UK
South Africa to file legal action with ICJ against UK, US, for war crime complicity
Nation whose case put Israel formally on trial for genocide joins Nicaragua in turning its sights on accomplices in genocide
South Africa’s legal team at the ICJ last month
A team of almost fifty South African lawyers is preparing a legal case to bring to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the United Nations’ top court, against the US and UK, for their complicity in Israel’s array of war crimes in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
South Africa’s successful ICJ case against Israel last month led to Israel being put formally on trial for genocide and resulted in a string of binding orders on Israel to stop its slaughter of Gazans and even to protect Palestinians from harm, as well as to ensure adequate aid reaches the strip’s 2.5 million people, many of whom are now starving and homeless.
Israel has flouted the rulings, continuing and even intensifying the mass murder and blockade, and is being supported in its flagrant disregard for international law by the UK and US, who are providing both material and financial aid, and giving political cover by refusing to condemn Israel’s actions or to call its crimes what they are, instead casting doubt on the mass deaths and brutality and denigrating the Court’s ruling.
South Africa joins Nicaragua in taking action against the UK and US. The Central American nation has also filed a case against Germany, Canada and the Netherlands.
The team of lawyers, which already numbers around fifty, is likely to grow further as more lawyers are set to join from other nations. Wikus van Rensburg, who is leading the action, said that it was time for the US and other complicit nations to “be held responsible for [their] crimes”.
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Nicaragua brings ICJ case vs UK, Germany, NL, Canada for complicity in Gaza genocide
While individual UK politicians face potential personal liability for collusion in Israel’s slaughter, UK government as a whole is now also on hook
The Nicaraguan government initiated proceedings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) yesterday against the UK, Netherlands, Germany and Canada for complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza by providing the Israeli occupation with weapons and support used in the killing of Palestinians.
A statement by the Nicaraguan government notes that it had warned these states of their likely complicity in “flagrant and systemic violations” of the Genocide Convention, urging them to immediately stop providing Israel with weapons and tech that were likely to be used in violation of the Convention and that the ICJ’s ruling against Israel last month had put a duty on all countries to stop supplying Israel with the means to conduct its slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza.
The ICJ ordered Israel not just to stop its own killing of Gazans but to “take all measures” to prevent their deaths and to improve the dire humanitarian situation.
UK PM Rishi Sunak, so-called ‘opposition leader’ Keir Starmer and other senior politicians have already been warned by the International Centre for Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) that it will prosecute them for their personal liability for colluding in and providing cover for Israel’s mass murder of Palestinian civilians.
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UNRWA nominated for Nobel Peace Prize – but Israel freezes its bank accounts
Israeli move likely to mean even faster starvation for hundreds of thousands
UNRWA, the United Nations relief agency for Palestine, has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. The news comes as the assault on UNRWA’s funding intensifies.
A number of nations have, inexcusably, used Israel’s claims – that twelve of the agency’s more than 13,000 employees in Gaza took part in the 7 October raid – as a pretext for cutting off funding to UNRWA despite its central role in providing relief for the two million Palestinians in Gaza who are in starvation because of Israel’s blockade.
And Israeli bank Leumi has today locked all of UNRWA’s accounts, claiming UNRWA is unable to provide sufficient receipts to be able to prove no funds are going to ‘terrorists’. The UN has said it has no alternative mechanism to fund UNRWA if international donations are cut off and a number of nations – including Norway, home of the Nobel Peace Prize – have said they will continue to provide funds. But if UNRWA is unable to access them where it needs them, it will be even more severely hampered.
Norwegian Labour MP Asmund Aukrust told Dagbladet that he had nominated UNRWA,
for its long-term work to provide vital support to Palestine and the region in general.
Israel bombed the relief offices last week of Belgium, another country whose government has committed to funding UNRWA.
The nomination is an apt response to Israel’s smears against UNRWA and the collusion of some western nations, including the US and UK, in the genocide in Gaza. But it will not feed the starving – and despite being officially on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and ordered by the ICJ to protect Palestinian lives, the Israeli apartheid regime’s murderousness toward the millions of civilian Palestinians in Gaza appears to know no bounds.
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800+ US/EU officials sign statement that governments ‘risk complicity’ in Gaza genocide
Over 800 US and EU officials have signed a statement warning their governments that they are likely to be guilty of complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza and that their advice of the danger of “grave violations of international law” in Israel’s bombing and shelling of Gaza and its “deliberate blocking of aid” to create “one of the worst human catastrophes of this century” has been ignored. The statement comes from officials in twelve countries, including the US, UK, Germany and France.
The statement comes as a growing coalition of nations has committed to continuing to fund UNRWA, the UN aid agency providing desperately-needed humanitarian relief in Gaza, despite the collusion of the UK, US and other governments in defunding the agency after Israel claimed twelve of its 13,000 employees in Gaza participated in the 7 October raid. Ireland, Spain, Scotland, Norway, Belgium, Portugal, Slovenia and Luxembourg have all committed to providing continued funds.
Israel bombed Belgium’s aid agency office on Thursday night, shortly after Belgium’s announcement.
The International Centre for Justice for Palestinians has warned UK and US politicians it will bring prosecutions against those who collude in Israel’s slaughter of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children, in Gaza.
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Israel bombs Belgium’s offices in Gaza – UK media ignore
Belgium commits to funding UNRWA and has previously called for sanctions against Israel. Israel bombs Belgium’s representatives and ‘completely destroys’ office
Before and after: Belgium’s representative office in Gaza
Belgium has summoned Israel’s ambassador to give account to Belgium’s prime minister after an Israeli bombing ‘completely destroyed’ the country’s official representative office in Gaza. Despite the attack happening last night – and being freely covered by Israeli papers – the UK’s ‘mainstream’ media appear to have completely ignored the crime and Belgium’s response:
Earlier this week, Belgium committed to continuing to provide funding to UNRWA, the vital UN agency providing desperately-needed aid to Gaza’s two million starving and suffering people. The UK, US and several other nations have cut off funding to UNRWA, despite what appears to be a complete lack of evidence, after Israel claimed twelve of UNRWA’s 13,000 employees participated in the 7 October raid. Israel has for decades wanted an end to the agency because it maintains Palestinians’ hopes of exercising their right of return to land and homes from which they were driven at gunpoint.
Last November, Belgium’s deputy prime minister also called for sanctions against Israel for its war crimes against Palestinians, including frequent and deliberate bombing of refugee camps, hospitals and schools.
Israel has been ordered by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), in a binding legal ruling, to stop and prevent the killing of Gaza’s people. If anything, it has accelerated the slaughter and continues to display its contempt for decency and international law.
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The Israel Lobby Got Me Fired! – Lowkey Speaks to David Miller
Editor’s Note: Dear Readers, MintPress News’ YouTube channel was recently demonetized, and many of our videos made age-restricted. We would greatly appreciate your support by becoming a member of our Patreon page so that we can continue to bring you important stories like this one. Much of the work that we do is supported by viewers like you.
The MintPress podcast, “The Watchdog,” hosted by British-Iraqi hip hop artist Lowkey, closely examines organizations about which it is in the public interest to know – including intelligence, lobby and special interest groups influencing policies that infringe on free speech and target dissent. “The Watchdog” goes against the grain by casting a light on stories largely ignored by the mainstream, corporate media.
For nearly a decade, Professor David Miller has been in the crosshairs of the pro-Israel lobby. But in recent years, their campaign against him has intensified. Miller was fired by Bristol University in the U.K. following a ferocious campaign by the Israel lobby, which even led to direct government intervention in the case. He has been holding the university to account in an employment tribunal and expects the results very soon. In this episode of “The Watchdog,” host Lowkey catches up with Miller to hear the latest on his case.
Professor Miller has a long background in studying P.R. and propaganda, originally focussing on media spin on Northern Ireland, the HIV/AIDS crisis and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. It was the latter that first brought him to study Islamophobia and how it functions in society.
Today, Miller and Lowkey described how so much of the hostile atmosphere towards Muslims is actually driven by the state and committed Zionist organizations that try to influence it. For example, 12 of the top 13 funders of the Islamophobic Henry Jackson Society, a British think tank that influences U.K. public policy, were groups founded by Zionists. And three-quarters of the organizations that fund these Islamophobic groups also bankroll the building of illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
Miller was sacked from his position as Professor of Sociology after a pressure campaign involving Zionist student groups and even members of parliament, who accused him of “inciting hatred against Jewish students.”
In 2019, a student filed a complaint against him, claiming he was racist toward Jewish people. After a long, drawn-out process, the university investigated and concluded, according to Miller, that:
There wasn’t a single sentence, word or comma which I had ever said that was anti-Semitic. So I was given a complete clean bill of health. And the university wrote to me to say: ‘There is nothing to see here; you didn’t do anything wrong. This complaint was manifestly ridiculous.’”
But that was only the start of the affair. After Miller was acquitted, there began a massive media campaign against him, leading to more than 100 members of the House of Commons and House of Lords signing a letter demanding he be sacked.
This massive state intervention into the freedom and independence of academia is a free speech issue that few of those who make it their business to supposedly champion the free flow of ideas have touched.
The Kafkaesque witch hunt against Miller bears a strong resemblance to how Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was hounded out of politics. Ironically, Miller’s book, “Bad News for Labour: Anti-Semitism, the Party and Public Belief,” details how bogus charges of anti-Semitism were weaponized against Corbyn in order to defame and destroy him.
Lowkey is a British-Iraqi hip-hop artist, academic and political campaigner. As a musician, he has collaborated with the Arctic Monkeys, Wretch 32, Immortal Technique and Akala. He is a patron of Stop The War Coalition, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Racial Justice Network and The Peace and Justice Project, founded by Jeremy Corbyn. He has spoken and performed on platforms from the Oxford Union to the Royal Albert Hall and Glastonbury. His latest album, Soundtrack To The Struggle 2, featured Noam Chomsky and Frankie Boyle and has been streamed millions of times.
The post The Israel Lobby Got Me Fired! – Lowkey Speaks to David Miller appeared first on MintPress News.
Norwegian Foreign Minister warns weapons-exporting states of complicity in Israeli genocide
UK, US and other supporters of Israeli apartheid and oppression are enabling slaughter of Palestinians
Espen Barth Eide, the Foreign Minister of Norway, has warned the UK, US and other states exporting weapons to Israel that they risk prosecution for participating in Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians of Gaza.
Eide said:
States exporting weapons to Israel should reassess whether they are effective partners in the genocide in Gaza Strip or not.
The news was reported by the Syrian Arab News Agency but has, as usual, been ignored by the UK ‘mainstream’ media – just as most ignored or minimised the International Court of Justice (ICJ) finding last week putting Israel on trial for genocide – or even helped Israel’s attempts to spin it away – and the court’s order to prevent the killing of any more Palestinians, an order that the apartheid state has already flouted.
Eide has also announced that Norway will continue to fund UNRWA, after the UK, US and others cut funding because of unsubstantiated allegations by Israel that twelve UNRWA employees participated in the 7 October kibbutz raid:
The Agency represents the lifeblood of millions of people suffering from tragic conditions, both in Gaza Strip and in the region as a whole.
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Exclusive: bank locks customer’s account after donation to UNRWA
Woman grilled minutes after payment to UN body defunded by US and UK after Israeli smears
A UK bank locked its customer’s account – and subjected her to a security grilling – minutes after she made a donation to UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency that provides a lifeline to suffering Palestinians in Gaza.
The Sunak and Biden governments have stopped providing funds to the vital agency after Israel made what appear to be unevidenced claims that some of its employees took part in the 7 October raid. Israel’s record of lies about events in Gaza – and its now-clear slaughter of many, perhaps most, of the Israeli victims on the day of the raid – means that any allegations should be treated with extreme suspicion unless thoroughly proven. Israel has also murdered dozens of UN employees as well as well over a hundred journalists.
The woman, who has asked not to be named, said:
I’ve been with my bank for at least twenty years. Today, two minutes after donating a fiver to UNRWA, I received a security call and they had blocked my card.
Skwawkbox understands that the account was later unblocked, but if this incident is not a one-off, UK banks may be helping the government enforce its decision to cut off UNRWA and the desperate Palestinians who depend on it – a move that many analysts believe is a measure to accelerate the slaughter in Gaza before Israel has to report back to the International Court of Justice on its compliance, or gaping lack of compliance, with the court’s orders to stop and prevent genocide of the Palestinians.
Update – this appears not to be an isolated incident:
I'm receiving multiple reports that British banks are blocking querying and otherwise disrupting their customers legitimate personal donations to @UNRWA A United Nations Agency! What a country we are rapidly becoming… #Gaza
— George Galloway (@georgegalloway) January 29, 2024
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South Africa’s formal statement on ICJ genocide ruling
South Africa puts UK, US and others on warning of complicity in genocide
South Africa’s formal statement following the findings of the ICJ that have put Israel formally on trial for its genocide in Gaza and have made the occupier state legally responsible for a list of measures to prevent further genocide:
26 January 2024
Today marks a decisive victory for the international rule of law and a significant milestone in the search for justice for the Palestinian people. In a landmark ruling, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has determined that Israel’s actions in Gaza are plausibly genocidal and has indicated provisional measures on that basis. For the implementation of the international rule of law, the decision is a momentous one. South Africa thanks the Court for its swift ruling.
The United Nations Security Council will now be formally notified of the Court’s order pursuant to Article 41(2) of the Court’s Statute. The veto power wielded by individual states can not be permitted to thwart international justice, not least in light of the ever-worsening situation in Gaza brought about by Israel’s acts and omissions in violation of the Genocide Convention.
Third States are now on notice of the existence of a serious risk of genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza. They must, therefore, also act independently and immediately to prevent genocide by Israel and to ensure that they are not themselves in violation of the Genocide Convention, including by aiding or assisting in the commission of genocide. This necessarily imposes an obligation on all States to cease funding and facilitating Israel’s military actions, which are plausibly genocidal.Above all else, the provisional measures are directly binding on Israel, which is required pursuant to the Court’s order and to the Genocide Convention itself, to stop all acts by it that are plausibly genocidal, such as those raised by South Africa in its Application and request for the indication of provisional measures. There is no credible basis for Israel to continue to claim that its military actions are in full compliance with international law, including the Genocide Convention, having regard to the Court’s ruling.
South Africa sincerely hopes that Israel will not act to frustrate the application of this Order, as it has publicly threatened to do, but that it will instead act to comply with it fully, as it is bound to do.
South Africa will continue to act within the institutions of global governance to protect the rights, including the fundamental right to life, of Palestinians in Gaza – which continue to remain at urgent risk including from Israeli military assault, starvation and disease – and to obtain the fair and equal application of international law to all, in the interest of our collective humanity. Notably, South Africa will continue to do everything within its power to preserve the existence of the Palestinian people as a group, to end all acts of apartheid and genocide against the Palestinian people and to walk with them towards the realisation of their collective right to self-determination, for, as Nelson Mandela momentously declared, “our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians”.
The indication by this Court of provisional measures pursuant to the Genocide Convention marks a significant historical step towards that goal.
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Webbe salutes South Africa for ‘walking in the steps of Mandela and Tutu’ for Gaza
‘Huge’ ICJ victory means Israel is now on trial for genocide, says Leicester East MP
Leicester East MP Claudia Webbe had said that South Africa’s success in invoking the genocide convention against Israel at the International Court for Justice is a huge advance gor justice and the protection of Palestinian civilians.
Ms Webbe for following the footsteps of South African giants Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Adding that the UK is shamed by it’s support for Israel’s war crimes, she said:
South Africa’s success in winning an order for Israel to comply with provisional measures to end its genocidal assault on Gaza is a huge advance for justice and protection for two million Palestinians in Gaza facing death not only from bombs, missiles and bullets but also from burgeoning hunger and disease.
When many of the world’s so-called ‘leading’ nations either sat on their hands whilst civilians, mostly women and children, were slaughtered, or – worse still – actively participated or supported Israel’s actions – South Africa stood up and walked in the steps of Mandela and Tutu.
Tutu called for a global boycott of Israel while it perpetrated crimes against the Palestinians, but he also exhorted Palestinians and Israelis to look beyond their leaders and see each other’s common humanity. Israel’s leaders are now dehumanising Palestinians as an excuse to slaughter them.
Mandela famously said that none of us are free until Palestinians are free – and he fearlessly pointed out the terrorism of the Israeli regime.”
Now his successors have won a massive victory, for the people of Palestine and for justice. Even if Israel ignores the court and its allies veto enforcement, they will now clearly be flouting the international ‘rules-based order’ they claim to stand for. In order to comply an immediate ceasefire is necessary. I salute South Africa and the other nations who backed its case and look forward to the ICJ’s final judgment on the merit of the genocide accusation.
It is to the UK’s eternal shame that we were not among those who stood on the side of justice.”
As the International Court for Justice has ruled, South Africa has a plausible case, Israel is now officially on trial for genocide and it’s time for the UK and others to stop arming Israel and call for an immediate ceasefire.
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