As the Israel-Palestine conflict entered its 222nd day on Wednesday, Palestinians marked the 76th anniversary of Nakba (Arabic for catastrophe), the exodus of Palestinians after the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.

In the West Bank city of Ramallah, thousands of Palestinians gathered to commemorate the Palestinian victims of 76 years ago and protest against the ongoing Israeli attacks on Gaza that have killed more than 35,000 Palestinians in the enclave.

Protesters waved Palestinian flags, held portraits of Palestinians who were expelled from their homes in 1948, displayed pictures of refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, and carried banners bearing slogans including “The Nakba is recurring in Gaza now.”

Several Palestinian faction leaders and members of the Executive Committees of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Central Committee of the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah) also attended the rally in Ramallah.

The Palestinian death toll from the ongoing Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip has risen to 35,233, health authorities in the Palestinian enclave said in a press statement on Wednesday.

Mahmoud Al-Aloul, a senior Fatah official, said more than 1.9 million Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to leave their homes since the outbreak of the ongoing conflict, labeling it a “perhaps far more severe Nakba” compared to that of 1948.

He also accused the U.S. administration of being complicit in Israel’s “crimes” in Gaza as it supplied weapons to Israel and vetoed UN resolutions that called for a ceasefire and a full UN membership for Palestine.

For his part, Ahmed Abu Holi, the head of the refugee affairs department of the PLO, stressed the essential role of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) and denounced the U.S. and the West at large for suspending UNRWA funding.

In January, Israeli officials claimed that UNRWA personnel took part in the October 7 Hamas attack, which set off the current conflict in Gaza. The allegations remain unverified but prompted the U.S. and many other Western donors to halt the agency’s funding.

Australia, Canada, Germany and several other countries have resumed their funding, whereas the U.S. and Britain continue to hold back their funds.

“Our people need the UNRWA to continue its work in the Gaza Strip because it is the only institution capable of working there,” Abu Holi told Xinhua.

In Gaza, locals said there is no need to mark the Nakba anniversary because they are already living in one.

Mohammed al-Maqadma, a 58-year-old resident of Jabalia refugee camp, said that his parents, survivors of the Nakba 76 years ago, were killed in the recent Israeli strikes on Gaza.

“For the rest of their lives, my parents could not stop talking about their ordeal during Nakba. Now, for how many years will I speak about the new Nakba to our next generations?” al-Maqadma lamented.

Post-war plan

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Wednesday that he would oppose the establishment of Israel’s rule in the post-war Gaza Strip.

Speaking in a televised press briefing, Gallant urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to make a decision and declare that Israel will not establish civilian or military control over the Gaza Strip, adding that a governing alternative to Hamas, the Islamist Palestinian resistance movement that runs the enclave, must be named by Netanyahu “immediately.”

Gallant said that soon after the beginning of the Israeli conflict with Hamas in October last year, he had tried to promote a plan for a new Palestinian administration unaffiliated with Hamas but “received no response” in cabinet meetings.

In response, Netanyahu said in a statement that “as long as Hamas remains, no other party will run Gaza, certainly not the Palestinian Authority.” He did not address the issue of a possible Israeli rule in the Palestinian enclave.

Source(s): CGTN

The United States, alongside its Western allies, often prides itself on being a beacon of freedom and justice and a promoter of human rights across the globe. However, beneath the surface, shadows loom large. During the 55th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, an increasing number of developing countries raised the problem of human rights abuses within the borders of Western countries. This article further elaborates on what the West has done under the pretext of human rights “protection”.

I. Police violence never ends

Police brutality has long been an issue in many Western countries. During the general debate of Item 4, Western countries continued to point fingers at China, Venezuela, Russia and other developing countries over issues of police violence. However, a careful examination of the record of the accusers shows that Western countries are far from the paragon of virtue they claim to be. In the US, for example, the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor at the hands of police have sparked global protests and highlighted the country’s systemic racial biases. Across the Atlantic, the death of Adama Traoré in police custody ignited protests against police brutality and racial injustice in 2016.

These tragedies are mainly caused by two factors: police militarization and widening social divide. In the 1990s, the US Department of Defense started to allow the transfer of surplus military equipment to police departments, prioritizing anti-drug and anti-terrorism efforts. After the end of US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, dual-purpose weaponry suitable for both urban warfare and municipal law enforcement made by arms manufacturers were redirected elsewhere. Since the mid-2000s, the amount of military gear transferred to local law enforcement agencies has surged rapidly. In other words, the weapons produced by the West to defend their so-called democracy have ended up hurting their own citizens. At the same time, racial disparity is tearing the country apart. The average net worth of a White family is about 10 times that of an African American family. African Americans are more likely low-wage workers with lower level education of attainment compared with their White counterparts. These are part of the reason why intergenerational poverty persists in the US.

II. Refugee rights never secured

As of September 2023, among the over 32 million refugees worldwide, 72 percent were from countries that have experienced extensive Western military interventions. And natural disasters often made things worse. For example, the number of refugees in Syria soared to 7 million after the 2023 earthquake. However, during the OHCHR general debate, Western countries chose to ignore the impact of natural disasters and blamed Syria for allowing refugees to cross into Europe. These refugees were counting on Western “saviors” for a helping hand. Yet reality tells a different story.

One of the key pillars of international refugee law is the principle of non-refoulement, which prohibits the forced return of refugees to countries or territories in which their lives or freedom may be threatened due to their race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion. This means no rejection at the border, no extradition, no expulsion, and no mass refoulement. However, Western countries have blatantly violated this principle with practices such as offshore interceptions and refugee swaps.

As early as the 1980s, the US intercepted over a hundred thousand Central American refugees at sea. In the following years, Australia and the EU quickly followed suit in turning down refugees. During the Trump administration, the US implemented the harmful “Remain in Mexico” policy that forced asylum seekers from Central and South America back to Mexico. There was also the infamous “Muslim Ban,” which blatantly infringed on the rights of refugees from countries such as Syria, Yemen and Sudan. The Biden administration has continued to expel immigrants and refugees from Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua, leading to tragedies of family separation and child deaths.

III. Judicial system: A casino for the rich

Judicial systems are essential for the effective prevention of crimes and the protection of the lives and properties of citizens. While the West keeps pointing fingers at the judicial systems of developing countries in the Human Rights Council, their own systems are flawed with problems that are much more severe.

“Money makes the mare go.” This best describes judicial systems in the West. Money can buy suspects out of pretrial detention, privileging the rich over the poor. Moreover, court verdicts sometimes have little to do with fairness or justice and are more like a “gamble”—betting that the other party has less money to tip the “scales of justice.”

The entire US legal system operates like a massive marketplace where judges, police, prosecutors and lawyers do deals with one another. Money changes hands among the powerful, covering up bullying, violence, and even murder in the name of justice, while the poor had to face various exorbitant charges. No wonder Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, reported to the UN Human Rights Council after investigating several US states in 2017 that the US justice system was being used to generate revenue rather than promote justice—a national and pervasive issue.
As the 20th-century French writer Anatole France aptly said, “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.” Yet in the West, the crisis of human rights still exists. When the halo of freedom and democracy fades, all that remains is the blood and tears of the impoverished.

Western human rights—what a joke.

The author is a commentator on internationals affairs, writing regularly for Xinhua News, Global Times, China Daily, CGTN etc. He can be reached at xinping604@gmail.com.

Source(s): China Daily

“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

This powerful slogan which captures the aspiration for the freedom of Palestine extending from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, is resonating with student protesters across the US who are urging for an end to the violence in Gaza.

Despite months of peaceful protests, the US government persists in its military, political and financial support for Israel to continue the conflict. Recently, a bipartisan majority passed a $95 billion military aid package, including $15 billion in Israeli military aid.

In growing discontent over the US government’s policies on the conflict, university students across the country have turned to the legacy of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement and set up encampments, demanding university divestment from companies tied to the Israeli government. However, their nonviolent protests have been met with a heavy-handed response. Police forces have conducted campus raids in New York City and elsewhere, arresting students, faculty members and journalists.

On April 30, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) locked up over 100 protesters at Columbia University, the epicenter of the demonstrations, after House Speaker Mike Johnson paid a visit and was greeted with a chorus of “free Palestine”. With the raid, the number of individuals police had taken away from American campuses since mid-April reached more than 2,400.

Johnson called the students “lawless agitators” and threatened to call in the National Guard during his visit. He was not at all helpful in cooling down the tension, and the White House’s condemnation of the protests as “antisemitic” only exacerbated the situation. In a rare show of unity, both US lawmakers and the executive branch want to silence the protesting students—possible reasons are intriguing.

But the students are only making justified appeals: safeguarding the human rights of the Palestinians in Gaza and opposing US complicity in human rights abuses. They refuse to accept the standard official lines that the US was only assisting Israel in its legitimate right to self-defense.

The images of encircled hospitals, ruined homes, as well as the helpless faces of children, women and the elderly who have been wounded or displaced do not lie. They are proof of how the US “military assistance” is helping Israel with its cruelty against the innocent and the vulnerable. The young people back in the US have the right to challenge the disgraceful behavior of their own government.

The US government’s stance in the ongoing conflict in Gaza has been questionable from the very beginning. On top of the continued military aid, it has been vetoing UN resolutions for a cease-fire and Palestine’s full membership, keeping the green light on for Israeli offensives that violate international law and, more deplorably, challenge human conscience. The Congress even passed the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which adopted a broad definition of antisemitism and could be used as an easy excuse to suppress criticism and the rights of Americans.

Just like decades ago when young Americans stood up against the Vietnam War, students today are challenging US policies that contradict American values and perpetuate injustices. Standing united, their voice is getting louder as they call on the US government to align its actions with its democratic and human rights ideals. Their appeal shows the struggle for justice is not confined to Gaza.

But what’s different now is that the US is becoming much less tolerant of criticism and opposition. As things stand, a peaceful expression of disagreement may result in days of custody. Unarmed students can become targets of police officers armed to the teeth, and any critic of government policies can be labeled antisemitic.

What is the US, and its politicians, afraid of? Do they fear that the closer the public gets to the truth, the more difficult it will be for the US to sugarcoat its real intentions? The path from Columbia University to NYPD custody poses a critical question: can America claim to be the land of the free when it suppresses voices for human rights?

The protests in Columbia University and beyond are about justice, an ideal held dearly by all Americans. If American policymakers persist in their indifference and turn a deaf ear to the concerns of their constituents, the nation will lose its credibility as a purported champion of justice and freedom in the eyes of its own people and all those around the world.

The author is a commentator on international affairs, writing regularly for Xinhua News, CGTN, Global Times, China Daily etc. He can be reached at xinping604@gmail.com.

Source(s): Global Times