Latest news with #RazSegal
Canada Standard
14-06-2025
- Politics
- Canada Standard
PM Modi to visit Cyprus, attend G7 summit in Canada, meet leaders in Croatia from June 15-19
Washington, the worlds greatest bully, has enabled the attack on Iran by writing a blank check to the aggressor Having been carrying out its ongoinggenocideof the Palestinians for almost two years, wrecking Lebanon and Syria, repeatedly assaulting Iran and Yemen, and using subversion of Western political, economic, intellectual, and media elitesto stifle its opponentswhereverthey speak up, Israel has now launched its most serious effort yet to either cripple or destroy Iran, its last remaining opponent with the potential to do it serious harm. As Russia for one has stated, Israel's massive attack on Iran is unambiguously criminal. It violates the UN Charter and international law in general. In particular, it does not fulfillthe narrow- and rightly so - legal criteria for a justifiable defensive preemptive strike. Israel's shameless attempts to deploy this phrase to shield its actions are pure information warfare. They are insultingly brazen - propaganda that can "work" only on the willingly obtuse - and as absurd as the repulsive Israeli habit of trying to pass off genocide,including by starvation, as self-defense. Incidentally, against this background, it comes as no real surprise that Israeli tactics against Iran have included the same perfidious - as in literally, technically criminal under the law of armed conflict - method recently deployed by Ukraine's Zelensky regime (and its Western helpers):Israel as well used sneak drone attacks from inside its opponent's territory. In reality, if any state did have a good case for claiming the right to a preemptive strike in this case, it would have been Iran. Because the core criterion for a military strike to be considered preemptive is that it must disrupt an imminent enemy attack. With Israel and its US symbiont recently not having let a day go by without threatening Iran with pretty much the assault that has now happened, Tehran would have had excellent evidence to show just that: That an Israeli - and thus Western - attack was imminent. Yet, especially after more than a year and a half of a live-streamed Zionist colonial genocide carried out, in effect,by Israel and the West together, we know that international law counts for very little in the hellish "rules-based" world the "value"-concerned West has made. Hence, the key question is not if Israel could possibly have a right to act as it does. That's a no-brainer: absolutely not. But unfortunately, that does not help its victims. Israel is impunity embodied. Among all the monstrous states that modern history has witnessed commit horrific crimes, none has been getting away with murder (mass murder, really) like Israel; except perhaps the US, of course. Indeed,as the Israeli dissident and genocide expert Raz Segal has recently explained, the sense that they are above the law is a key factor in how so many Israelis function - and often enjoy themselves - as merciless mass murderers. That's why the real question, the one that is relevant in the world as it really is, is why Israel can do what it is doing. And there the short, one-word answer is of course: America. Other states of the West (as well as the EU monster association) and the Middle East are also complicit in Israel's atrocities. But in terms of power, it is Washington that is decisive. Israel can commit its endless crimes and never face consequences only because of US support. Just try to imagine a state as territorially and demographically tiny and geopolitically precarious as Israel displaying so much aggression but without American backing. Exactly - there's nothing to imagine because it would long be gone. Yet in the case of Israel's latest outrage, Washington is claiming that it did not participate in it, sort of. Secretary of State Marco Rubiowants us to believe that Israel's assault was "unilateral" and the US was "not involved." Is there anyone left naïve enough to not understand two simple facts? Namely, Washington lies easily and without hesitation, and the US-Israel symbiosis is so firm and pervasive that an Israeli strike against Iran, especially of this magnitude, without American connivance and input is inconceivable. But let's set aside the obvious big fat lie. That's just the US being its bad old US self. What's more interesting is that, even on its own mendacious terms, the official American position simply makes no sense. Washington implausibly claims that it played no role in Israel's criminal attack on Iran. US mainstream media and establishment mouthpieces, such as Bloomberg and the Washington Post, go so far as to pretend that President Donald Trump's officially still ongoing negotiations with Iran may have been disturbed by Israel's oh-so-independent strike. They still uncritically quoteTrump as voicing opposition to an Israeli attack as recently as the day just before the Israeli assault. For Bloomberg, that means that Israel struck "in apparent defiance" of Trump. Really? The old the-leader-didn't-know defense? That's funny because by now Trump himself has admitted that he knew about the attack, perverselyblamed Iran and not Israel, and called on Tehran to - in essence - surrenderbefore Israel hits it so hard that nothing would be left of Iran. And all this while Israel has already threatenedanother two weeksof "operations" or even more, namely as long "as it takes." Trump, consequently, has not only sided unambiguously with the aggressor Israel, but has also signaled that he is fine with his Israeli friends battering Iran as long as they like, including to the point of extermination. That is, Washington's absurdly incredible official story is first, Israel massively defied America's declared policy; second, the US does not really mind; and third, quite to the contrary, Washington just loves being made a fool of in front of the world, as long as it's done by Israel. It loves it so much, in fact, that the American response is to immediately side with Israel without limits, writing out a blank check for its "defiant" friends to do whatever they want, because as Trump has assured those who have just "apparently defied" him, not only can they hammer away at Iran to their heart's content, but in addition, the US will also always defend them against Iran in case the latter should try to strike back. Even Washington's lies are revealing. In this case the lie of not being involved casts a sharp light on just how uninhibited the US elite is by now in publicly subordinating everything, including of course the interests of ordinary Americans, to Israel and its American lobby. The truth is, of course, that the US is deeply involved in the war of aggression against Iran. After Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria, the undead neocons are finally getting to the last - for now - victim on their old murder board. The lie is that the US pretends not to be involved. And the ultimate, unintentional reveal of the whole affair is that Washington's elites think a lie implying that they are absolutely obedient to Israel, even when directly "defied" by it, is a good-enough story. For absolute, craven submission to Israel is now considered perfectly normal. And that, actually, is a fundamental truth about America as it now really is. (
Daily Maverick
13-06-2025
- Politics
- Daily Maverick
Human rights for all: Why I am in Egypt to join the Global March to Gaza
Gaza, right now, is the largest concentration camp the world has ever seen, dwarfing in size the camps set up by the British in South Africa or by the Germans in Namibia and Poland. In Gaza, two million people are incarcerated by Israel's powerful military, backed by US bombs. They live without homes (which have all been bombed), without hospitals (which have also all been bombed) and without safe drinking water (Israel has bombed that too). The people of Gaza are also starving. They have no access to food. This is by design. Thousands of trucks packed with food and medical supplies have been waiting at the border for more than two months. Israel has refused to let them in. Instead of opening the border it is setting up militarised distribution points, and then shooting the starving civilians who gather, desperate for food. Israel is purposely starving Gazans to force them to give up their struggle for freedom and accept their removal out of the strip. This is the definition of ethnic cleansing. I do not merely give my opinion here. This is actually the stated policy of the Israeli government, which has boasted that the 'Trump Plan' to remove Palestinians from Gaza is one of their central war aims. Even a former Israeli prime minister, who has been defending the war for 20 months, now concedes that Israel is committing war crimes. But this isn't just a war crime. According to Holocaust experts like Raz Segal as well as independent human rights organisations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, this is a textbook case of genocide. We are looking at what is arguably the worst atrocity of the 21st Century. If not that, certainly the most documented. The Global March to Gaza is a humanitarian protest that seeks to pressure the Israeli government to stop the blockade and end its genocidal war in the Gaza Strip. Along with more than 50 other South Africans, we have flown to Cairo. From there we will take a bus into the Sinai Peninsula and march for two days (50 kilometres) all the way to the Rafah Crossing. The march will also be joined by the Sumud humanitarian convoy of 7,000 people that began in Tunisia and will also reach Rafah on 15 June. Despite the obvious danger, we have decided to join this first-of-its-kind global march to the doorstep of genocide. For over 20 months, we have been protesting against the genocide in our own countries. (Some of us have been protesting Israeli apartheid for decades.) We have been publishing articles, writing books, painting murals, hanging banners, speaking at Jewish, Christian and Muslim faith events. We have also been lobbying our governments to act against and sanction the Israeli regime. Yet the genocide has continued. Where is the backbone of those governments who claim to support the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinians? We feel we have no other choice but to try something new. Never before have thousands of civilians travelled thousands of kilometres to converge on the site of an ongoing genocide to try to stop it. We are doing this because we are desperate for real change rather than platitudes. When we see photos of starving children, when we watch videos of a man pushing a wheelbarrow of dismembered body parts through the ruins of Khan Yunis, when we hear the last words of little Hind Rajab before being shot by surrounding tanks, we see what could so easily be ourselves. And we see the necessity of our intervention. What if this were happening to us? What would we want the world to do about it? This is why we chant we are all Palestinians. This is why we call for freedom from the river to the sea. When Jews have asserted 'never again' after the Nazi Holocaust killed tens of millions of Roma, Slavs, homosexuals, disabled people and people of the Jewish faith, we know that its real meaning was not 'never again' just for Jews. For those of us who believe in the equality of all human beings, we recognise that this means that we should stand against the persecution of all people. We mean that we must fight all structures of colonialism, racism, sexism, queerphobia and of all other forms of oppression — wherever we encounter it. Since never again must mean never again for anyone; we march to make this a reality. As we head to Rafah, you can support our call to end the siege and end the genocide by following our journey, by amplifying it on social media, and by calling on your government to sanction the Israeli regime. DM
Middle East Eye
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
Genocide happens when Israelis believe they're above the law, Holocaust scholar says
When Swedish activist Greta Thunberg arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris on Tuesday after being deported by Israeli authorities, a reporter asked her why governments around the world weren't mobilising to break the three-month siege on Gaza, as Thunberg had just attempted. "Because of racism, that's the simple answer," she said, making several references to Israel committing "genocide". After 20 months of Israel's war on Gaza, more than 55,000 have been identified as dead - a number presumed to be an undercount, according to the medical journal The Lancet - and an air, land, and sea blockade is preventing food aid from entering the strip. What is happening to the people of Gaza has not been officially assessed as genocide by the very governments that drew up the post-World War II international order. But several countries, as well as many international rights groups and experts, now qualify Israel's actions as an act of genocide. The legal definition of genocide is the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. The operative word being "intent". New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters That definition was written in a different era, and with different dynamics in mind. 'War between civilised nations' Raz Segal, an Israeli associate professor of holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University, told Middle East Eye that labelling the war on Gaza a genocide is critical because he sees the issue as beyond the stipulations of international law. "Israeli Jews are imagining that they're fighting a colonial war against barbarians," he said. "[They] are completely thinking they are outside the law." "[This] goes back to the origins of international law, which emerged in order to regulate wars between civilised nations - that is, between Europeans. It was never supposed to apply to what we might call today 'counterinsurgency' or 'colonial warfare'." Speaking at the Arab Center Washington DC's annual conference on Palestine on Wednesday, Segal said the "dehumanisation of Palestinians in Israeli Jewish society is very deep" and that only a change in political structures can create a shift in attitudes. 'This kind of social and political atmosphere doesn't change quickly at all. It's an intergenerational process,' he said. 'Israeli Jews are imagining that they're fighting a colonial war against barbarians' - Raz Segal, Israeli historian "In 1945 Nazi Germany is defeated, right? Does that mean that millions and millions and millions of Nazis in Germany change their mind?" There had been warnings about impending genocide in Gaza since 2009, after Israel's alleged use of white phosphorus in its attacks on the enclave. In 2023, just weeks after the 7 October 2023 Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel, the United Nations warned that without a ceasefire, there could be a genocide in Gaza. In January 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found it "plausible" that Israel has committed acts that violate the Genocide Convention. New satellite imagery analysis by Dr He Yin of Kent State University, cited by The Washington Post, shows that up to 98 percent of all vegetation across Gaza has been destroyed, meaning the basic conditions to sustain life are no longer there. But Segal told MEE not to "get too caught up on the category of genocide, especially when we think about the broader framework - the ongoing Nakba". The Nakba, the catastrophe in Arabic, is the name given to the expulsion of more than 750,000 people from their homes and land in the lead up to the establishment of Israel in 1948. "We can definitely say that it's about elimination, destruction, forced displacement, removal, about creating a greater Israel with maximum territory and minimum or no Palestinians." Two things at once In the keynote address at the conference delivered by Amnesty International secretary general Agnes Callamard, she insisted that Israel's stated position - that it is only doing what it must in Gaza to defeat Hamas - does not rule out a genocide taking place. "There is absolutely no doubt that there is a genocidal intention," she said. "And genocidal intention can be happening in a non-conflict. It can be happening alongside military objectives. It's really important to highlight this." "What is unfolding in Gaza is not the result of logistical or security challenges, as Israel wants to pretend, and it is not the result of recklessness, either. It is intentionally engineered," Callamard added. 'The ICC is dead to us': America declares war on international justice Read More » She urged governments and civil society to "erect barricades, legal barricades, constitutional barricades, any kind of barricades" to protect the International Criminal Court (ICC) as it comes under attack from the Trump administration for its outstanding arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant. Three other warrants issued for Hamas leaders are effectively void, after Israel killed them all. "The entire international legal system now is basically under threat," Segal told MEE. Referring to ICC prosecutor Karim Khan's announcement about the warrants one year ago, Segal noted Khan's insistence on a key message: "International law applies equally, and if it won't apply equally, the whole system will come down." "International law is flawed, and international law has discarded millions and millions of people around the world and discarded Palestinians well before [7 October 2023], he added. Israel 'cannot be a Jewish state' But the principle of having international law that defines acts of violence and protects the vulnerable is necessary and worth saving, Segal told MEE. To that effect, a "long-term vision" for an Israel that can rejoin the community of nations and abide by international law is that it "cannot be a Jewish state", Segal told the audience at the Arab Center Washington DC. 'We must be very loud about the fact that people must fear, they must fear their complicity in the genocide' - Agnes Callamard, Amnesty International 'It needs to be a state where everyone there, Jews, Palestinians and others have equal rights. Their dignity is treated equally. Their belonging to the place is treated equally. That's the change of the political structure.' Assessing the statements of Israeli leaders across the political spectrum over the past 20 months "doesn't require a degree in comparative literature", he said. "Notice the clear conflation of Hamas and all Palestinians in Gaza. Notice the clear conflation of military rationale and the intentional targeting of civilians. This is all in front of our eyes... the only way to deal with [Palestinians] is to destroy them." For Callamard, it is political will that holds back the international community from taking punitive measures against Israeli officials. "We must be very loud about the fact that people must fear, they must fear their complicity in the genocide," Callamard told the conference. The alternative, Segal said, sets a dangerous precedent. "Israel's attack on Gaza is becoming a model for the very small and murderous minority of people around the world."
Middle East Eye
17-05-2025
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
Top genocide scholars unanimous that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza: Dutch investigation
A growing number of the world's leading genocide scholars believe that Israel's actions in Gaza constitute genocide, according to an investigation by Dutch newspaper NRC. The paper interviewed seven renowned genocide researchers* from six countries - including Israel - all of whom described the Israeli campaign in Gaza as genocidal. Many said their peers in the field share this assessment. "Can I name someone whose work I respect who does not think it is genocide? No, there is no counterargument that takes into account all the evidence," Israeli researcher Raz Segal told NRC. Professor Ugur Umit Ungor of the University of Amsterdam and NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies said that while there are certainly researchers who say it is not genocide, "I don't know them". The Dutch paper reviewed 25 recent academic articles published in the Journal of Genocide Research, the field's leading journal, and found that 'all eight academics from the field of genocide studies see genocide or at least genocidal violence in Gaza'. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters 'And that is remarkable for a field in which there is no clarity about what genocide itself exactly is,' it noted. Leading human rights organisations have also reached the conclusion that Israel is committing genocide. In December 2024, Amnesty International became the first major organisation to conclude that Israel had committed genocide during its war on Gaza, while Human Rights Watch more conservatively concluded that "genocidal acts" had been committed. Francesca Albanese, the UN's top expert on Palestine, authored two reports last year suggesting that genocide was taking place in Gaza. Genocide studies as a discipline does not treat the issue as a binary, the NRC report said. Rather than asking whether genocide has happened or not, scholars see it as a gradual process. Ungor compares it to a 'dimmer switch' rather than an on-off light. 'Contrary to public opinion, leading genocide researchers are surprisingly unanimous: the Netanyahu government, they say, is in that process - according to the majority, even in its final stages,' the investigation concluded. 'That is why most researchers no longer speak only of 'genocidal violence', but of 'genocide'.' 'It happens because it happens' The report noted that even researchers who had previously hesitated to use the term have since changed their position, such as Shmuel Lederman of the Open University of Israel. It also referred to the opinion of Canadian international law scholar William Schabas that Israel is committing genocide, although he is considered otherwise conservative with genocide labelling. In an interview with Middle East Eye last month, Schabas said Israel's campaign in Gaza was "absolutely" a genocide. "There's nothing comparable in recent history," said Schabas. "The borders are closed, the people have nowhere to go, and they're destroying have made life essentially impossible in Gaza. "We see that combined with the ambition, expressed sometimes very openly by both Trump and Netanyahu, and by the Israelis, to reconfigure Gaza as some sort of eastern Mediterranean Riviera." Israel's inaction following the January 2024 interim ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) was a decisive factor in leading many scholars to conclude that its conduct in Gaza amounts to genocide, NRC reported. The legally binding ruling ordered Israel to take immediate steps to prevent genocide by allowing aid into Gaza and stopping dehumanising rhetoric that incited the extermination of Palestinians. Lederman initially opposed the use of the genocide label. However, following Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's dismissal of the ICJ's ruling, the continued closure of land crossings to Gaza and a letter by 99 US health workers stating that the death toll in Gaza exceeded 100,000, he was convinced that Israel's actions do in fact constitute genocide. Melanie O'Brien, president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, told NRC that Israel's deliberate denial of food, water, shelter and sanitation was the key factor in her determination that the military campaign was a genocide. Israel's war on Gaza: What is the meaning of genocide? Read More » For all scholars interviewed by NRC, what ultimately influenced their assessment was the holistic view of the situation, the totality of the conduct and the sum of all war crimes viewed together. The scholars also refuted claims in western public debate that Israel's military campaign is solely aimed at defeating Hamas, that there is no explicit plan to annihilate the population, that the entire Gaza population has not been killed, that the situation is unlike the Holocaust or that a legal ruling has yet to be issued. They argued that these points reflect fundamental misunderstandings of how genocide is defined under international law. The Genocide Convention refers to the partial or complete destruction of a group, not solely its total eradication. For example, the killing of 8,000 Bosniak men in Srebrenica in 1995 is legally recognised as genocide, despite being smaller in scale than the Holocaust. O'Brien noted that genocide is not dependent on judicial confirmation to be real. 'It happens because it happens.' The backdrop to the investigation, NRC reported, is a devastating humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Nineteen months into Israel's onslaught on the Palestinian enclave, at least 53,000 Palestinians have been killed - including more than 15,000 children - while a quarter of all babies are acutely malnourished amid Israel's ban on humanitarian aid. *The scientists interviewed by NRC are: Shmuel Lederman: Israeli researcher at the Open University of Israel Anthony Dirk Moses: Australian professor at the City University of New York and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Genocide Research Melanie O'Brien: Australian lawyer, researcher at the University of Western Australia and president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars Raz Segal: Israeli genocide researcher at Stockton University in New Jersey, US Martin Shaw: British professor at the Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals, emeritus professor at the University of Sussex and author of the book What Is Genocide? Ugur Umit Ungor: Dutch professor at the University of Amsterdam and the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies Iva Vukusic: Croatian genocide researcher at Utrecht University
Middle East Eye
03-03-2025
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
How Jewish scholars are attacked in America for calling out Gaza genocide
'From the moment Israel was created, there's this idea that it is unimaginable that it can perpetrate any crime under international law, let alone genocide.' US-Israeli genocide scholar Raz Segal was the first academic to label Israel's war on Gaza a 'textbook case of genocide' in 2023. But that also came with a price. The prominent Israeli-American historian delves into the context, the intense backlash faced by Jewish scholars who speak out, and the implications for international law and human rights. Segal is currently the associate professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University. Middle East Eye delivers independent and unrivalled coverage and analysis of the Middle East, North Africa and beyond. To learn more about republishing this content and the associated fees, please fill out this form . More about MEE can be found here .
