do WHO’s new International Health Regulations represent UN overreach or a roadmap to totalitarianism?

Presented below is a summary of information produced by a qualified legal expert with a follow-up interview with John Campbell. The issue of concern is the World Health Organisation’s New Pandemic Treaty and draft amendments to the current International Health Regulations (IHR).

Prior to posting this article I actually tried to search for all of the relevant documents and proposed amendments in order to evaluate the claims that are made. However, I found this to be a somewhat difficult task (particularly given my lack of legal knowledge and training) and rather than unearth the primary texts, I instead ran across a variety of mainstream articles and summaries and fact-checking exercises that overpopulate the current Google search.

Without exception the view presented by such mainstream sources supports the WHO and encourages its proposed tightening of procedures while rejecting all claims that the new treaty and IHR amendments will be mandatory, affect sovereign rights of nations, or in any way threaten to limit or undermine our civil liberties. Indeed, contrary opinions are framed and dismissed as wholly the paranoia of “right wing conspiracy theorists”.

Just to set the record straight then, I am neither right wing nor “a conspiracy theorist”. I am very concerned, however, by how our individual rights are coming increasingly under threat from technocratic intrusions (at both national and supranational levels) that repeatedly clampdown on freedom of expression, restrict freedom of assembly and movement, and have otherwise impinged on ordinary civil liberties – vaccine passports and mandates being two of the most recent and egregious examples.

In the light of what we have all just lived through, therefore, any prospect of a new global legal framework that encourages or enables the tightening of restrictions and limiting of personal freedom in the event of future pandemics is surely a major cause for concern for all democratically minded people.

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On October 13^th, Philipp Kruse, an international lawyer based in Zurich, gave a presentation to the Health and Democracy Conference at the European Parliament expressing concerns about new International Health Regulations will grant the power to the World Health Organisation permitting, at any time, an unelected and unaccountable technocratic body to override our constitutions, suspend our human rights, and bypass international law with permanent effect.

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Philipp Kruse began by giving a brief introduction of what the plan is, and what can be seen in from the documents that are already on the table today and are about to be negotiated under the title of New Pandemic Treaty and with proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations. He said:

“We are here today because we are all concerned by the World Health Organisation’s strong pressure to extend its powers, its structural and its financial capacities, with a permanent effect over the sovereignty of the countries, and over the self-determination of the people.

“It was in the wake of the covid-19 crisis that the WHO has initiated a reform process which will bring significant changes to all of us; that will concern every human being; and every one of the 194 member states on this planet.

“This reform process was started in 2021 with two working streams preparing two separate legal instruments. Number one: a complete new treaty, the so-called New Pandemic Treaty and; number two: significant amendments to the old, already existing International Health Regulations.

“These two legal instruments: the treaty and IHR are about to be negotiated and finalised and they bring material changes. The contents of these drafts are on the table. They are available for everybody [to see] and already in eight months time from now, in May 2024, the 194 member states of the WHO will have their final vote on both of these international agreements.”

Slide above shows the legislative timelines for the two WHO projects (screenshot from his interview with John Campbell embedded below)

“This process takes place behind closed doors and at a tremendous speed. It is not reported nor discussed in our newspapers, in our national parliaments, in universities, nor in society. This is unacceptable, because these two legal instruments will affect every one of us by reducing our right of self-determination, our right in general to human dignity, and it will eliminate the basic principle of democratic participation.

“Also the effects of these treaties will be felt by member states. They will lose their sovereignty and their autonomy. Therefore every human being on this planet should understand the essence of the two legal instruments which come under the title of ‘Pandemic Prevention’ and ‘Pandemic Preparedness and Response’.

“In a nutshell, the WHO claims in these two legal instruments an absolute and non-questionable leadership in all health measures as soon as WHO refers itself to ‘pandemic prevention, preparedness and response’. WHO claims to have the ultimate expertise and the ultimate power in all aspects of this wide field: I recommend you read carefully the current existing draft of the amendments of the International Health Regulations, article 13A and article 42.

“It shall be granted the power of massive self-authorisation whenever it claims to act under this purpose: I recommend you read the article 12 that establishes the preconditions for ‘Public Health Emergency of International Concern’ [PHEIC] together with Annex 2 of the proposed amendments.

“On the basis of an extremely weak concept, i.e., ‘health’, which basically means anything and nothing: animal’s health, ecosystem concerns about the level of CO2, and, of course, human health, can give rise to permanent measures, and even to a public health emergency – to a pandemic called out and declared by the WHO.

“And thereby, WHO will have the right to not only declare recommendations made by several experts, but also to impose on the people of this planet (or only to a certain region) all kinds of restrictions: access restrictions, lockdowns, surveillance and experimental treatments.

“So far the list of these potential measures can be found in the International Health Regulations, article 18; and there you will also find one example of the precondition of the proof of vaccination that was so far meant to be non-binding. In the future, as the word ‘binding’ is eliminated, and as we have explicitly written down in article 13A of the proposal and article 42 of the proposal, the commitment that the member states will give when they accept these amendments – the commitment that they will have to apply the proposed measures. This is not enough.

“Further, WHO will most notably reserve and assume the right to define as the sole instance of – on this planet – to control all information that it claims to be related to health. And this assumes, as well, the right for censorship and the right to interfere in social communication.

“It seems to be so important to the WHO that these provisions can be found in both of the international new agreements: in International Health Regulations and in the new pandemic treaty.

“And last but not least, of a brief summary that should be given any time we speak about these new changes, is the fact that there is no mechanism foreseen that will allow the people or the member states to challenge the assessment of WHO, whether it is the WHO’s assessment about a ‘public health emergency’, or their assessment with respect to certain measures, or when it comes to the imposing of a regime for what they call ‘vaccination’ as experimental as it might be.

“There simply will be no stop-button for the member states and of course not for us the citizens.”

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On October 16^th, John Campbell invited Philipp Kruse to discuss the serious dangers posed by ratification of WHO’s proposed new treaty and International Health Regulations:

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Additional:

A complete transcription of the concluding part of Philipp Kruse’s statement at the European Parliament is continued below:

“So now, if we just look at it as a whole. Number one: this right of WHO to self-declare, to auto-authorise itself to claim a ‘Public Health Emergency of International Concern’, and to maintain it for as long as it wants. Number two: to issue so-called ‘recommendations’ that will be legally binding, and that will be subject to a system of surveillance: surveillance of the people and surveillance of the member states. Then the total control and monopoly on information, including the right of censorship, and then the fact that there is no mechanism of control: control of the WHO and of correction.

“What do we have as a result? Well, it is very simple to say: without the open debate; without the possibility of having different opinions, different hypothesis, different methods to be discussed at the table, there will be no science, and there will be ultimately no democracy. And there will be no legal court proceedings and no justice. If the result is already predefined by one sole authority on this planet, there cannot be by definition any proper scientific process – a proper decision-making process – there cannot be any democracy.

“Number two: it is a basic principle, not only of international law, not only of national constitutional law, that we have, as human beings, the right to know what we consent to. So, if we ask ourselves have we been asked, have we been informed about this process that is about to become reality, the answer is no.

“And there is one important distinction to be made between these two legal instruments. The new pandemic treaty will be considered by WHO itself as a treaty, and thereby shall be subject to a national process of debate and ratification. But not so for the International Health Regulations. The International Health Regulations by definition of WHO’s own writing (when you read the International Health Regulations), they are qualified, as health regulations according to the WHO constitution article 21. And what does that mean as a consequence? There will be an automatic coming into force right after the vote in 2024.

“So far it is still 24 months [away] but these 24 months have been reduced to 12 month only. That means that at the end after May 2025, the International Health Regulations will become law automatically.

“So, we will not be asked. We have not been informed. And there will be a process of automatic enactment of the international health regulation. This is about as severe as it can be when it comes to the violation of the principle of an informed consent.

“This principle does not exist only on the individual level, but it exists also for democracies as a whole, and it exists under the title of self-determination of the people which is one of the founding principles of the United Nations in the United Nations Charter article 1 of 1946.

“Now, this is a reason why we should all get to know not only what is in these documents, but we shall claim and clearly say that some of these International Health Regulations and the changes that are modified and declared there, will totally be opposed to what we consider our constitutional order. As there is no public information right, as there will be censorship, as there will be human rights not protected, as there will be no checks and balances, as actually it will be the WHO to determine under which legal status we will have to live. That means the power will not anymore be in the hands of the people.

“Therefore these negotiations have to be stopped immediately. And it is an matter and a duty for all citizens now to impose the pressure towards their political representatives to make sure that the politicians – the political representatives – understand that they go on their entrusted vote they can use. Now, as this is just an overview, and as we are here in Europe, and as within Europe these roles have been already pushed forward to an alarming extent we found it important to provide you a more detailed overview on the situation here in Europe.”

“A Textbook Case of Genocide”: Israeli historian and Holocaust scholar Raz Segal decries Israel’s assault on Gaza

Israel’s campaign to displace Gazans—and potentially expel them altogether into Egypt—is yet another chapter in the Nakba, in which an estimated 750,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes during the 1948 war that led to the creation of the State of Israel. But the assault on Gaza can also be understood in other terms: as a textbook case of genocide unfolding in front of our eyes. I say this as a scholar of genocide, who has spent many years writing about Israeli mass violence against Palestinians.

Writes Israeli historian Raz Segal, who is an associate professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University, New Jersey, in article entitled “A Textbook Case of Genocide” published in Jewish Currents on October 13^th.

On October 16^th, Segal was interviewed on Democracy Now! where he restated his position saying unequivocally:

“What we’re seeing now in Gaza is a case of genocide. We have to understand that the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide from 1948 requires that we see special intent for genocide to happen. And to quote the convention, intent to destroy a group is defined as racial, ethnic, religious or national as such that is collectively, not just individuals. And this intent, as we just heard, is on full display by Israeli politicians and army officers since 7th of October.”

Click here to read the full transcript and to watch the same interview on the Democracy Now! website.

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In his original article Raz Segal continues:

Under international law, the crime of genocide is defined by “the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such,” as noted in the December 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. In its murderous attack on Gaza, Israel has loudly proclaimed this intent. Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant declared it in no uncertain terms on October 9th: “We are imposing a complete siege on Gaza. No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals, and we will act accordingly.”

Adding:

The UN Genocide Convention lists five acts that fall under its definition. Israel is currently perpetrating three of these in Gaza: “1. Killing members of the group. 2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group. 3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.” The Israeli Air Force, by its own account, has so far dropped more than 6,000 bombs on Gaza, which is one of the most densely populated areas in the world—almost as many bombs as the US dropped on all of Afghanistan during record-breaking years of its war there. Human Rights Watch has confirmed that the weapons used included phosphorous bombs, which set fire to bodies and buildings, creating flames that aren’t extinguished on contact with water. This demonstrates clearly what Gallant means by “act accordingly”: not targeting individual Hamas militants, as Israel claims, but unleashing deadly violence against Palestinians in Gaza “as such,” in the language of the UN Genocide Convention. Israel has also intensified its 16-year siege of Gaza—the longest in modern history, in clear violation of international humanitarian law—to a “complete siege,” in Gallant’s words. This turn of phrase that explicitly indexes a plan to bring the siege to its final destination of systematic destruction of Palestinians and Palestinian society in Gaza, by killing them, starving them, cutting off their water supplies, and bombing their hospitals.

Concluding the same piece with this unequivocal statement:

“Indeed, Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza is quite explicit, open, and unashamed. Perpetrators of genocide usually do not express their intentions so clearly, though there are exceptions… Israel’s goal is to destroy the Palestinians of Gaza. And those of us watching around the world are derelict in our responsibility to prevent them from doing so.”

Click here to read Raz Segal’s full article “A Textbook Case of Genocide” published in Jewish Currents on October 13^th.

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Update:

Alternative news site Electronic Intifada has been providing regular updates via tri-weekly livestream podcasts throughout the Israeli genocidal campaign against Gaza. This evening [Monday 23^rd] they interviewed Dr Mads Gilbert who is a member of an emergency medical team now in Cairo but trying to rejoin colleagues in Gaza.

He told us the situation is not “a disaster, it is a catastrophic disaster; and what we see playing out live, minute-by-minute, is the politics of elimination executed against the colonised by the colonisers

“Because what we see is such a massive attack on the human habitat; the civilian population crushed into the very narrow space by the siege. And also the systematic attack on all the provisions you need to live. And that is, not first and foremost hospitals and ambulances, it is water, it is food, it is electricity, it is human security, and then you may need the medical system.

“So they are actually choking 2.2 million civilians by thirsting them, starving them, denying them light, denying them warmth, denying them practical possibilities to take care of their children. Then they are bombing them. And then, importantly, they are also attacking the medical system, which should of course be protected.

“We know from the reports that 10 hospitals have been closed so far, and 29 primary healthcare centres”:

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Additional:

On Sunday 22^nd, I sent another letter to my constituency MP Paul Blomfield (Labour) having received an unsatisfactory and completely standard reply to my first letter (which you can find here – including my immediate response to him).

My new message is more straightforward. Under the blunt subject heading: “A Textbook Case of Genocide”: Israeli Holocaust scholar Raz Segal on Israel’s assault on Gaza and alongside a link to his Democracy Now! interview (embedded above) I simply added these words:

Regarding the current situation in Gaza, I shall not send any further comments. But I would like simply to offer this for your consideration:

“A Textbook Case of Genocide”: Israeli Holocaust scholar Raz Segal on Israel’s assault on Gaza  

Kind regards,

James

Any reply I receive will, of course, be appended below.

Cynthia McKinney, Eva Bartlett, Vanessa Beeley — understanding Gaza, under siege and under fire

Mike Robinson of UK Column speaks with journalist Eva Bartlett who has lived in Gaza and the Occupied Territories for extensive periods of time, Cynthia McKinney, former US Congresswoman and long time Palestine supporter with her own history of dealing with the Israeli security forces and Vanessa Beeley, who was in Gaza during the 2012 Israeli aggression and returned in March 2013 to establish trauma therapy projects inside Gaza.

The discussion is detailed and wide-ranging. It covers their experiences of everyday life in Gaza, with accounts of the unexpected beauty of the land and its people, alongside personal testimony to the routine atrocities inflicted by a brutal occupying force, the unimaginable hardships of existing under constant blockade and the self-evident and legally sanctioned legitimacy of Palestinian resistance.

A much-needed lifting of the veil during times when the mainstream media is constantly eager to portray the Palestinians as hapless victims inadvertently caught up in a conflict between “Israel vs Hamas”:

Israel’s propaganda in context: reflections then and now, from Gerald Kaufman and Ghada Karmi

The Gaza War or Operation Cast Lead, which also known as the Gaza Massacre, took place in the three weeks from 27 December 2008 to 18 January 2009. It is known that between 1,100 and 1,400 Palestinians lost their lives and a further 5,000 were wounded during the conflict, and a half of all the casualties were civilians. Israel lost ten soldiers including four to ‘friendly fire’ along with three civilians.

In the last days of Operation Cast Lead, Labour backbencher Gerald Kaufman MP called for a total arms ban on Israel, saying, “It is time for our Government to make clear to the Israeli Government that their conduct and policies are unacceptable.”

Today, writer and Palestinian exile Ghada Karmi reflects on Kaufman’s speech and talks about the context behind the current situation in Palestine.

Note that: the interview took place before the bombing of the Al-Ahli Arabi Baptist Hospital.

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Reproduced below in full is Gerald Kaufman’s speech to the House of Commons given during a debate about Gaza on January 15^th 2009. The transcript is taken from Hansard and can be viewed within its original context here.

I was brought up as an orthodox Jew and a Zionist. On a shelf in our kitchen, there was a tin box for the Jewish National Fund, into which we put coins to help the pioneers building a Jewish presence in Palestine.

I first went to Israel in 1961 and I have been there since more times than I can count. I had family in Israel and have friends in Israel. One of them fought in the wars of 1956, 1967 and 1973 and was wounded in two of them. The tie clip that I am wearing is made from a campaign decoration awarded to him, which he presented to me.

I have known most of the Prime Ministers of Israel, starting with the founding Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. Golda Meir was my friend, as was Yigal Allon, Deputy Prime Minister, who, as a general, won the Negev for Israel in the 1948 war of independence.

My parents came to Britain as refugees from Poland. Most of their families were subsequently murdered by the Nazis in the holocaust. My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town of Staszow. A German soldier shot her dead in her bed.

My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza. The current Israeli Government ruthlessly and cynically exploit the continuing guilt among gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians. The implication is that Jewish lives are precious, but the lives of Palestinians do not count.

On Sky News a few days ago, the spokeswoman for the Israeli army, Major Leibovich, was asked about the Israeli killing of, at that time, 800 Palestinians—the total is now 1,000. She replied instantly that

“500 of them were militants.”

That was the reply of a Nazi. I suppose that the Jews fighting for their lives in the Warsaw ghetto could have been dismissed as militants.

The Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni asserts that her Government will have no dealings with Hamas, because they are terrorists. Tzipi Livni’s father was Eitan Livni, chief operations officer of the terrorist Irgun Zvai Leumi, who organised the blowing-up of the King David hotel in Jerusalem, in which 91 victims were killed, including four Jews.

Israel was born out of Jewish terrorism. Jewish terrorists hanged two British sergeants and booby-trapped their corpses. Irgun, together with the terrorist Stern gang, massacred 254 Palestinians in 1948 in the village of

Deir Yassin. Today, the current Israeli Government indicate that they would be willing, in circumstances acceptable to them, to negotiate with the Palestinian President Abbas of Fatah. It is too late for that. They could have negotiated with Fatah’s previous leader, Yasser Arafat, who was a friend of mine. Instead, they besieged him in a bunker in Ramallah, where I visited him. Because of the failings of Fatah since Arafat’s death, Hamas won the Palestinian election in 2006. Hamas is a deeply nasty organisation, but it was democratically elected, and it is the only game in town. The boycotting of Hamas, including by our Government, has been a culpable error, from which dreadful consequences have followed.

The great Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban, with whom I campaigned for peace on many platforms, said:

“You make peace by talking to your enemies.”

However many Palestinians the Israelis murder in Gaza, they cannot solve this existential problem by military means. Whenever and however the fighting ends, there will still be 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza and 2.5 million more on the west bank. They are treated like dirt by the Israelis, with hundreds of road blocks and with the ghastly denizens of the illegal Jewish settlements harassing them as well. The time will come, not so long from now, when they will outnumber the Jewish population in Israel.

It is time for our Government to make clear to the Israeli Government that their conduct and policies are unacceptable, and to impose a total arms ban on Israel. It is time for peace, but real peace, not the solution by conquest which is the Israelis’ real goal but which it is impossible for them to achieve. They are not simply war criminals; they are fools.

THE SLAVE REVOLT IN GAZA, and Bernie Sanders | Norman Finkelstein

The following article is republished unabridged with all capitalisation and highlights retained (including in the title) from the original source.

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Former progressive presidential candidate Bernie Sanders issued a second statement yesterday (12 October 2023) on the hecatomb in Israel and Gaza.  The gist of what he had to say was that, before October 7th, everything was going along more or less swimmingly in the struggle for justice:

For years, people of good will throughout the world, including some brave Israelis, have struggled against the blockade of Gaza, the daily humiliations of occupation in the West Bank, and the horrendous living conditions faced by so many Palestinians.

But then, along came “Hamas’s terrorist assault,” which constituted “a major setback for any hope of justice for the Palestinian people” and “will make it much more difficult to address that tragic reality.”

Here is a reality check. “For years,” no one was doing anything to end the blockade of Gaza.  Not Bernie.  Not me.  Not anyone.  The people of Gaza—70 percent of whom are refugees (from the 1948 war) and half of whom are children—had been left to languish and die in what Hebrew University sociologist Baruch Kimmerling called “the largest concentration camp ever to exist.”   The “people of good will throughout the world” were not “struggling against the blockade.”  The world had moved on.  On the eve of October 7, the Biden administration was cobbling together an agreement with Saudi Arabia that would have rendered null and void any prospect of “justice for the Palestinian people.”

Israel is not “at war” with a foreign entity, let alone a foreign state.  Gaza is an integral part of Israel.  “There is one regime governing the entire area from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea,” Israel’s leading human rights organization, B’Tselem, observed some years back, “based on a single organizing principle” of “Jewish supremacy.”  What happened on October 7 was a slave revolt inside Israel.

The largest slave revolt in U.S. history against “White supremacy” was led by Nat Turner.  Turner was a religious fanatic; he believed that the revolt was divinely inspired and sanctioned.  Here’s how Wikipedia describes what ensued:

The rebels traveled from house to house, freeing enslaved people and killing many of the White people whom they encountered…. Historian Stephen B. Oates states that Turner called on his group to “kill all the white people”…. Turner thought that revolutionary violence would awaken the attitudes of Whites to the reality of the inherent brutality in slave-holding. Turner said he wanted to spread “terror and alarm” among Whites.

Scores of White innocents were deliberately killed.  Nonetheless, the Nat Turner Rebellion now occupies an honored place in American history.

Turner’s rebellion provoked mass genocidal hysteria among Whites.  To gain one’s moral bearings at this fraught moment, it repays to peruse the statement issued by the great Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison right after the revolt:

What we have so long predicted,—at the peril of being stigmatized as an alarmist and declaimer,—has commenced its fulfilment. The first step of the earthquake, which is ultimately to shake down the fabric of oppression, leaving not one stone upon another, has been made. The first drops of blood, which are but the prelude to a deluge from the gathering clouds, have fallen. The first flash of lightning, which is to smite and consume, has been felt. The first wailings of bereavement, which is to clothe the earth in sackcloth, have broken up our ears. 

…

The crime of oppression is national. The south is only the agent in this guilty traffic. But, remember! The same causes are at work which must inevitably produce the same effects; and when the contest shall have again begun, it must be again a war of extermination. In the present instance, no quarters have been asked or given. 

But we have killed and routed them now—we can do it again and again—we are invincible! A dastardly triumph, well becoming a nation of oppressors. Detestable complacency, that can think, without emotion, of the extermination of the blacks! We have the power to kill all—let us, therefore, continue to apply the whip and forge new fetters! 

In his fury against the revolters, who will remember their wrongs? What will it avail them, though the catalogue of their sufferings, dripping with warm blood fresh from their lacerated bodies, be held up to extenuate their conduct? It is enough that the victims were black—that circumstance makes them less precious than the dogs which have been slain in our streets! They were black—brutes, pretending to be men—legions of curses upon their memories! They were black—God made them to serve us! 

Ye patriotic hypocrites! ye panegyrists of Frenchmen, Greeks, and Poles! ye fustian declaimers for liberty! ye valiant sticklers for equal rights among yourselves! ye haters of aristocracy! ye assailants of monarchies! ye republican nullifiers! ye treasonable disunionists! Be dumb! Cast no reproach upon the conduct of the slaves, but let your lips and cheeks wear the blisters of condemnation! 

Ye accuse the pacific friends of emancipation of instigating the slaves to revolt. Take back the charge as a foul slander. The slaves need no incentives at our hands. They will find them in their stripes—in their emaciated bodies—in their ceaseless toil—in their ignorant minds—in every field, in every valley, on every hill-top and mountain, wherever you and your fathers have fought for liberty—in your speeches, your conversations, your celebrations, your pamphlets, your newspapers—voices in the air, sounds from across the ocean, invitations to resistance above, below, around them! What more do they need? Surrounded by such influences, and smarting under their newly made wounds, is it wonderful that they should rise to contend—as other heroes have contended—for their lost rights? It is not wonderful. 

In all that we have written, is there aught to justify the excesses of the slaves? No. Nevertheless, they deserve no more censure than the Greeks in destroying the Turks, or the Poles in exterminating the Russians, or our fathers in slaughtering the British. Dreadful, indeed, is the standard erected by worldly patriotism! 

For ourselves, we are horror-struck at the late tidings. We have exerted our utmost efforts to avert the calamity. We have warned our countrymen of the danger of persisting in their unrighteous conduct. We have preached to the slaves the pacific precepts of Jesus Christ. We have appealed to christians, philanthropists, and patriots, for their assistance to accomplish the great work of national redemption through the agency of moral power—of public opinion—of individual duty. How have we been received? We have been threatened, proscribed, vilified, and imprisoned—a laughing-stock and a reproach. Do we falter, in view of these things? Let time answer. If we have been hitherto urgent, and bold, and denunciatory in our efforts,—hereafter we shall grow vehement and active with the increase of danger. We shall cry, in trumpet tones, night and day,—Wo to this guilty land, unless she speedily repent of her evil doings! The blood of millions of her sons cries aloud for redress! IMMEDIATE EMANCIPATION alone can save her from the vengeance of Heaven, and cancel the debt of ages! 

It is to be noted that, whereas he stated that the “excesses of the slaves” could not be justified and he was “horror-struck at the late tidings,” William Lloyd Garrison did not condemn the slave revolt.

Click here to read the same article as it originally appeared on Norman Finkelstein’s official website published on October 12^th.

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Additional:

Norman Finkelstein is an historian and political scientist who specialises in Israel-Palestine relations and the Holocaust. He is also the son of Holocaust survivors. Both his mother and father survived the Warsaw Ghetto and the Majdanek concentration camp. His father was also a survivor of Auschwitz.

On Tuesday 17^th, Norman Finkelstein was invited to speak at greater length about his article as well as to dispel false claims, historical and current, about the Israel-Palestine conflict, the events and the atrocities of the October 7^th Al-Aqsa Flood Operation, and the brutal Israeli retaliatory assault on Gaza. The full interview with Katie Halper is embedded below.

Norman Finkelstein told Katie Halper: “Now you have to acknowledge that was an incredibly principled position that Garrison took. He was told ‘don’t go south because you’re not going to come back.’

“So when I read that statement by him, my appreciation of the abolitionists soared. Because there were very few people after October 7^th who were willing to say about the Israelis and Palestinians what Garrison said about the whites and the African-American slaves.” [from 1:05:00 mins]

Conservative MP Crispin Blunt labels Israeli actions in Gaza as war crimes

British MP Crispin Blunt, the former Chair of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee and co-director of The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP), has described Israeli actions in Gaza as war crimes and accuses the UK government of potential complicity due to its staunch support for Israel.

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On Saturday 14^th, Blunt told Sky News (in full):

“[I’m] not sure colleagues have grasped the legal peril they are in, or fully understand international law in this area. You can’t encourage powers to commit war crimes. Or, if indeed the United Kingdom is not, as other members of the international community ought to be, pointing out to the Israelis that their actions are breaches of international law, breaches of the fundamental settlement that followed the Second World War in detail – and what we are seeing on the television about the forcible transfer of all those people – is a in direct breach and war crimes. Everyone must act to restrain people, if they know it’s going to happen.”

Asked to clarify the point, he continues:

“If you know that a party is going to commit a war crime – and this forcible transfer of people is a precise breach of one of the statutes that governs international law and all states in this area – then you are making yourself complicit. And as international law has developed in this area, the fact of being complicit makes you equally guilty to the party carrying out the crime.

“And so this is really how – and this is now the last defence of the Palestinians in this situation – is that international law then begins to operate to make international leaders conscious of their duties under international law, and the fact that they, in the end, can’t ignore it. And they ought to be acting to restrain our allies from taking actions that are breaches of international law.”

Adding:

“It goes beyond government ministers. It means any politician who is egging Israel on to breach international law and support Israel in the conduct of this operation.

“Of course, our hearts all go out to the State of Israel and people there for the absolute appalling atrocities committed on it. But what we’re not allowed to do is witness one crime being piled on with another, which is simply going to make the situation worse. But it’s also fundamentally wrong.

“I think that what we would suggest the government ought to be supporting the UN Secretary- General’s call for an immediate ceasefire. And for getting aid and supplies into the beleaguered population in Gaza. And that needs to be the first action.

“This has got to stop because if you, in response to the atrocity of last Saturday; if the response is an illegal atrocity that is even worse in scale, where does this lead? And that’s why international law is cast the way it is, and it’s very specific about the actions required and the responsibilities engaged. And that’s not just the responsibilities of the actors in the action itself. It’s actually those who are encouraging them.

“In Israel’s case, Israel has had a deal of exceptionalism and impunity from international law for a very long time now. And in the interest of us all, and indeed Israel itself, that needs to stop.”

The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) has also written a stark warning to UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak that it intends to prosecute UK government officials who “could be individually liable for their role in aiding and abetting Israeli war crimes.”

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Crispin Blunt issued a further statement on the same day that was uploaded by Middle East Eye and is embedded below alongside a complete transcript:

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“The United Kingdom government has given unequivocal support to the State of Israel in a statement repeated by the Prime Minister yesterday and I’m uncertain that they fully understand the implications of the development of international law whereby if you are encouraging a party to undertake a war crime you become complicit in that crime itself.

“It is absolutely clear now that what is happening in Gaza does amount to a war crime, because it is disproportionate, and it is does not distinguish the targets it is taking out. Hence the terrible number of children that have been killed, and what we’ve just heard from the World Health Organization and the concerns about the effect of the transfer on the hospitals.

“But you will know that a force transfer of 1.2 million people is an absolute crime under the laws of war. You are simply not allowed to do it. As indeed is the collective punishment of the people of Gaza with a siege and the imposition of no food and no water and no electricity.”

eyewitness in Gaza: Eva Bartlett recounts her personal experience of life under Israel’s occupation

Just banned from Youtube – her entire channel has been removed with all contents disappeared into the memory hole – independent journalist Eva K Bartlett (@Reality_Theories) spoke yesterday with political commentator Mike Jones who invited her onto his own platform to share her personal experience of living in Gaza after she had first moved there in 2007.

In the interview linked below (unfortunately standard WordPress does not currently allow Odysee to be embedded), Eva Bartlett describes the dreadful conditions that have to be endured by the Palestinian people and the numerous war crimes perpetrated on a daily basis by Israeli forces

Click on the image to play the video:

Click here to find more of Eva Bartlett’s work on her official website.

worldwide support for Palestine is marked by huge protests in London, Dublin, Paris and elsewhere

Former Labour leader and independent MP Jeremy Corbyn stands with 200,000+ in London, condemning Israeli actions in Gaza. He underscores the prolonged suffering of Palestinian refugees and calls for international law to be upheld.

Embedded below: interviews and footage from the March for Palestine in London on Saturday 14^th, including speeches from Jeremy Corbyn (extended), Martin Cavanagh, Jess Barnard, Hugh Lanning, Ben Jamal and the Palestinian ambassador to UK, Husam Zomlot. Footage from Platform Films (producers of ‘Oh Jeremy Corbyn: The Big Lie’ and Carlos Soto:

Meanwhile protesters also expressed their outrage towards the current Labour leader Keir Starmer after he had publicly backed Israel’s war crimes against the people of Gaza [apologies for strong language]:

🚨 BREAKING 🚨

Crowd chants "Fuck Keir Starmer" at pro-Palestine march in London. pic.twitter.com/wl8E9YyEnt

— El Borto 🔥🔥🔥 (@leo_hutz) October 14, 2023

At a protest of more 150,000 for Palestine in London, the crowd chants ‘Keir Starmer, shame on you’ pic.twitter.com/Gd7ezWoBxX

— Ed (@emcnally96) October 14, 2023

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Crowds in Dublin gathered to rally in support of Gaza and the people of Palestine.

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On Thursday 12^th, thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters were gathered in Paris, despite Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin‘s order banning the protests. The police responded by using teargas and water cannon to disperse the crowds:

Some orthodox Jews who had joined the protests in Paris were then attacked by police. But France wasn’t the only European “democracy” that has cracked down on peaceful pro-Palestine antiwar protests. Germany likewise followed suit [warning: strong language]:

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On Monday 9^th, protesters also marched peacefully through Sydney in support of Palestine in spite of calls from Prime Minster Anthony Albanese for the march to be cancelled:

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Thousands more joined rallies and marches this weekend to protest peacefully in cities across America including in NY, Washington, Chicago and Portland:

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On Wednesday 11^th, thousands more protesters took to the streets of Johannesburg and Cape Town in South Africa:

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Across the Middle East and North Africa there have been huge rallies. Hundreds of thousands took to the streets in Istanbul; Amman, Jordan; Cairo; Tunis; Dhaka, Bangladesh; Baghdad; Beirut; across India; and Palestinians also took to the streets in Hebron on the West Bank:

Israeli teenager who survived Hamas attack calls for peace and demands Israel stop bombing Gaza

In this video shared on Twitter by Orly Barlev, (https://twitter.com/OrlyBarlevEng) and uploaded on Youtube by Katie Halper, a 19-year-old Israeli woman who survived the Hamas attack on kibbutz Be’eri recounts what she went through, blames Netanyahu for not seeking a “political solution,” shames people calling for “revenge,” and urges Israel to stop the bombing:

Killing Gaza documentary

“Max Blumenthal and Dan Cohen’s powerful new film, ‘Killing Gaza,’ offers an unflinching and moving portrait of a people largely abandoned by the outside world, struggling to endure.”

— Chris Hedges

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Independent journalists Max Blumenthal and Dan Cohen documented Israel’s 2014 assault on Gaza during the war, and chronicled its horrific aftermath. As they waded through the rubble of Gaza’s destroyed border regions, they turned a camera onto the survivors of the slaughter and let them speak for themselves.

Dan returned, week after week, to capture on film the daily struggles of the people of Gaza as they suffered through one of the worst winters in recorded history, and then weathered the sweltering summer heat without electricity and — in many cases — without homes.

While giving voice to the pain of a people under siege, Cohen and Blumenthal also highlighted Gazans’ inspiring acts of creative resistance, from painting to break-dancing to literature, that allow them maintain their humanity in the face of deprivation and war.

Killing Gaza is much more than a documentary about Palestinian resilience and suffering. It is a chilling visual document of war crimes committed by the Israeli military, featuring direct testimony and evidence from the survivors, delivered to them often just days after escaping indiscriminate shelling, bombings and summary executions.

Note that subtitles are available using the Youtube ‘closed captions’ option.

Warning: the documentary includes disturbing images of violence.

Click here to read the summary reproduced above on the official website for Killing Gaza.

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Additional:

A decade on, Max Blumenthal and Aaron Maté cover the latest news from Gaza in a Grayzone livestream as Israel demands 1.1 million civilians leave the northern area of the besieged enclave in expectation of a regime change war, and US, UK and French ships arrive at the coast: