Netanyahu's End Game: Why Israel Assassinated Hamas Chief in Iran | Gideon Levy

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International Court of Justice Finds Israel’s Occupation of Palestine Illegal

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https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/07/20/woqv-j20.html

In a devastating condemnation of the Israeli government and its imperialist backers, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled Friday that Israel’s occupation of Palestine is unlawful, ordering all countries to cease enabling it.

Presiding Judge Nawaf Salam reads the ruling in the International Court of Justice, or World Court, in The Hague, Netherlands, Friday July 19, 2024. [AP Photo/Phil Nijhuis]

The court ruled categorically that Israel’s 56-year-old domination over “the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967” is “illegal.” The occupied territories include the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, whose population is being systematically massacred by Israel in an ongoing genocide.

In its sweeping ruling, the court found that, beyond the criminality of Israel’s war against the population of Gaza, the entire framework within which the genocide is being conducted is itself illegal, and that its enablement by the imperialist powers is also illegal.

The court declared that “All States must cooperate with the United Nations to put into effect modalities required to ensure an end to Israel’s illegal presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.” It adds that countries must not “render aid or assistance in maintaining” the illegal occupation.

In a refutation of the imperialist powers’ justifications for funding and arming the Gaza genocide based on claims that “Israel has a right to defend itself,” the court ruled that “Israel’s security concerns cannot override the principle of the prohibition of acquisition of territory by force.”

The Biden administration has declared dozens of times that the support of the United States for Israel’s war against the population of Palestine is “ironclad.” Since the start of the Gaza genocide, the US has provided Israel with $6.5 billion in weapons and has pledged a further $14 billion. This included more than 14,000 2,000-pound bombs.

With the help of these weapons, Israel has likely killed 186,000 Gazans or more since October, according to a survey published in The Lancet.

In announcing the ruling, Nawaf Salam, the president of the ICJ, said,

The sustained abuse by Israel of its position as an occupying power, through annexation and an assertion of permanent control over the occupied Palestinian territory and continued frustration of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, violates fundamental principles of international law and renders Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territory unlawful.

Responding to Friday’s ruling, the UK-based charity Oxfam declared that Israel “is committing the crime of apartheid in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which is one of the most serious international crimes.”

Philippe Sands, counsel for Palestine in the ICJ case, declared in response to the ruling,

This is as clear and far-reaching a ruling as I have come across from this court. … Its legal consequences are entirely without ambiguity, its political consequences far-reaching. … Among the many practical consequences, the court has made clear its view, by an overwhelming majority, that the US and other embassies in Jerusalem are illegal and must be removed for international law to be respected.

Israel has fully annexed East Jerusalem and declared Jerusalem as its capital. In an embrace of the illegal occupation, the Trump administration moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, a move upheld by the Biden administration.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, international law expert William Schabas declared, “[The advisory ruling] is not just directed against Israel. It’s directed against Israel’s friends, and it’s telling them that they cannot contribute in any way to the settlement policy, to the continued acts of violence and persecution in the occupied territories.”

In a statement responding to the ruling, Amnesty International declared, “The International Court of Justice has issued its opinion, and the conclusion is loud and clear: Israel’s occupation and annexation of the Palestinian territories are unlawful, and its discriminatory laws and policies against Palestinians violate the prohibition on racial segregation and apartheid.”

Israeli officials responded with condemnations of the ICJ and by reasserting the very content of the ruling: that Israel is seeking to dominate and annex the entirety of the Palestinian territories.

“We will not accept moral preaching from the court,” blustered Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

“The Jewish people are not conquerors in their own land—neither in our eternal capital Jerusalem nor in the land of our ancestors in Judea and Samaria,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “No false decision in The Hague will distort this historical truth, and the legality of Israeli settlement in all the territories of our homeland cannot be disputed.”

The ICJ is the highest legal body of the United Nations. Friday’s ruling is in response to a 2022 request by the United Nations General Assembly to rule on the legality of the Israeli occupation of Gaza. It is separate from the International Criminal Court, whose chief prosecutor has accused Israel of genocide.

While Friday’s ruling presents a devastating legal indictment of the Israeli government and its imperialist backers, the fact remains that it, like numerous other court rulings and UN resolutions, has no practical force whatsoever.

The ruling comes ahead of the visit by Netanyahu to Washington on July 24 to deliver a joint address to Congress, in which the war criminal prime minister will give a progress report to his imperialist paymasters. The imperialist powers, led by the United States, are thoroughly committed to supporting the genocide in Gaza as part of the reassertion of neo-colonial domination all over the world.

The task of opposing and ending the Gaza genocide falls to the working class, and it can only be accomplished through the building of an international movement of workers and young people all over the world against war and imperialist barbarism as a critical element of the struggle for socialism. The rally called by the Socialist Equality Party, International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) and International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC) on the day of Netanyahu’s appearance in Washington will be a decisive step in building this movement, and we urge the broadest possible attendance at this critical event.

Julian Assange's Lawyers Speak Outside US Court in Saipan

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Solidarity to All Those Who Kept the Faith--Julian Freed!

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Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange to Plead Guilty, Return to Australia | AP News

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CHEERS AND LONG LIFE TO JULIAN, STELLA AND THEIR TWO BOYS.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to plead guilty, return to Australia | AP News

THE FOLLOWING IS NOT THE STORY I WOULD HAVE WRITTEN ABOUT THE MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE THAT JULIAN'S CASE HAS BEEN.  BUT IT'S WHAT'S OUT THERE. 
 

EXCERPT:

WASHINGTON (AP) — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will plead guilty to a felony charge in a deal with the U.S. Justice Department that will free him from prison and resolve a long-running legal saga that spanned multiple continents and centered on the publication of a trove of classified documents, according to court papers filed late Monday.

Assange is scheduled to appear in the federal court in the Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth in the Western Pacific, to plead guilty to an Espionage Act charge of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified national defense information, the Justice Department said in a letter filed in court.

The guilty plea, which must be approved by a judge, brings an abrupt conclusion to a criminal case of international intrigue and to the U.S. government’s years-long pursuit of a publisher whose hugely popular secret-sharing website made him a cause célèbre among many press freedom advocates who said he acted as a journalist to expose U.S. military wrongdoing. Investigators, by contrast, have repeatedly asserted that his actions broke laws meant to protect sensitive information and put the country’s national security at risk.

He is expected to return to Australia after his plea and sentencing, which is scheduled for Wednesday morning, local time in Saipan, the largest island in the Mariana Islands. The hearing is taking place there because of Assange’s opposition to traveling to the continental U.S. and the court’s proximity to Australia.

The deal ensures that Assange will admit guilt while also sparing him from any additional prison time. He had spent years hiding out in the Ecuadorian embassy in London after Swedish authorities sought his arrest on rape allegations before being locked up in the United Kingdom.

Prosecutors have agreed to a sentence of the five years Assange has already spent in a high-security British prison while fighting to avoid extradition to the U.S. to face charges, a process that has played out in a series of hearings in London. Last month, he won the right to appeal an extradition order after his lawyers argued that the U.S. government provided “blatantly inadequate” assurances that he would have the same free speech protections as an American citizen if extradited from Britain.

He is expected to return to Australia after his plea and sentencing, which is scheduled for Wednesday morning, local time in Saipan, the largest island in the Mariana Islands. The hearing is taking place there because of Assange’s opposition to traveling to the continental U.S. and the court’s proximity to Australia.

The Lab Leak Hypothesis: Wrong AND Dangerous -- Rebecca Watson -- Nice one!

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UN Commission Finds Israel Guilty of “Extermination,” “Crimes Against Humanity,” Killing Palestinians and Israeli Hostages

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https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/06/13/enhy-j13.html

The commission found that the Israeli military’s response to the October 7 attack was “significantly delayed and, in many places, totally inadequate.” This was despite the fact that the Israeli military was in possession of Hamas’s detailed battle plans for the attack. On the day of the attack, Israeli forces were deliberately withdrawn from the border.

Once Israeli forces arrived, they began attacking Israeli hostages and other civilians. “The Commission documented one statement by an ISF tank crew, confirming that the crew had applied the Hannibal Directive by shooting at a vehicle which they suspected was transporting abducted ISF [Israeli security forces] soldiers.”

The Hannibal Directive aims to prevent the capture of Israelis by enemy forces, even at the cost of their lives, and implies that the IDF should kill Israelis rather than allow them to fall into the hands of Hamas.

The report continued, “The Commission also verified information indicating that, in at least two other cases, ISF had likely applied the Hannibal Directive, resulting in the killing of up to 14 Israeli civilians. One woman was killed by ISF helicopter fire while being abducted from Nir Oz to Gaza by militants. In another case, the Commission found that Israeli tank fire killed some or all of the 13 civilian hostages held in a house in Be’eri.”

The commission concluded, “Israeli authorities failed to protect civilians in southern Israel on almost every front. This included failing to swiftly deploy sufficient security forces to protect civilians and evacuate them from civilian locations on 7 October. In several locations, ISF applied the so-called ‘Hannibal Directive’ and killed at least 14 Israeli civilians.”

How the Gaza Genocide Will Lead to Israel's Collapse, with Shir Hever--On the Economic Situation

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Light in the Dark. The Deep Ocean Begins Where the Sunlight Ends. Brief Video Explanation.

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Diplomat Chas Freeman Outlines Facts Regarding Israel's Occupation and Genocide of Palestine

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The Crisis at Boeing and the Case for Nationalization--Bryan Dyne, World Socialist Website

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https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/05/29/lsyl-m29.html 

Excerpt:

The contract for the machinists expires on September 12 and a strike authorization vote is scheduled for July 17.

That one of the principle demands of the workers is for more safety inspections and quality control of Boeing aircraft speaks to the class nature of aviation. Workers know that it is their families, friends and co-workers who fly on poorly built and maintained mass-produced aircraft, while the executives and upper management soar on private jets with specialists to keep them at peak efficiency.

It follows that for aircraft to be truly safe, there must be workers’ control over their production. Production lines across the industry must be slowed down in a coordinated fashion to ensure adequate time to fully check and re-check each plane as it is being assembled. New and more advanced testing and development facilities must be established to insure that inherently flawed designs like the MAX 8 never again see the light of day.

Above all else, the crisis at Boeing makes the case for the nationalization of the entire airline industry.

Air travel is an integral part of modern life and the frequency of disasters and near misses cannot be allowed to continue. The working class must remove the profit motive and the dominance of Wall Street from public flight and replace them with a rationally and scientifically organized international system of air transportation.

Airline companies must be transformed into publicly owned and democratically controlled utilities, alongside all other major industries, as part of the fight to overthrow capitalism and establish socialism.

Free Julian Assange! Oppose imperialist war!

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PUBLIC MEETING: Mobilize the Working Class to Defend the Univ. of California Strike Against Genocide!

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https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/05/22/ygjp-m22.html

Will Lehman, a socialist Mack Trucks worker who ran for United Auto Workers president on a platform of rank-and-file control, issued the following statement in support of the meeting:

The strike by University of California academic workers against the crackdown on Gaza protests is in danger. On Tuesday, the university filed for a court injunction to ban the strike.

This is an attack on the whole working class. If they get away with this, no rights are safe.

The World Socialist Web Site and the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees are holding an emergency meeting this Saturday at 4 p.m. Eastern, 1 p.m. Pacific. All workers in every industry should attend. The issue will not be decided in the pro-corporate courts. It will be decided in the factories, the docks, the schools and hospitals, and other workplaces.

Workers must take action to defend the strike. It must be expanded to not just the entire University of California system but to the entire UAW membership and to other industries. Workers must form rank-and-file committees to enforce the will of the membership against the sellouts by the union bureaucrats.

The ruling class wants to ban all forms of political opposition. If you protest the crimes of the government you will be arrested. If you strike against arrests and the suppression of free speech, your strike will be declared illegal. One university administrator put it bluntly. He said: “Particularly in today’s climate,” if this strike is allowed, “the University—and every other public agency in California—would face constant strikes advancing political and/or social viewpoints.”

But every struggle in the history of the workers’ movement—from the fight against child labor, for the eight-hour day, and for the right to strike itself—has been a “political” struggle.

The same methods have already been turned against workers opposing corporate exploitation. In 2022, Biden and Congress banned a strike by railroad workers on so-called national security grounds.

The UAW is sabotaging the UC strike because they support Genocide Joe Biden. They are acting as an extension of the police and the courts.

They have only called out a single campus, UC Santa Cruz. They responded to the injunction by begging the university to negotiate. They say they may call out another campus by Friday. But the strike could already be illegal by then. But even if they do get an agreement to shut down the strike, it will be an injunction in all but name.

There is enormous rank-and-file anger over this sabotage. But the issue has to be taken out of the hands of the bureaucrats. The response has to begin now. Contact the WSWS to get started by visiting wsws.org/workers. Register for Saturday’s meeting by clicking here.

World War and Revolution: 1914-1917--SEP's Nick Beams (2017) on the Capitalist Contradictions' That Lead to War

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Build Rank-and-File Committees, the Organs of 21st Century Working Class Struggle! - Eric London

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MC Abdul - Shouting At The Wall (Official Video)

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Will Lehman Calls His UAW Colleagues to Organize Strikes Against Attacks on Students & Against Genocide and War

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Int'l May Day 2024 Online Rally--Andy Thompson for the IYSSE (Int'l Youth & Students for Social Equality)

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An Hour of Truth -- Mistake of Relying on the Pressure Tactics of the Pseudo-left to stop World War III

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Workers Must Prepare Industrial Action to Halt Police Crackdown on Student Anti-genocide Protests

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https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/05/02/pers-m02.html

Workers are witnessing the beginning stages of martial law in the United States. While there is a long history of the use of police against anti-war protests, there is no precedent for the attempt to illegalize opposition to a genocide, which is being openly backed by the US government.

Against peaceful demonstrators, local governments controlled by both parties, and in coordination with the White House, have flooded campuses with riot cops and mounted police, backed with drones and snipers, to beat and arrest thousands. While they claim this is needed to “restore order,” police are working with the extreme right, who at UCLA attacked protesters with fireworks and blunt weapons while police stood by. Even open massacres of students like at Kent State in 1970 are being considered, as shown by demands to deploy the National Guard to universities.

The unanimous support for the crackdown exposes the character of the political system as an instrument of class rule. Both parties also overcame their differences in 2022 to ban a national strike by railroad workers.

Getting the “home front” in order is seen as a necessary first step in preparing for massively unpopular military escalation and war crimes on a scale which have not been seen since the end of World War II. In the first instance, this means the Israeli invasion of Rafah, which would be, by far, the worst atrocity so far in the seven-month-long genocide in the Gaza Strip.

The genocide in Gaza and US war plans against Iran are only one front in an emerging world war. The campus crackdowns came as both parties voted to pass funding, not only for Israel but for the military in Ukraine, as well as for Taiwan, which would act as a tripwire in a future war against China.

Workers and their children will be shipped off to fight these wars, which are being paid for by the destruction of wages, pensions, healthcare and social programs. These wars have already claimed hundreds of thousands of lives but also threaten nuclear annihilation.