Dear Friend,
India woke up on January 8, to witness the largest ever strike with an estimated 25 crore (250 million) workers, employees, farmers and rural labourers stopping work and hitting the streets to protest against the Modi government’s economic policies and divisive politics.
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Largest Ever Strike in India Shakes Up Modi Govt
by Subodh Varma
India woke up on January 8, to witness the largest ever strike with an
estimated 25 crore (250 million) workers, employees, farmers and rural labourers stopping work and hitting the streets to protest against the Modi government’s economic policies and divisive politics.
India woke up on January 8, to witness the largest ever strike with an estimated 25 crore (250 million) workers, employees, farmers and rural labourers stopping work and hitting the streets to protest against the Modi government’s economic policies and divisive politics.
Reports coming in from various states indicate that the strike was complete in the country’s massive public sector across sectors, such as steel, coal, other mining, defence production, port & dock, oil & natural gas, telecom, power generation, etc. Ancillary industries also were mostly shut.
Besides this, workers in the private sector across engineering, automobile and components, telecom, metals, textiles and garments, power and many other sectors were on strike.
Deserted Bus Stand in Sangrur
Transport was affected throughout the country as trucks, buses, autorickshaws, taxis were off the roads in most parts while railway workers held protest demonstrations. In many parts, like West Bengal, Bihar, Punjab etc., rail services were blocked by protestors. Protestors clashed with police in several states.
In rural areas, protests and traffic stoppages were seen in nearly 480 districts of the country as lakhs of farmers and agricultural workers, along with non-farm rural workers came out in protest, at the call of AIKSCC, an umbrella platform of over 175 organisations.
Students in over 60 universities and institutions, and their affiliated colleges, too, observed a strike with thousands joining protest marches after boycotting classes.
The protest strike was called by a joint platform of 10 central trade unions. Only one trade union, the Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh affiliated to Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh refused to participate. However, it’s opting out doesn’t seem to have made any difference to the participation in strike, which was described as “unprecedented”. Support was extended by dozens of independent federations and unions.
A joint platform of 175 farmers and agricultural workers organisations also extended support and called for a simultaneous rural strike. The government had issued a warning to government and public sector employees to not participate in the strike and attend work. But this appears to have been roundly rejected.
Demands of the striking workers/employees include increase in minimum wages, reining in rising prices, policies to curb raging joblessness, rollback of hostile labour law changes, end to public sector sell-off, curbing contract and casual work.
Farmers and agricultural workers are demanding better prices for produce, increase in wages, and complete debt-waiver. Other prominent demands of workers and farmers are withdrawal of the communal citizenship laws (CAA and associated NPR/NRC process), end to attacks on minorities and those protesting against the government, and end to destruction of Constitutional provisions. The trade unions have also condemned recent attacks on students in Jamia Millia Islamia, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Aligarh Muslim University, Jadavpur etc.
The strike and protest actions have acquired a heightened intensity because of the Modi government’s recent moves to ask people to prove their citizenship, with a covert aim of targeting the minority Muslim community. This has led to massive protests throughout the past month and that anger, converging with the economic distress in the country, has found expression in the strike.
ECONOMIC DISTRESS FUELLING ANGER
Over 7.3 crore people, mostly youth, are currently unemployed according to Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy estimates. This is perhaps the largest army of jobless people India has ever seen. The unemployment rate stood at 7.7% in December 2019, while in urban areas, it was even higher at a staggering 8.9%.
Meanwhile, retail prices of wheat have increased by 56%, atta (wheat flour) by 26% and those of rice by 14% in the past one year even as the Modi government was sitting on record stocks of foodgrain, some 567 lakh tonnes in December 2018, up 25% over last year, and more than double the foodgrain stocking norm of 214 lakh tonnes.
Long-standing demands of industrial and agricultural workers for fixing a dignified minimum wage have not been entertained by the government for over four years. In fact, changes in labour laws indicate that the government will allow increase in working hours but let employers fix their own wages by keeping statutory levels low.
There is widespread discontent and anger at the way Modi government has been kowtowing to corporate bigwigs and global corporations, even as it ignores the voices of working people in the country. Not only has it cut corporate taxes and given huge concessions to big industrialists the government has also opened up several sectors to private and even foreign capital, like coal, defence production and railways.
According to data put out by the finance ministry’s department of investment and asset management (DIPAM), the BJP government has sold off Rs.2.97 lakh crore worth of public sector assets in its rule since 2014. If you add the proposed sale of BPCL, CONCOR and SCI, the combined net worth of which is estimated at about Rs.76,000 crore, the total disinvestment done by government reaches Rs.3.73 lakh crore.
In rural areas, wages of agricultural workers have remained virtually stagnant for the past two years despite bumper harvests. Farmers have repeatedly protested and demanded increase in support prices and strengthening of procurement system in order to save them from pauperisation. With over half the country’s farmers indebted, and debt being the primary reason behind unconscionable suicides, the demand for complete debt waiver has also been repeatedly raised. But the Modi government continues to deceive farmers by claiming that it is already giving the needed price levels.
STRUGGLE TO CONTINUE
This is the fourth country-wide strike by workers during Modi’s regime, the earlier three being – September 2, 2015; September 2, 2016 and the two-day strike on January 8-9, 2019. Besides these, several sectoral actions have taken place, including since Modi 2.0 took over: protests by railway workers over corporatisation of several production units; strike by over one lakh workers of 41 ordnance factories; strike by over 6 lakh coal workers against 100% foreign direct investment; strike by bank employees against merger of 10 public sector banks; strike in all refineries, marketing and pipeline workers of BPCL and HPCL against privatisation, etc. Other sectors where actions have taken place include defence, construction and transport.
It is worth noting that since the imposition of neoliberal economic policies on the country began 28 years ago, workers have gone on strike 19 times pushing back several unjust and harsh policies. Similarly, farmers and agricultural workers have carried out massive movements including rallies at Parliament.
In recent years, students in universities have been agitating against fee hikes, throttling of democracy and, of late, against police atrocities. They have also joined or led protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act/National Population Register/National Register of Citizens for the past month.
The momentous strike of January 8, 2020, therefore, represents a convergence of all these streams and holds the promise of even wider struggles in the coming days.
MAHARASHTRA
Workers unity was on display Maharashtra, India’s most industrial state. Almost 26 unions, mainly having the influence in all industrial towns, participating in the strike.
On Wednesday morning, thousands of workers, mainly ASHA workers and bank employees unions, gathered at Azad Maidan in Mumbai.
“We are here to get what is our right. Also there is serious issue of inflation. The ASHA and Anganwadi workers are supporting the cause of labours across country,” said MA Patil, leader of their union.
Private bank employees, too, participated in good numbers during the agitation.
“In last four years, bank employees have seen one of the worst ever time in their career. That’s why there is anger among the bank employees across nation,” said Vishwas Utagi, banker and union leader.
Railway employees mainly of car sheds also participated in the strike. This affected the work in Matunga, Kalwa, Kurla car sheds of Central Railway.
BIHAR
Patna: Ignoring bone chilling cold, thousands of activists of all trade unions, except the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-affiliated Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, supporters of several independent federations, the Left parties workers , student organisations and others, took to the streets since early Wednesday, protesting against the central government’s anti-worker policies.
Train and road services were disrupted for hours as strike supporters halted several trains at different railway stations, blocked tracks roads, including national highways to state highways and roads connecting the district headquarters.
According to officials of railways, strike supporters stopped over a dozen trains including long route express and passenger, in Darbhanga, Patna, Gaya, Jehanabad, Muzaffarpur, Ara railway stations.
Thousands of slogan-shouting activists and workers blocked Dak Bungalow square in the heart of Patna for several hours. Police lathi-charged them and arrested half a dozen of them.
Most of the banks, post offices, life insurance, electricity offices remained closed in Patna and across the state. In Patna, most of auto-rickshaws were off the road in support of the strike.
Similar reports came from Gaya, Jehanabad,Sheikhpura, Bhagalpur , Muzaffarpur ,Ara,East Champaran,West Champaran, Samastipur,Madhubani,Darbhanga,Purnia, Kishanganj,Araria,Madhepura ,Katihar,Saharsa,Khagaria and Sitamarhi districts where protestors took out big marches and staged dharna by blocking main thoroughfare for hours that badly hit normal life.
Trade union workers blocked NH 107 in Khagaria district,NH 31 in Khagaria and Begusarai districts and NH 57 , NH 83 in Gaya and Jehanabad districts and NH 104 in Madhubani district. State highways were blocked in Nawada, Siwan, Aurangabad, Arwal, districts with the road transport associations and unions supported the strike.
CPI(ML) leader Kunal said strike was totally successful as it was supported by people who have been affected by joblessness, privatisation, inflation and anti- workers and anti-people policies of Modi led central government.
Delhi NCR
Thousands of workers in Delhi NCR downed tools on Wednesday as part of the nationwide general strike. As a result, production in factories in and around the national capital was brought down to zero.
In Sahibabad industrial area of Ghaziabad district, production in thousands of small and medium establishments was severely affected. Among those that were hit by the strike were Central Electronics Limited (CEL), a public sector undertaking, whose workers observed a complete shutdown, protesting against the strategic sale of the ‘national asset’.
Similar demands were raised in the factories in north Delhi’s Wazirpur, Narela, Bawana, Jahangirpuri and east Delhi’s Patparganj, Shahdara among others. Rallies were organised, led by the trade unions.
In the Gurugram-Manesar-Bawal industrial belt, workers in hundreds came out on the streets to register their anger. Automobile leaders, namely, Honda and Munjal Showa were brought to a grinding halt.
Here, contractual workforce constituted the majority among the protesters. It is because as the auto Indian auto industry facing one of the worst crisis in 19 years, the contract worker is bearing the maximum brunt of it.
The struggle of the contractual staff in Manesar is being led by the casual workforce of Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India (HMSI), who have been braving the cold and staying put for more than 50 days to protest against the ‘illegal’ retrenchments by the management.
At Shivam Auto Tech, another major name in Manesar, the workers demonstrated outside the plant against the forced “lockdown” by the management.
At ITO, workers affiliated to the unions gathered in support of the general strike, despite the rain in the national capital.
Garments factories operating in Okhla Phase – 1 industrial area mostly stayed away from the strike as these do not have unions.
Gujarat
About 40,000 employees of Maha Gujarat Bank Employee Association participated in the strike across the state. All India Railwaymen’s Federation, Western Railway Employee Union, Income Tax Employees Federation, Income Tax Gazetted Officers Association (Gujarat Circle), Gujarat Federation of Trade Union (GFTU), Gujarat Majdoor Sangh (GMS), Mazdoor Adhikar Abhiyan (MASA) staged protests and took out rallies at various places.
“The Union government is rushing up the process of privatisation and eyeing the railways. The government could not manage the economy of the country and now they want to sell railways to private parties” said RC Sharma, President of WREU and General Secretary of AIRF.
“This government has been trying to sell land belonging to Railways at prime locations to industrialists,” added Sharma.
Bankers said they were protesting as their salaries had not been revised.
“Closure of public sector banks across the state is concerning and will affect crucial business,” said Janak Rawal, General Secretary of MGBEA.
GFTU took out rally in Ahmedabad that comprised of workers of Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, Gujarat Transport Service, Gujarat Industrial Security Force, Employees of Madhya Bhojan, daily wage earners under MnREGA, workers of private companies like Hitachi, Intas, Zydus etc.
(Reports by Amey Tirodkar in Mumbai and Imran Khan in Patna, Ronak in Delhi NRC and Damayantee Dhar in Gujarat)
Originally published by NewsClick
Why RSS hates JNU?
by T Navin
The recent attack on JNU only brings out the real nature of the RSS, which believes in crushing progressive voices, even if it is through use of physical force. It also shows how much it believes in ending democratic traditions and imposing authoritarian traditions of Sangh Parivar.
For the first time
by Anusha Singh
Something about 5th January night’s state sponsored attack on students and professors in JNU hostels left me completely shaken up. Because I felt a lot of things, for the first time.
An Anthem For Freedom (Aazadi)
by Arathy Asok
Nothing but us,
Together, Forever, Raging
AAZADI! AAZADI!! AAZADI!!!
Iran’s Hero Has Fallen, And Now The world Is An Even More Dangerous Place
by Andre Vltchek
Yes, the world is scared. There are reasons to be scared. But the world simply has to act. These brutal, cowardly acts of degeneracy and fundamentalism/fanaticism committed by the Empire have to be stopped, sooner or later, in the name of our human race. Otherwise, soon, there will be no humanity left!
They say he came from a humble background, and worked himself up the ranks, becoming, as many believe, the second most powerful man in Iran. They say he had the chance to become the next Supreme Leader of the country.
Whenever I visit Iran, I am told how much he is loved by his people. He became the symbol of resistance against the West; the symbol of the strength and dignity of the nation which was attacked, colonized and starved by several Western capitals.
And now, Iran’s Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani is no more. And the U.S. Commander-in-Chief, Donald Trump, is proudly claiming responsibility for his demise.
The statement from the Pentagon came promptly, and it was clear:
“At the direction of the president, the US military has taken decisive defensive action to protect US personnel abroad by killing Qasem Soleimani… This strike was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans. The United States will continue to take all necessary action to protect our people and interests wherever they are around the world.”
Defensive action…
Almost immediately, RT and others asked me to analyze.
I could not help but to define what was done at the airport outside Baghdad, Iraq, as a vulgar and brutal extra-judicial killing.
*
For the last two months, I have been flying all over the world, writing about (and filming) all those horrors that the Empire unleashed against the people with different cultures, living in various parts of the world.
The Middle East, China, Latin America.
It appears that all boundaries have been crossed. Washington and its NATO allies have lost all restraint, shame and decency. They actually never had much of those, but now they have almost none.
Everything appears to be primitive, as in a badly directed mafia film.If the rulers of the West do not like some country? In that case they simply attack it, starve and destroy it.As brutal as that. No U.N. Security Council mediations, no arguments, and no pretending that there should be some legal process.
It has been happening to Hong Kong, To Bolivia, Venezuela and West Papua. It has also been happening to Iran, as well as China and Russia, although those countries have proven to be much tougher to eliminate, than Washington’s planners originally thought.
The same applies to individuals: people get murdered without second thought, some quickly, some very slowly and painfully. Julian Assange is one of them, being slowly tortured to death, in front of the entire world, despite legal and medical experts protesting and demanding his release.
The killing of Qasem Soleimani and others in Baghdad, was quick and totally unexpected.
The facial expressions of U.S. officials were absolutely shocking: as if mafia bosses were caught in a corner of some filthy den by a bunch of amateur journalists. Unapologetically, they grinned at the lenses, suggesting: “So what? What are you going to do now? Challenge us? Us? We’ll break your legs, or something…”
And nobody, absolutely nobody really dares to challenge them! Not yet. Not at this moment.
It is one tested, bulletproof game. You destroy an entire country, or you kill a person, and then you show your piece; your well-maintained revolver, or two. You expose your guns and ugly row of teeth. You say, or you suggest without pronouncing it: “You have a wife, and two daughters back home, don’t you? You don’t want anything to happen to them, right?”
It is on that level, now. It is not any better than that, don’t you see?
If you defend yourself – you die; your family dies. Or your family members get violated. Or both.
You like it? You don’t like it? You absolutely detested it? Who cares! The Empire has guns. It is all it has. The ability to kill and to rape. It has become dumb, degenerate. It produces hardly anything of value. But it has millions of weapons, as well as a monstrous propaganda machine.
*
Now, seriously: what can Iran do? What can a nation with thousands of years of culture do?
Can it defend itself? Honestly, if you think it can, then say it: how?
If it retaliates, it could be erased from the face of the earth. If it doesn’t do anything, it will lose face, self-respect, as well as the purpose to continue with its struggle for true independence and its unique form of socialism.
For years and decades, Iran has been a thorn in the eye of the West. Its allies have fought against Western-injected terrorism in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Iranian ally in Lebanon, Hezbollah, has been defending the country against Israeli invasions, while providing social support to poor and needy citizens. Iran has been giving jobs and temporary shelter to many Afghan citizens, particularly those from Herat, people who have absolutely nothing left after the horrendous U.S./NATO occupation of the country. I worked in Afghanistan, and I saw tremendous lines in front of the Iranian consulate in Herat. Iran has even been deeply involved in Latin America, helping, building social housing in Venezuela, Evo’s Bolivia, and elsewhere.
And now, recently, it began moving closer and closer to two of Washington’s arch enemies: China and Russia.
Therefore, it has been decided in the annals of Washington and the Pentagon: Iran has to be stopped; destroyed. At any price. Meaning, any price which would have to be paid by the Iranian citizens.
*
I am convinced that this madness has to be stopped.
For Iran’s sake.
But also, because, if Iran is ruined, destroyed like Iraq, Libya or Afghanistan, someone will be next. First, most likely, Venezuela, and then Cuba. But then, perhaps, most likely, Russia or China, or both.
The Empire will not stop by itself.
If not opposed, it will get more and more emboldened.
It is a tremendous mistake to let it literally ‘get away with a murder’.
Today, a brave Iranian General has been murdered. Washington is smiling provocatively, cynically.
It is sending vibes to all corners of the world: “Stay on your couches in front of television sets. Be petrified. Do nothing. Or else!”
Yes, the world is scared. There are reasons to be scared. But the world simply has to act. These brutal, cowardly acts of degeneracy and fundamentalism/fanaticism committed by the Empire have to be stopped, sooner or later, in the name of our human race. Otherwise, soon, there will be no humanity left!
*
[First published by NEO – New Eastern Outlook – a journal of the Russian Academy of Sciences, under the same title]
Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Five of his latest books are “China Belt and Road Initiative”,“China and Ecological Civilization” with John B. Cobb, Jr., “Revolutionary Optimism, Western Nihilism”, a revolutionary novel “Aurora” and a bestselling work of political non-fiction: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire”. View his other books here. Watch Rwanda Gambit, his groundbreaking documentary about Rwanda and DRCongo and his film/dialogue with Noam Chomsky “On Western Terrorism”. Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and Latin America, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website, his Twitterand his Patreon.
A Time to Kill? Open Your Eyes!
by Romi Mahajan
As the US President threatens to bomb cultural and civilian sites in Iran, it’s high time we apply this test and say—loudly–“not in our name will you do this.” We have to open our eyes. Imagine an Iranian threat to blow up the cultural and civic centers in the United States. Well, it’s the same thing,
with the exception that the United States, with its might, can make good on its threats while for most countries they would be rhetorical at best. Let’s open our eyes. Now.
In the movie adaptation of John Grisham’s “A Time to Kill,” Carl Lee Hailey’s defense lawyer Jake Brigance, in his summation, asks the jury members to close their eyes while he tells a horrid tale of a little girl being attacked, raped, beaten, tortured and left to die by two grown men. The jury squirms as they hear the story and at the end Brigance says “now…imagine that she’s white.” As it turns out, Hailey’s daughter, a young African-American girl, was violated in exactly the way Brigance describes, prompting her father to shoot the men who attacked her thus. Brigance understood that the jury would rightly be horrified if they considered this happening to a young white girl but had to put humanity before race affiliation to extend that empathy to an African-American child. Whatever one might think about the movie, this particularly scene is brilliant, moving, and telling. The jury members open their eyes in surprise and anguish as they consider this mutilation happening to a white child and in an incandescent moment, realize that they must be equally horrified at the mutilation of Hailey’s daughter.
This brings us to the fundamental contradiction of human existence- our inability to apply the same standards, rules of just conduct, and empathy to all humans despite being 99.999% the same. What is fair for us is not fair for others. This double-standard applies to nation-states as well, with determinations of morality and righteousness on the one hand and immorality on the other being made on the basis not of any agreed upon standard but instead on political expediency and self-loving bias.
When we “close our eyes” we imagine the pain of untold sufferings being heaped upon us but, unfortunately, never get jarred into opening them as we realize that we heap suffering on others.
Noam Chomsky has written extensively- and for decades- on these double standards. To illustrate them, he looks at paired, contemporaneous events, and analyzes the language we use to describe them, and the intent behind our changing and self-serving standards. We invade countries to liberate them, others invade them to destroy democracy. Our allies, if they murder and plunder, are simply responding to the violence of others while our foes, if they murder and plunder, are, well, murderers and plunderers and deserve violence visited upon them. The historical examples are countless and need not bear repetition. The exercise of power and use of violence create a language, even an ontology, of their own- and the use of double-speak and propaganda normalize them.
As regards this Orwellian state, the United States serves as the lead example of employing the power of language coupled with sanctimony to simultaneously justify its use of power to maintain its position of privilege and to rally its people to support its crimes. No citizen of the world’s most powerful country- a country incidentally founded on the twin crimes of genocide and slavery, can wish these crimes away; they happened and they happen.
The question is whether we are willing to decode the doublespeak and understand- in real-time- what the intentions and implications of our own foreign policy are. Only if we can build this muscle- and exercise it- can we stop crimes from occurring in the future.
So let’s reprise Jake Brigance’s elegant experiment.
Close your eyes. Imagine a senior, decorated and respected military officer visiting a neighboring country. He’s in a car near a bustling airport. He’s conferring with a foreign colleague, perhaps perfecting a strategy to protect the borders of his country and to serve his nation. A husband, a father, a man who has been at the head of his military for over 20 years.
Suddenly, a drone fires a missile at his car, hitting it dead-on and blowing him, his colleagues, and his driver to smithereens. At once, his life is snuffed out.
Now, imagine he’s an American General on a state visit to Canada.
Does your blood boil? Do you want revenge? Do you double down on your love for America, feel more patriotic than ever?
Now imagine the feelings of an Iranian, in the aftermath of the extra-judicial murder of Qassim Soleimani in Iraq, whatever his crimes, his sins. Do we suppose an ordinary Iranian feels the same way we do? Can we imagine how we’d be braying for revenge if this happened to one of our Generals, no less the head of one of our armed forces? Can we imagine how we’d refer to the killing as an act of war, of terror, as a brazen violation of our sovereignty’s and Canada’s? Before we opened our eyes, we’d consider the act described as “savage.” Do we believe Soleimani’s murder was, indeed, savage?
If we think of these as different then we come across, no matter how unwittingly, why the world is in conflict and why we’ve retreated into nativism and tribalism. We also understand, once again unwittingly, why “others” harbor what we believe to be at best “curious” and at worst “bestial” views. If we see our crimes as acts of nobility and others’ lives as crimes then we slouch towards the same tendencies that, in the extreme, made the Nazis so horrid.
This is not to say that ordinary people are Nazis. What is indeed is meant to say is that the ambient narrative, the default settings in our thought are double-threaded, one thread for me and us and another thread for you and them. Forcing a convergence of those two threads is the job of education but instead “big E” education, the doctrinal variety, keeps these threads disharmonized, implacably separate.
“A Time to Kill” ends on an upbeat note. Carl Lee Hailey is exonerated. The racists are shown for what they are and we proceed to healing our wounds. Would that the Hollywood ending were the template for the real world.
For it to be, we have to develop one rule set, one thread of empathy that applies to humanity universally
As the US President threatens to bomb cultural and civilian sites in Iran, it’s high time we apply this test and say—loudly–“not in our name will you do this.” We have to open our eyes. Imagine an Iranian threat to blow up the cultural and civic centers in the United States.
Well, it’s the same thing, with the exception that the United States, with its might, can make good on its threats while for most countries they would be rhetorical at best.
Let’s open our eyes. Now.
Romi Mahajan in an Author, Marketer, Investor, and Activist
Justice at Last? ‘Panic’ in Israel as the ICC Takes ‘Momentous Step’ in the Right Direction
by Dr Ramzy Baroud
At long last, Fatou Bensouda, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has uttered the long-anticipated conclusion that “all the statutory criteria under the Rome statute for the opening of an investigation (into alleged war crimes in the Occupied Palestinian Territories) have been met”.
At long last, Fatou Bensouda, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has uttered the long-anticipated conclusion that “all the statutory criteria under the Rome statute for the opening of an investigation (into alleged war crimes in the Occupied Palestinian Territories) have been met”.
Bensouda’s verdict has been in the making for a long time and should, frankly, have arrived much earlier. The ICC preliminary investigations into Israeli war crimes began back in 2015. Since then, many more such war crimes have been committed, while the international community persisted in its moral inertia.
The ICC statement, issued on December 20, asserted that the court saw “no substantial reasons to believe that an investigation would not serve the interests of justice”.
But can the “interest of justice” be served while the United States government continues to wield a massive stick, using its diplomatic, political and financial clout to ensure Israel emerges unscathed from its latest legal scuffle?
There is little doubt that Michael Lynk, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory, is absolutely right: A formal ICC criminal investigation into war crimes in Palestine is a “momentous step forward in the quest for accountability”.
He is also correct in his assessment, published in the United Nations Human Rights Officer of the High Commissioner website, that “accountability has, until now, been largely missing in action throughout the 52-year-old occupation.”
I would go even further and expand the timeline of the missing accountability to include the two decades prior to the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Otherwise, how is one to account for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1947-48, the numerous massacres and other wanton killings that accompanied and followed those defining years, or the fact that Israel was never held accountable for its violations of international and humanitarian laws between 1948 and 1967?
That issue notwithstanding, the Palestinian Authority and all political parties in Palestine should exploit this unprecedented opportunity of holding Israel accountable.
As soon as the ICC issued its statement, news reports surfaced conveying a sense of “panic” in Israel. The Times of Israel reported that an Israeli government meeting to discuss the ICC decision was held shortly after, with the aim of considering a proper response, including the possibility of preventing ICC investigators from reaching Israel.
This is eerily familiar. Israel has denied entry to – or refused to cooperate with – international investigators and observers on many occasions in the past.
Following a UN planned investigation into alleged Israeli war crimes in the Palestinian refugee camp of Jenin in 2002, the Israeli government quickly moved, and, sadly, succeeded in blocking the investigation altogether.
It has done so time and again, often demonizing the very individuals entrusted with the mission of examining the illegality of Israel’s behavior in the context of international law. Well-respected judges and international law experts, such as Richard Goldstone, Richard Falk, and John Dugard, were vehemently attacked by Israeli officials and media and, by extension, by the US government and media as well.
Israel has managed to survive dozens of United Nations Resolutions and countless legal reports and indictments by the UN and all UN-affiliated organizations, largely because of blind and unequivocal American support, which has shielded Israeli war criminals from ever answering to their horrific actions in Palestine.
“Remember, it was (then-Secretary of State) Hillary Clinton who took pride in the fact that she personally killed the Goldstone Report,” said US author, Norman Finkelstein, in a recent interview with the news website ‘Mondoweiss’.
The Goldstone report was issued in the wake of the Israeli war on Gaza in 2009, dubbed ‘Operation Cast Lead’. The campaign of intimidation and pressure on Goldstone, personally, has forced the once respected judge to retract his accusations of Israeli war crimes and the deliberate targeting of civilians.
While Clinton did her part in torpedoing the Goldstone Report, former US President, Barack Obama, according to Finkelstein, went to great lengths to “neutralize international law against settlements and other Israeli crimes in the occupied territories”.
Worse still, on September 14, 2016, Obama handed Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, himself accused of carrying out numerous war crimes against Palestinians, the largest US aid package to a foreign country in modern history, a whopping $38 billion over the course of ten years.
This is not a new phenomenon, where the US enables Israeli crimes and simultaneously shields Tel Aviv from any accountability for these crimes before the international community. All US administrations, whether Republican or Democrat, have honored the same sinister maxim, thus ensuring Israel, literally, gets away with murder.
A particular case in point was in 2001, when 28 Palestinian and Lebanese survivors of the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre attempted to try, in a Belgian court, late Israeli leader and accused war criminal, Ariel Sharon. Intense American pressures and a brazen intimidation campaign, targeting the Belgian government and the judicial system, resulted in the dismissal of the case in 2003. To deny Israel’s victims the opportunity to seek justice everywhere in the country, Belgium revised its very law, to the satisfaction of Israel and the United States.
The high level of the ICC investigations places the legal push against Israel at a whole new level. This is uncharted territory for Israel, the United States, Palestine, the ICC and the international community as a whole. There is little doubt that some joint Israeli-American effort is already underway to develop strategies aimed at countering, if not altogether dismissing, the ICC investigation.
It is clear that justice for Palestinians in the face of Israeli aggression, itself fueled by unconditional American support, is not at all possible if it is not accompanied by regional and international unity, and a clear and decisive decision by all parties concerned that Israel, once and for all, must pay for its military occupation, racist apartheid laws, protracted siege on Gaza, and the many massacres in between.
Without this kind of international will, the ICC investigation could become another sad case of justice denied, a non-acceptable option for any justice-seeking individual, organization, and government anywhere in the world.
– Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books. His latest is “These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons” (Clarity Press, Atlanta). Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA), Istanbul Zaim University (IZU). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net
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