’s Netanyahu, Gallant

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WHEN WE ARE FACED WITH ANNIHILATION, PALESTINIANS MUST EITHER RESIST OR BECOME EXTINCT

Source: Middle East Monitor
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20241119-when-we-are-faced-with-annihilation-palestinians-must-either-resist-or-become-extinct/

By Mustafa Barghouti
Published November 19, 2024

Pro-Palestinian banners are hanging on a fence during an occupational strike in the yard of Jagiellonian University in Krakow on October 11, 2024. [Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto]

"Israel has never succeeded in breaking the will of the people whose land it occupies; it will never be victorious.

People around the world have woken up to the legitimacy of the Palestinian cause and the impact that the struggle is having on world affairs.

Despite the support and backing of successive US administrations, the Zionist state of Israel is going to be more isolated than ever.

The Palestinians are now facing their greatest challenge and threat, but they are under no illusions about how great it is and what they must do.

Today is the greatest opportunity for their success and salvation."

It was no surprise to hear the fascist Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich say that the occupation state intends to “impose Israeli sovereignty” over the entire West Bank — that is, to annex and Judaise the occupied Palestinian territory — once US President-elect Donald Trump enters the White House in January. Israel has been moving in this direction ever since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993. The so-called “Deal of the Century” that Trump proposed in his first term included the annexation of illegal Israeli settlements, including large areas of what is known as Area C in the West Bank.

Nor was it a surprise to hear about Netanyahu’s military preparations to continue to occupy the Gaza Strip. I have been warning since the beginning of the Israeli genocide in October last year that Netanyahu would prolong the war until Trump is re-elected, and that he will push forward plans to liquidate the Palestinian cause and rights through genocide, settlements, normalisation with Arab states, annexation and Judaisation...

Read more: When we are faced with annihilation, Palestinians must either resist or become extinct

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THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF ZIONISM’S INJUSTICES, IN ONE BEDOUIN VILLAGE

Source: +972 Magazine
https://www.972mag.com/umm-al-hiran-destruction-zionist-demography/

By Orly Noy
Published November 20, 2024

The destruction of Umm Al-Hiran exemplifies the Zionist view of Palestinians as impermanent; moveable chess pieces in a game of demographic engineering.

Israeli police surround and destroy the mosque in Umm Al-Hiran, Nov. 14, 2024. (Oren Ziv)

"Eight years ago, Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid wrote an ode to the Hashomer Hachadash movement, in which he quipped that “a man who plants a tree is not going anywhere.”

There is something remarkable about how the subconscious sometimes erupts from the pen despite the person holding it.

After all, the state knows precisely who planted the olive trees that the army bombs in Gaza and settlers set ablaze in the West Bank.

But even after decades of destruction, expulsion, and carnage, Zionism refuses to accept that they are not going anywhere."

Last week, the State of Israel hung the scalp of another Palestinian community on its belt after completing the demolition of Umm Al-Hiran.

On the morning of Nov. 14, hundreds of police stormed the Bedouin village — which is located in the Negev/Naqab desert, in southern Israel — accompanied by special forces officers and helicopters. The residents, Israeli citizens who had long feared that this day would come, had already self-demolished most of the structures in the village to avoid having to pay large fines. All that was left for the police to destroy was the mosque.

Just like that, two and a half decades of legal struggle to save the village came to an end, and the residents were rendered homeless. If you want to understand the entire history of Zionism’s injustices against Palestinians — with all the discrimination, racism, dispossession, and violence, grounded in a vision of Jewish supremacy and a concomitant obsession with demographic engineering — you need look no further than Umm Al-Hiran.

In Israeli-Jewish discourse, the destruction of a Bedouin community barely raises eyebrows, let alone makes headlines. After all, it was an “unrecognized village” — a linguistic device Israel deploys to portray Bedouin citizens as invaders in their own lands. The Israeli public perceives the systematic destruction of these communities as a mere crackdown on rulebreakers. But not only were the residents of Umm Al-Hiran not invaders, they were moved there by the state itself...

Read more: The entire history of Zionism’s injustices, in one Bedouin village