#the UK is complicit in war crimes

[news4dzhozhar]

[jayeltontoro]

SNP pushing the UK government again to try and get them to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

Good luck to them tomorrow and let's hope we can crack the labour & Tory wilful prevarication this time.

If you are in Britain get in touch with your MP and remind them war crimes ARE war crimes and genocide IS genocide. And remind them if they won't do anything to halt it they are complicit. That's international law.

SNP Westminster Leader, Stephen Flynn:

“The UK Parliament cannot just sit on its hands and do nothing. International pressure is paramount if an immediate ceasefire is to happen - and the UK has a moral duty to do its part. With everyday that Sunak and Starmer equivocate - more children are killed. Enough is enough. This has to end - and it has to end now.”

[sanctiphera]

Held hostage by an Al Jazeera journalist, would not be shocked if the BBC were also involved..

[wild-at-mind]

Sometimes just from someone's username you know they would reblog a post that's like omg Trump will do genocide and Harris will do genocide but with emojis and memes!!

And then you see that they did in fact reblog the post and you're like ohhh can we stop pretending this is any kind of leftism.

[mariocki]

New Scotland Yard: Memory of a Gauntlet (1.3, LWT, 1972)

"I understand this must be a little embarrassing for you, Mr. Bruchner."

"It doesn't embarrass me in the least, I assure you. All this happened over thirty years ago. I, like so many others, was a young and stupid man; I did a lot of immature and stupid things, like becoming an SS trooper."

"Immature?"

"Yeah, of course. I dressed up like a soldier, I had shiny boots, I wore a pistol; I had an elegant uniform, money in my pocket, a little of authority. Plenty of pretty girls. Am I shocking you, Inspector?"

"Just a little, sir."

[xtruss]

The UK Could Be Complicit in “Terrorist, Fascist, Genocidal, Apartheid, War Criminal and The Illegal Regime of The Zionist 🐖 🐷 🐗’s, Isra-helli” War Crimes Through Its Continued Sale of Arms To The Country, Oxfam Has Warned.

"It is illegal, immoral and inconsistent for the UK to continue to sell arms to Israel, when it is clear that UK-made weapons and components are being used in serious violation of international humanitarian law - and after it imposed restrictions in previous escalations of violence when the scale of death and destruction had been lower," Aleema Shivji, Oxfam's chief impact officer, said on Friday.

"The people of Gaza are facing unprecedented levels of bloodshed, schools and hospitals are being deliberately targeted and starvation is being used as a weapon of war - what more suffering must they endure for the UK government to act?"

[esyra]

Haven't heard from family in days. I feel like it's time to accept they're gone. I know in my heart Palestine will, one day, be free, but it wasn't supposed to be like this.

We feared another Nakba, and it happened. 700,000 pushed out of their homes in 1948 to 1 million being forced to leave their homes in 2023.

We thought it couldn't get worse or more deadly than the Israeli invasion in 2014, and it happened. We lost 2,251 people in 50 days then. Now we're past 2,300 in one week.

What I heard most from my grandmother the first days it's that "this time is different". And I feel like a rock is crushing my heart in pieces because i've been hoping that speaking out, teaching people about the historical oppresion of Palestine would help but it's not helping. Nothing is changing.

I feel like I'm screaming into a void. There's some sympathy from people online, until I see content documenting Palestinian oppresion being flagged as 'hate speech' or check the comments of any updates on Gaza and it's: "blame it on hamas", "tell them to give up hamas", "the hamas asked for it". They're not even among civilians!!!!!

My heart feels full seeing the manifestations in favor of Palestine, then I see police forces breaking protests apart and remember that the people that can actually save Gaza don't care.

If there's nothing left to do but to watch the extermination of my people, then I'm going to beg for anyone reading this to please don't forget. Please.

Israel is hiding behind Judaism to commit genocide against Gaza. Netanyahu supported the Hamas militant group to prevent the establishment of the Palestine State, and now he's using them to justify his agenda of ethnic cleansing. He abandoned Israelis and left them to die because he cares more about seeing Gazans dead!

Every single person and institution supporting and financing Israel is complicit. I hope the deaths of every Palestinian haunts you for the rest of your lives and that you never find an ounce of forgiveness, for you do not deserve it.

Just as in the Iraq War, the US government is financing and cheering for the slaughter of millions of innocent Arab lives. The media is complicit by engaging in biased propaganda and other nuclear powers, such as the UK and Germany, are complicit too. You are fascists and war criminals and every drop of Palestinian blood is in your hands. I hope every single day, for the rest of your lives, you look in the mirror and see nothing but the blood you've helped spill.

This serves as yet another proof that not a single Western in a position of power, be it in the media or in government, sees Arabs as humans beings.

For decades, the US has comitted terrorism and crimes against humanity in the Middle East and has NEVER been held accountable. Over one million in Iraq; over 150,000 in Afghanistan; and now they'll turn Gaza into a graveyard. Punishing selected soldiers over the years does not erase the fact that the American military and its government validates their crimes during execution and are never punished for it.

Please never forget: Joe Biden is a genocidal terrorist, Rishi Sunak is a genocidal terrorist, the American Democrat Party and UK's Labour Party are led by genocidal terrorists, the European Union is led by genocidal terrorists, fuckass Walt Disney Company is led by genocidal terrorists; every celebrity that called for Palestinian death or stood by silently while ignoring our suffering is a genocidal terrorist.

May Allah protect the people in Palestine and grant the martyrs the highest level of Jannah. Wallah what keeps me here is knowing that the Akhirah is theirs. May Almighty Allah grant us imaan and Taqwa as high as the people of Gaza. Ameen.

[sayruq]

Trinity College Cambridge, the University of Cambridge's wealthiest constituent college, has decided to divest from all arms companies, Middle East Eye can reveal.This came after MEE revealed in February that Trinity had £61,735 ($78,089) invested in Israel's largest arms company, Elbit Systems, which produces 85 percent of the drones and land-based equipment used by the Israeli army. MEE also reported that the college had millions of dollars invested in other companies arming, supporting and profiting from Israel's war on Gaza. In response to this report, on 28 February the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP), a UK-based rights group, issued a legal notice to Trinity College warning that its investments could make it potentially complicit in Israeli war crimes. The ICJP indicated in its legal notice that "officers, directors and shareholders at the college may be individually criminally liable if they maintain their investments in arms companies that are potentially complicit in Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity". MEE has learnt from three well-informed sources close to Trinity's student union that the college council, responsible for major financial and other decisions, voted to remove Trinity's investments from arms companies in early March. According to these sources, the college decided not to announce that it would divest from arms companies after an activist defaced a 1914 portrait of Lord Arthur Balfour - who authored the infamous Balfour Declaration - inside the college on 8 March.

[zvaigzdelasas]

[BBC is UK State Media]

A vessel suspected by the Namibian authorities to be carrying military cargo intended for Israeli use in the ongoing war in Gaza has been blocked from docking in the southern African country.

Namibian Justice Minister Yvonne Dausab told state media the ship was stopped because it had “explosive material destined for Israel".

The MV Kathrin, which set off from Vietnam, had requested permission to dock in the port of Walvis Bay – before sailing north, on a suspected route towards the Mediterranean via the Strait of Gibraltar.

Rights groups had warned that Namibia could have been implicated in potential human rights violations had it allowed the vessel to dock.[...]

The MV Kathrin, which was set to dock at Walvis Bay on Monday from Vietnam, was stopped in accordance with Namibia's support for the Palestinian people and the country’s call for an end to the violence in Gaza, Ms Dausab told the state-run New Era news website.

Citing a police investigation, Ms Dausab said the vessel was "indeed carrying explosive material destined for Israel, and was therefore prohibited from entering Namibian waters". “Namibia complies with our obligation not to support or be complicit in Israeli war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, as well as its unlawful occupation of Palestine,” she said.[...]

Namibian human rights organisation the Economic and Social Justice Trust (ESJT) welcomed the move.

"We are pleased that our government has decided to respect international law and decided not to be complicit to genocide," ESJT's Herbert Jauch told the BBC[...]

Namport has not responded to the BBC for comment about the MV Kathrin.

The real stewards of the International Rules Based Order [27 Aug 24]

[news4dzhozhar]

[theinconvenientlifestyle]

At a time when students and activists around the world are demanding a boycott of Israeli products, services and institutions, the universities below have taken the cash – some of them twice:

Aston University – Weizzman Institute of Science and Bar-Ilan University

Edge Hill University – Tel Aviv University

Queen Mary University of London – The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv University

Royal Veterinary College – Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Teesside University – Tel Aviv University

UCL – Tel Aviv University

University of Exeter – Tel Aviv University

University of Greenwich – Hebrew University of Jerusalem 

University of Kent – Technion 

University of Leeds – Tel Hai College

University of Plymouth – Technion 

University of Surrey – Bar-Ilan University

The Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement has described Israeli universities as working closely with the Israeli state to develop weapons and systems that can be used to oppress and kill Palestinians:

Israeli universities are major, willing and persistent accomplices in Israel’s regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid. They are involved in developing weapon systems and military doctrines deployed in Israel’s recent war crimes in Lebanon and Gaza, justifying the ongoing colonization of Palestinian land, rationalizing gradual ethnic cleansing of indigenous Palestinians, providing moral justification for extra-judicial killings, systematically discriminating against “non-Jewish” students, and other implicit and explicit violations of human rights and international law. To end this complicity in Israel’s violations of international law, Palestinian civil society has called for an academic boycott of complicit Israeli academic institutions. Refusing to normalize oppression, many academic associations, student governments and unions as well as thousands of international academics now support the academic boycott of Israel.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Israel relies on crude oil and refined products from overseas to run its large fleet of fighter jets, tanks and other military vehicles. The research, which was commissioned by the non-profit Oil Change International and shared exclusively with the Guardian, examines this fuel supply chain, which since the current conflict in Gaza began appears to have relied heavily on fossil fuels from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Brazil, Gabon and the US. The analysis by Data Desk, a UK-based tech consultancy firm investigating the fossil fuel industry, suggests the major oil companies facilitating the fuel supplies include BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell and TotalEnergies.

[...]

Human rights experts said that countries and corporations supplying oil to Israeli armed forces may be complicit in war crimes and genocide. “The countries and companies that have continued to supply oil to the Israeli military since the decision of the international court of justice are contributing to horrible human rights violations and may be complicit in genocide,” said David Boyd, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights and the environment. “Oil firms must ensure they’re not in the business of helping to entrench Israel’s apartheid system or fuelling war crimes and possible genocide in Gaza,” said Peter Frankental, Amnesty International UK’s economic affairs director, adding that it was incumbent on every company with commercial ties to the Israeli military to do “due diligence”.

Thu 14 Mar 2024

[txttletale]

How does one square "the US and UK are not meaningfully democratic" with "every person in the US and UK is complicit in their governments' ongoing war crimes and should be exterminated immediately"?

damn i donkt know seems like youll have to dewal with that very strange belief of yours on your own

[belleandre-belle]

Gerald Kaufman (1930-2017🙏🏼🌹🕊️), British MP, speaking from the rostrum of Parliament in 2009.

Gerald Kaufman was the son of Polish Jewish immigrants. Born in the UK, Kaufman was one of the country's most famous Jewish politicians. He was also a fervent critic of Israel, calling for sanctions against the Jewish state for its policies towards the Palestinians, and comparing Israeli soldiers to Nazis.

For years, Kaufman has been one of Britain's most outspoken critics of Israel.

In April 2002, at the start of Israel's Operation Rampart to halt the wave of suicide bombings in the country's cities, Kaufman declared Israel an "international pariah" and accused then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of ordering "his troops to use barbaric methods against the Palestinians", according to the BBC.

Kaufman, who was Foreign Secretary between 1987 and 1992, told the House of Commons in 2002 that it was "time to remind Sharon that the Star of David belongs to all Jews and not to his repulsive government. His actions sully the Star of David with blood."

In 2004, in an editorial published in the Guardian, he called for economic sanctions against Israel similar to those used against South Africa.

In 2009, during the war between Israel and Hamas, Operation Cast Lead, he accused Israel of exploiting Holocaust guilt to justify its actions in the Gaza Strip.

"The current Israeli government ruthlessly and cynically exploits the guilt of gentiles [non-Jews] after the murder of Jews during the Holocaust as justification for its murders of Palestinians," Kaufman had declared before Parliament.

Speaking of his personal history as the son of Jewish refugees from Poland, he had said that "my grandmother was in bed, sick, when the Nazis came to her town. A German soldier shot her in her bed. My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza."

Kaufman had compared Hamas fighters to Jewish resistance fighters in the Second World War, claiming that "Israeli army spokesman Major Leibovich was asked about Israeli murders of, at the time, 800 Palestinians. The total is now 1,000. She replied instantly that '500 of them were militants'. That's the response of a Nazi. I suppose the Jews fighting for their lives in the Warsaw ghetto could have been considered militants."

His opposition to Israel has persisted with age. In 2012, he had written an editorial published by the Huffington Post claiming that Israel was a "rogue state", and that the fact that Israel is a democracy "means that the Israeli electorate is complicit in its government's war crimes."

In 2015, he had told the Palestine Return Centre, a Hamas-affiliated association, that "Jewish money" was the reason why British Conservatives were pro-Israel.

[allthegeopolitics]

Trinity College Cambridge, the University of Cambridge's wealthiest constituent college, has decided to divest from all arms companies, Middle East Eye can reveal. This comes after MEE revealed in February that Trinity had £61,735 ($78,089) invested in Israel's largest arms company, Elbit Systems, which produces 85 percent of the drones and land-based equipment used by the Israeli army. MEE also reported that the college has millions of dollars invested in other companies arming, supporting and profiting from Israel's war on Gaza. In response to this report, on 28 February the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (CJP), a UK-based rights group, issued a legal notice to Trinity College warning that its investments could make it potentially complicit in Israeli war crimes. The ICJP indicated in its legal notice that "officers, directors and shareholders at the college may be individually criminally liable if they maintain their investments in arms companies that are potentially complicit in Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity".

Continue Reading.

[xtruss]

US’ Double Standards, Hypocrisy Undermine Prospects For Lasting Peace In Gaza

— By Professor Victor Gao | March 15, 2024

Illustration: Chen Xia/Global Times

While the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip continues to deteriorate as regional conflicts drag on, the US military dropped food and water on Tuesday into the region. On the same day, it was announced by the Pentagon that the US army ships were also moving to the Eastern Mediterranean to build a pier to bring aid to civilians in Gaza. However, the US government is pushing itself into a quagmire, demonstrating a high level of double standards and hypocrisy.

On the one hand, the US has become the main lifeline behind the Israeli military, providing a tremendous amount of equipment, ammunition, weapons of all kinds, military intelligence, as well as money. On the other hand, the US has taken some actions seemingly aimed at providing more humanitarian support to the Palestinian people, alleviating their agonies, pain and suffering.

However, even before the ink dries on the US' pronouncement, the US military has stated that constructing the pier may require up to 60 days. This means that there would be a waiting period of 60 days before the pier could even begin to operate and receive supplies from overseas.

Currently, a war is raging in Gaza, and innocent lives are being lost. How can we afford to wait another 60 days or so? The US government should take immediate action by enforcing a cease-fire while simultaneously expediting the construction of the temporary pier. I hope this can be completed in a shorter time frame. Subsequently, the international community should be called upon to rush supplies to Gaza to alleviate the pain and suffering of the Palestinian people.

The conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza is not being contained solely between the two sides. Instead, it has the potential to escalate out of control. Yemen's Houthis are attacking ships bound for or departing from Israel. Moreover, the US and the UK are bombing sites inside Yemen. Other countries, including Iraq, Syria and Iran, are facing increasing crises and strategic bombings by Israeli or Western forces.

Therefore, this is a critical moment for the US to stand up and do the right thing, rather than being accused by future generations of failing to live up to their responsibilities. However, the US does not appear to demonstrate any genuine commitment or willingness to end this conflict. I don't think they really care that much about the civilian deaths in Gaza. They are not dedicating enough resources or attention to do the right thing.

The Gaza crisis seems to be rapidly becoming a pawn in the US' presidential election. Just look at how Donald Trump and Joe Biden talk about the crisis in Gaza and how to deal with the Israeli government or its defense forces. They probably do not want to solve the problem and the crisis immediately. They would prefer to gain more votes by playing electoral tactics, any way they can.

In the US general election up to early November, even though the Gaza crisis itself is one of the most significant and horrific human tragedies in history, attention will likely be focused more on domestic issues rather than international ones. However, the Gaza crisis will undoubtedly influence the election in several ways.

First, many Muslim Americans are expected to mobilize their efforts to urge people not to vote for Biden. They perceive Biden as having let down the US by failing to stand firm in defending peace and the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, as much as the US defends the legitimate rights of the Israeli people.

Second, they are frustrated by the complete failure of the US in helping end the tragedies in Gaza. They are dismayed by the fact that the US has repeatedly blocked resolutions in the United Nations Security Council calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza. As a result, they will likely be mobilized. Political activists will attempt to hold Biden accountable for the US' failure to promote a cease-fire in the Israel-Palestine conflict, a failure that has been demonstrated to the entire world.

However, while the American people may be paying attention to the Ukraine crisis and the Gaza conflict, their main focus is on domestic issues, particularly the outcome of the presidential election. Unfortunately, news about civilian deaths, atrocities and indiscriminate killings may be overshadowed by headlines about domestic affairs. This will be a tragic chapter for both the Palestinian people and Israel, as it undermines the prospects for lasting peace in the region.

This is a critical moment for the US to do the right thing and prevent a real crisis of lasting instability, hatred and confrontation between the Palestinian people and the Israeli people. The US should treat the Palestinian people the same as they treat the Israeli people. If anyone attempts to prioritize the political rights of the Israeli people at the expense of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, they will ultimately fail to serve the fundamental interests of the Israelis, as this is not how lasting peace for Israel can be achieved.

— The Author is a Chair Professor at Soochow University and Vice President of the Center for China and Globalization.