War in Gaza ‘must end now', urge UK and 24 allies
'We urge the parties and the international community to unite in a common effort to bring this terrible conflict to an end, through an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire,' the grouping added in a joint statement.
'Further bloodshed serves no purpose. We reaffirm our complete support to the efforts of the US, Qatar and Egypt to achieve this.'
The signatories — which also included Japan, several EU countries, Switzerland and New Zealand — added they were 'prepared to take further action to support an immediate ceasefire'.
The wide-ranging statement branded the controversial Israeli-supported relief effort in Gaza as 'dangerous' and said it deprives Gazans of 'human dignity'.
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Palestine: two-state solution rejected
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Americans serving in IDF should lose US citizenship
Listen to article This would not be an extreme position but rather doing quite a simple thing, which is stating things as they are. Soldiers serving in national armies fighting for a cause are different from sports players playing for their league, where they keep shifting their loyalties based on whichever leagues they keep popping in and out of. Even soldiers in a mercenary army actually have one cause they fight for — money. American citizens travel to Israel and enlist in the Israeli army where they fight for Israel. Yet, somehow, this extremely bizarre thing is almost never frowned upon and not much discussed either. I remember the Obama administration revoked the US passport of Edward Snowden when he blew the whistle on the corrupt and unconstitutional workings of Obama's intelligence apparatus. Snowden basically leaked the fact that the dragnet styled bulk collection of the Obama administration meant active spying on American citizens, collecting every aspect of their digital lives and storing it in a database, violating countless constitutionally protected liberties of the American citizens. Snowden did not share intelligence collection methods and other details, which could have jeopardised foreign assets, yet President Obama revoked his US passport. The rationale cited was that Snowden harmed American national security. Let us look at the American citizens enlisting in the Israel (so called) Defense Forces. We know this much that one of the main reasons why Bin Laden turned against his former sponsor, Uncle Sam, was because of the blind American support given to Israel. The 9/11 attacks were nothing but an extreme case of blowback. American citizens actively fighting with the Israelis and killing innocent children in Gaza and elsewhere in Palestine will drive home further the fact that America is supporting the aggression against the Palestinians. That narrative didn't fail before in recruiting young men to sacrifice their lives for the sake of attacking America. There is no reason to believe it will fail this time around. In fact, now the cruelty by the Israelis is a lot more than before. And American citizens in bed with such a cruel force that kills children will only shift the target of that anger more toward America than toward Israel. Now, that is a much stronger case of harming and jeopardising American national security. Citing the same rationale that the Obama administration had employed in revoking Snowden's passport, it would only be reasonable to revoke the US passports of all those American citizens, born or naturalised, who go abroad and serve in Israeli or Ukrainian armies. Israel and Ukraine are merely names of countries that happen to be foreign. That is literally textbook practice of treason. I do not know why it shouldn't be called that. Unless the word treason is supposed to act silent in pronunciation, as many letters act in various English language words, the most reasonable and honest way one can describe an act of keeping one passport and serving in another national army is treason. Many in the US lifafa punditry would argue that Israel is a US ally and serving Israeli interests only means serving American interests. Nothing can be further from the truth than that white man made nonsense. Israel has on various occasions directly and indirectly acted as extremely harmful to US national security. Israel attacked USS Liberty in 1967, killing 34 sailors. It also shared sensitive US intelligence with the Soviets in order to gain the release of Ashkenazi Jews from Russia. Israel has also transferred military technology to China harming US interests. Israel sold weapons to Iran despite US support for Iraq against Iran in the 1980s. There are unconfirmed, yet, strong indications that Jeffrey Epstein was working for Mossad in compromising and influencing American politicians to compel them to steer US foreign policy in favour of Israel, even if it meant hurting American interests and credibility. Israel is not an American ally. You cannot even find that phrase in mainstream American commentary. Yet, Americans keep serving in that enemy state's army. For a free Palestine, we need a free America first.
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Sino-US rivalry — collusion, competition, conflict
The writer is a retired major general and has an interest in International Relations and Political Sociology. He can be reached at tayyarinam@ and tweets @20_Inam Listen to article The US-China competition remains the 'defining issue' of international politics. My last piece titled the "Sino-US rivalry" was published in this space on January 11, 2024, where some relevant writings of the CNN-famed Fareed Zakaria and others were discussed. Given the comparative National Power Potential (NPP), the world seems to be drifting from unipolarity, ushered in after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990s; to the 'present state' of bipolarity (the US and China); and to the likely future scenario of multipolarity (China, Russia, EU, India and Brazil). First, a bipolar comparison. Conventional view is that China is 'already a US peer or near-peer, economically'. However, as I had pointed out, in the present state of competition, China still needs to do a lot of catching up, as the American NPP — especially its military strength, power of alliances and its cosmopolitan, multicultural and educated demography — far outpaces China, the 'hesitant regional power' that is trying to become a more assertive superpower. The US GDP is almost twice as large as China's and some analysts believe that the Chinese official figures are fudged, with Beijing manipulating key economic metrics, including GDP. China is heavily dependent upon fuel imports; has almost 20% housing vacancy rates and over $1 trillion in debt from its 48,000 km high-speed rail networks. The US by comparison leads in key high-technology sectors like the IT/software and services sector (80% of global profit shares); aerospace and defence (66.35%); drugs and biotechnology (60%) and semi-conductors/chips (58%, compared to China's miniscule 2.6% share). Then there are studies indicating that in a full-blown trade war, 'decoupling' China from the international economic system (sanctions) will disproportionately hurt Beijing, if China has not undertaken economic hardening like Russia. Moscow, in anticipation of the West Plus's reaction to Ukraine, had taken on years of pre-emptive economy-hardening steps to mitigate the ill-effects of sanctions. China's other handicaps include demographic weakness (overpopulation, effects of one-child policy, aging population); lack of alliances; its lighter presence in important global regions (Europe, the Middle East); its comparatively subdued power to influence others; China's lack of experience and exposure to act big, unlike the US, having the benefit of history and multicultural pluralism; and China's nagging legacy of trouble-spots (Spratly Islands, Tibet, Turkestan, human rights, etc). So far, there is no alternative to US power. But that does not mean China is and will not catch up. Second, the prospect of a Sino-US conflict. One had disagreed with the likelihood of conflict, as Beijing is likely to blink first, because the global status quo is protective of its core interests. Additionally, China is not a 'spoiler state' like Russia. President Xi abandoning his 'lone-wolf diplomacy' has often asked the US to lift sanctions, especially on technology transfers. And President Trump recently lifted ban on the sale of America's Nvidia-made semiconductors (especially the H20) to China. US's I-Phone is designed in California and assembled in China by a Taiwanese company, Foxconn. And in more curious case of inter-dependence, China monopolises supply of rare-earths, needed for US-manufactured semiconductors, to be used in China's high-end products, for export to the US/Western markets. There are more anti-conflict indicators, especially about the much-touted US-China conflict over Taiwan. There is a great deal of soul-searching in the American policy establishment about the cost-benefit of a war to defend Taiwan against a Chinese invasion. The US rationale in defending Taiwan is to prevent China from gaining a new foothold to project power in East Asia and disrupt trade routes in the western Pacific, thus upsetting the western-dominated global economy. America's 'vital' interest, however, is to prevent China from regional hegemony in Asia. In reality, Taiwan does not confer any outsized military advantages to China, other than extending the range of its missiles, AD assets and surveillance systems by a couple hundred 'unneeded' kilometres. Beijing can still target US regional assets in Guam, Japan and Philippines. China's under-sea gains would similarly be modest. In sum, Beijing's control of Taipei hardly overturns the regional military balance. Military logic and economic considerations, hence, do not warrant direct US involvement to defend Taiwan. Taiwan's TSMC still produces 90% of the world's most advanced chips. However, by 2032, the US company, Boston Consulting Group, will be producing 28% of the most advanced semiconductors. Likewise potential blockade of the narrow sea-lanes in East and South China seas by China marginally affects the global sea trade, as bypassing options exist through Indonesian and Philippine archipelago. Similarly, the notion that Chinese invasion undermines the US credibility is also geostrategically flawed, as fighting China over Taiwan unnecessarily binds US resources, needed elsewhere for the bigger objective of containing China. The US military prioritises developing the 'second island chain' of Guam, Marshal and Northern Mariana Islands, Micronesia and Palau for this purpose. In the US reckoning, Taiwan certainly matters, but not enough to justify war with China, as composite deterrence would likely work to dissuade China. And if push comes to shove, PLA will prevail in a conflict with Taipei with or without the US, the former scenario being more costly for the US Armed Forces. The suggestions that Taiwan should become a 'porcupine' in its denial-focused strategy against Chinese invasion is also not likely to work, as the island just does not spend enough on its defence, and ignores acquisition of anti-ship defence, naval mines, uncrewed weapons and drones. Taiwan can make the invasion slow, long and costly but not impossible, as its geography, low and dwindling materiel stockpiles in case of a Chinese naval blockade would ultimately tilt the operational balance in China's favour. So, no wonder, Washington officially supports 'One China' policy, respects China's redlines and there is much noise in Washington about 'competitive co-existence' with China. Third, alliances and economic integration. China remains one of the most important markets for EU especially Germany's export-driven economy. It meanders carefully through bloc politics, tries to be a peacemaker in the Middle East and vies for leadership mantle in the Global South. It is wary of a conflict with the US and so is the US. So, collusion, competition short of conflict will persist and recur.
