Tag: EU

World Struggles to Stand Against Israeli Annexation

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With less than a week until Israeli annexation plans could feasibly commence, countries around the world are expressing very different reactions to Israel’s intended moves. The responses have been varied as global alliances, religious convictions, and economic factors weigh on nations’ willingness to risk conflict with Israel and its powerful ally in Washington.

While few nations have expressed outright support for the clear violation of international law, the rhetoric employed by those in opposition indicates that few are willing to position themselves as “anti-Israeli” or risk the ire of our global hegemon. That annexation would risk the local peace progress is nothing but a statement of simple fact, but most world leaders are reluctant to venture beyond restating this.

The EU

European leaders have received Israel’s annexation plans with much bombastic diplomatic language, but have been reluctant to make any threats if Israel proceeds with its planned violation of international law.

Germany’s foreign minister, Heiko Maas, traveled to Israel to discuss the matter, but even before departure had to admit he would offer no practical threat that could provide an incentive for Israel to halt its plans.

Over 1,000 parliamentarians have since signed a letter opposing Israel’s planned annexation, but the letter does little more than express “serious concerns” or highlight the “destabilizing potential” of Israel’s publicly stated intention to break international conventions on warfare, the Charter of the United Nations, and the basic premise of national sovereignty.

The US

In the US wide-spread political support for Israel has led to fragmented partisan splits on the issue. While many politicians have spoken out against annexation, the language used reveals much more concern about implications for Israel’s security than the well being of “annexed” Palestinians.

Their entire concept of an “agreed upon” annexation according to an unsigned peace plan originates from diplomatic novice Jared Kushner’s heavily criticized proposal. Much of the US press has opposed annexation but has done so primarily from a perspective that focuses on Israeli security.

Many have claimed that the annexation plans, and their timing, are a direct Trump ploy to create a new narrative before the US presidential elections in November 2020.

Arab nations

The Gulf Cooperation Council and the Arab League have condemned annexation plans and endorsed the establishment of an independent Palestine. However, other than highlighting the obvious breaches of international law, the Arab world has so far not shown a united front against a possible expansion of Israeli land at the expense of Palestinians.

Only Jordan has posed a clear ultimatum to Israel by threatening war. Jordan is highly dependent on the US and fears its possible retaliation, just like many Arab states, but stands alone in offering a practical disincentive to Israel’s plans. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent the director of the Israeli secret service to Amman last week with a message for Jordan’s King Abdullah II. Whether Israel can force Jordan to renege on its commitment remains to be seen.

Israeli Settlers

People living in Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territories generally oppose annexation plans. Even though many of these settlements would become part of Israel following annexation, settlers fear the plan does not go far enough and would create momentum for the establishment of a small, fragmented Palestinian state, which they categorically oppose.

Billboards along Israeli highways feature Hebrew slogans urging Netanyahu to “do it right,” calling on him to annex all of what remains of Palestinian land. While annexation of more land than included in the Trump “peace plan” would be controversial, it would be no more illegal than Israel’s current plans.

Palestinians

For Palestinians, especially those living in the occupied territories, annexation is simply an inevitable reality. “These areas are already [as good as] annexed… It’s all in their hands” a farmer in the West Bank told the BBC. But many Palestinians see the looming annexation as the logical next step in the decades-long Israeli encroachment on Palestinian territory.

Israel has intensified evictions of Palestinians in the Jordan Valley and locals see annexation as inevitable. “Everyone is scared about annexation, no one wants to live under the occupation’s law,” Palestinian activist Sami Hureini told Al Jazeera, as locals appear to have no illusions over Israeli intentions.

The UN

On June 24, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres joined in the growing chorus of voices opposing annexation rhetorically. “We are at a watershed moment,” Guterres told the UN Security Council (UNSC), saying, “If implemented, annexation would constitute a most serious violation of international law.”

But the head of the UN is as powerless to stop Israel as those living in the occupied territories. As long as Israel proceeds with the blessing of the US, international law is of little consequence.  The power of the US alone could prevent any strong response against annexation.

The crisis over Israeli annexation has revealed once again that we are all living under American hegemony that in practice can supersede international law, the UN, and the will of the rest of the globe. Underneath political posturing, angry letters, and formal diplomacy, all nations continue to tremble at the prospect of angering the US.

Black Lives Also Matter at Europe’s Borders

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Racists in Europe must have breathed a sigh of relief over the weekend. Thousands rallied across the continent in solidarity with Black Lives Matter and against police brutality, but few even mentioned that the EU is showing a similar disdain and disregard for Black lives at its borders.

In the US, the legacy of slavery is obvious and noticeable on a daily basis, as the victims of American slavery are part of the country’s society. In Europe, the victims of centuries of oppression and slavery are hidden away, kept from even entering the world’s most prosperous region and claiming even a fragment of the results of their ancestors’ labor.

When European empires stretched across the globe, as recently as 70 years ago, colonizers constantly reminded their subjects of their “mother country” in Europe. Now that these countries no longer profit from them, the descendants of the colonized, often separated by only a single generation, are considered unwelcome foreigners, with no right to enter the continent that their ancestors’ suffering helped build.

In a case of incredible projection, Europeans who once invaded countries to extract resources now accuse poor migrants of trying to “profit from and exploit” Europe’s welfare system that their ancestors helped build as much as Europeans did.

Europeans remain shocked and incredulous in the face of US racism but remain blind to their own similar or often even worse treatment of those that do not have the right immigration papers.

Anti-racism protests

European leaders were quick to express their condemnation of the brutal murder of George Floyd and some even highlighted similar forms of racism in Europe. The continent’s continued complicity in the daily deaths and suffering of its own colonial victims did not receive any attention.

Just in the one week since the anti-racism protests spread across the EU, dozens of Black people experienced their own silent and unreported “I can’t breathe” moment as they drowned in the Mediterranean.

Many have commented on the apparent lack of accountability for police violence in the US, but if George Floyd had been a drowning migrant, those who called for the officer to stop could have been prosecuted, as saving a migrant’s life during sea crossings is a crime in several EU countries. All sense of human decency appears to have been abandoned in the concerted effort to ensure Europe’s wealth is never shared with its colonial victims that helped create that wealth.

Countries such as Britain, France, Spain, the Netherlands, and Italy that have extracted untold amounts of wealth from their colonial subjects now accuse the descendants of their victims of exploiting them, with no apparent sense of shame whatsoever. “Let them die because this is a good deterrence,” is how a UN rapporteur described the European strategy.

FRONTEX

In order to avoid a confrontation with Europe’s colonial past, the EU has set up a paramilitary force in control of concentration camps, advanced military hardware, mobilized a $350 million budget, and granted an unspoken license to kill. Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency is Europe’s version of a militarized police force, conveniently hidden from citizens’ view and used to commit daily human rights violations.

Black migrants in Europe are not even considered worthy of human rights, if they are not lucky enough to already be in possession of a European passport. Those unfortunate people in dangerously overcrowded boats in the Mediterranean are all structurally denied their human right of asylum (Article 33 of the Geneva Convention on Refugees.)

They are similarly denied the human right to not experience inhuman and degrading treatment (Article 3 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms) and the right to leave any country (Article 13.2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.)

By keeping migrants away from European shores, the EU is ensuring it does not have to recognize the rights of those attempting the dangerous journey and instead putting that responsibility on regimes it knows will not uphold them.

Europeans have some of the most powerful passports on earth and can travel virtually unimpeded, but apparently see no moral problem in the fact that others are barred from entering their territory.

Deal with the devil

Increased scrutiny of FRONTEX has not changed Europe’s ways, instead it has changed its methods to avoid responsibility. Europe has made deals with oppressive regimes in Turkey and Libya that exchange large amounts of euros to move the structural and continuing death toll of Black people away from European coasts and towards those of North Africa.

The move has led to Libyan coast guard and European ships forcing migrants back to African shores, Libyan concentration camps full of migrants, and a reemergence of slave auctions in Libya.

But another devil with whom European politicians are making a deal is the anti-immigration voting bloc that they aim to appease. Politicians employ many of the brutal strategies to keep former colonial subjects out because of fear of losing support from Europe’s anti-immigrant voters. Far from a fringe group, they constitute enough political power to make even left-wing politicians approach the topic with caution.

Many on Europe’s right claim the continent is doing enough to help Africa through development aid. But the decreasing development budgets of EU countries stand in stark contrast with the net outflow of over $16.3 trillion of wealth extracted from developing countries to developed ones since 1980.

American law enforcement disgracefully kills an average of 1,000 Black people every year, while the EU’s tally in 2019 was 1,283. Its immigration policies killed 2,299 in 2018. The number of recorded deaths has gone down only because rescue ships are no longer searching for migrants and therefore not recording the death toll.

Since 2014, ships have found at least 19,164 migrants dead in the Mediterranean, all simply human beings trying to exercise their human right to claim asylum in Europe.

While Europeans protests in solidarity with America’s anti-racist movements, perhaps they should take a deep look at their own structural and continuing murder of their former colonial subjects in an effort to keep “them” away from Europe’s shores.

Europe needs to stop wagging its finger at others and perhaps take a deeper look into the structural racism and xenophobia that keeps Europe rich at the cost of Black lives, which, unlike those in the US, are lost far away from cameras and moral outrage.

Syrians Brace for Looming Sanctions

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On June 17, the ‘Caesar Act’ will come into effect in the United States, with potentially devastating consequences for Syria’s economy. The act consists of a broad package of sanctions that would, in effect, make it illegal for most countries to do business with Syrian enterprises.

The Caeser act shares the pseudonym of a Syrian military photographer who smuggled thousands of photographs of Syrian torture out of the country, revealing the brutality of the Syrian regime’s practices against detainees.

However, the package of sanctions could have far-reaching consequences for Syria. The war-torn country’s economy is already suffering from hyperinflation that has caused food prices to rise by 50% in a single month.

“Prices of goods in Syria, including locally produced ones, are rising with the exchange rate,” Elizabeth Tsurkov, of the Foreign Policy Research Institute told the Guardian. “The inflation is so rapid that prices in the morning would be lower than in the evening,” she explained.

Looming sanctions

The already dire situation in Syria is about to get worse since the Caesar Act will effectively penalize any country that does business with any company in Syria.

While existing EU and US sanctions already target senior regime officials and aligned business interests, the US sanctions set to trigger on June 17 will target any country that trades with Syrian entities, effectively targeting Syria’s few remaining trade-partners in neighboring countries and with businesses in Europe and the Gulf states.

The largest impact of the sanctions will be felt both in Damascus and Beirut, as trade with Lebanon has been one of the few remaining lifelines on which Syria’s fragile economy depended. Both Lebanon and Syria are facing spiraling currency crises and  the US sanctions aim to exacerbate these troubles in order to weaken Iranian influence in the two countries.

Hezbollah’s role in Lebanon’s government and Iranian support for both countries have long been a thorn in the side of the US military and the US now aims to break business ties between the two countries and plunge both into a dire economic crisis.

Victims

However, the victims of sanctions are rarely the elite that they nominally target. Rising prices of basic essentials and food scarcity are inevitable, but the regime’s leadership will always have enough to eat. The sanctions hope to make the economic situation in Syria and Lebanon so dire that the starving people will rise up and hold the governments responsible.

In over a century of sanctions, they have never actually produced this result. Sanctions on apartheid south-Africa actually further impoverished the black population, according to the then prime-minister de Klerk. Cuba has been under crushing US sanctions since it’s communist revolution, but the sanctions actually allow the regime to blame the US for any economic issues.

In Syria, an already devastated country with its infrastructure in ruins is facing an economic crisis even without the new sanctions. Rising bread prices have sparked protests which were met with counter-protests by government supporters, who directly highlighted Western sanctions as the reason for the economic troubles.

Following a nine-year conflict, Syria has few resources left to rebuild. The US now attempts to once again spark a popular uprising and reduce the influence of Iran and Hezbollah. But, after the first uprising was crushed with little to no official western backing, how are Syrians supposed to topple al-Assad now?

EU Human Rights Court Rules in Favor of BDS Movement

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France has violated the freedom of expression of activists of the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement (BDS) that aims to protest Israeli apartheid. The ruling is significant as the EU is seeing increasing repression of pro-Palestinian activism, which Israeli lobbyists paint as antisemitic.

French courts had earlier convicted the protesters of “incitement to economic discrimination” after a group of eleven protesters held a demonstration at a supermarket in the small town of Illzach in 2009.

The protesters had handed out leaflets calling for a boycott of Israeli products which French courts, including its top court, upheld as a crime and sentenced each member to pay a €1,000 fine.

Court ruling

The European Court of Human Rights (EHCR) then took the case as “Baldassi and Others v. France,” named after Jean-Michel Baldassi, the leader of the small group of protesters.

On Thursday, June 11, the EHCR unanimously found (PDF) that “incitement to differential treatment is not necessarily the same as incitement to discrimination” and that French courts had violated the protesters’ right of freedom of expression established in article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

After eleven years of ongoing court cases, the EHCR ruled that France must pay each protester €380 to compensate for loss of income due to the court cases, €7,000 for non-quantifiable damages, and €20,000 jointly to cover costs and expenses inflicted on the protesters in their eleven-year legal battle.

BDS response

Rita Ahmad of the Palestinian-led BDS movement said about the ruling: “This is a major legal blow to Israel’s apartheid regime and its anti-BDS lawfare. At Israel’s behest, European governments, especially in France and Germany, have fostered an ominous environment of bullying and repression to silence Palestine solidarity activists.”

Ahmad highlighted the link between Black Lives Matter protests in the US and the BDS movement’s anti-colonial position, saying “at a time when European citizens, inspired by the Black Lives Matter uprising in the US, are challenging the ugly legacy of European colonialism, France, Germany and other EU countries must end their racist repression of human rights defenders campaigning for Palestinian human rights and for an end to Israeli apartheid.”

Ahmad also emphasized the role of European silence on Israeli human rights and international law violations. “Europe is deeply complicit in Israel’s occupation, siege of Gaza and slow ethnic cleansing of Indigenous Palestinians.” She promised further activism in Europe, saying that “for as long as this complicity continues, BDS campaigns will too.”

European Leaders Hide COVID-19 Deaths

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Belgium has faced international criticism for its high COVID-19 death-rate, but Belgian scientists claim that the rest of the EU are under-counting or under-reporting fatalities.

Professor Steven van Gucht, head of Belgium’s scientific COVID-19 response team has been under fire from both national and international actors for using a counting method that the British Health Foundation describes as the “fairest way to compare COVID-19 deaths internationally.”

Van Gucht has felt the pressure from Belgium’s business community and political leadership who have urged him to change the method of counting, “but we refused,” van Gucht told Deutsche Welle. Infection rates appear to be slowing in Europe, allowing for a deeper look into the numbers behind the pandemic’s impact on Europe.

Excess Deaths

It now appears that Belgium is one of the few European countries that has accurately reported the scale of the crisis on its citizens, while most have downplayed their numbers. “Official covid-19 death tolls still under-count the true number of fatalities,” the Economist concluded when they compared “excess deaths,” the increase in deaths compared to a five-year average.

In Belgium, this April saw the most deaths since the country was under Nazi occupation. While many other countries will have reached similar milestones they have not been revealed because of the structural under-reporting by national leaders.

Despite the scrutiny and mistrust surrounding COVID-19 data from China and Iran, data presented by the “revered ladies and gentlemen” that rule Europe have received no such scrutiny. That was a mistake, new data reveals, as most European leaders appear to have downplayed thousands of deaths in their countries.

Systematic under-reporting

Between March 14 and May 15, Britain’s government reported 45,298 coronavirus-related deaths, while the true number appears to stand at 59,100, meaning that Boris Johnson’s government is not reporting almost one in every four deaths.

The Dutch “intelligent lock-down” apparently has been supported through less than complete numbers, as Prime Minister Mark Rutte has only reported 60% of the country’s death-toll, ignoring 3,745 fatalities out of a total death-toll of 9,405 between March 16 and May 17.

In Italy almost half of all COVID-19 deaths have not been reported as such, with the country’s official tally standing at 12,178 deaths between February 26 and March 31, while the real number appears to be 24,031. Based on the data provided by the Economist, besides Belgium, only France and Spain come close to reporting their actual numbers.

Why it matters

This systematic misinformation could have dire consequences as citizens do not see the true scale of the tragedy that has befallen their country, and will not hold their leaders to account.

The patchwork of different approaches across Europe appears to have developed a perverse competition over which country ‘outperformed’ the others, creating an incentive to downplay numbers.

As an example, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has been enjoying rising popularity for himself and his center-right party. Instead of facing criticism for the country’s failure to prevent the deaths of over 9,000 citizens in a single month, the Dutch appear to have been lulled into a false sense of confidence in their elected leaders.

As a result a government that failed to adequately prepare and wasted valuable time in implementing lock-downs will likely not face any political ramifications.

Little criticism has emerged over the government’s decision to allow a large-scale festival in the country’s southern provinces while Italy was already implementing its first lockdown in Lombardy. Within a month it became clear the decision had led to a large outbreak in the country’s south.

Weeks later the Dutch PM still upheld that the country was in the “containment phase” and was touting “herd immunity” as a strategy even as thousands had already become infected. On March 21, Dutch health officials were shipping patients to northern provinces as hospitals in the south were flooded by COVID-19 patients in need of intensive care.

Consequences

By the end of March the number of cases was doubling every week and health officials announced that 2,400 intensive care beds would be needed, more than double the Dutch total capacity of 1,150.

Because the true death-rate was never revealed, the government’s failure to prepare adequately for a pandemic after a decade of its own austerity-led reductions in hospitals and medical staff never became a political issue.

While any attempt to misinform the public is roundly highlighted and mocked whenever Donald Trump engages in it, the misplaced reverence for European leaders has created a dangerous precedent where leaders are not being held to account for similar acts.

The false sense of confidence in Europe’s leaders could easily mean that even a second wave of infections will not lead to any significant criticism or consequences for the national leaders who used distorted data to justify a rush to reopen the economy.

Daily Nile Dam Negotiations Aim to Resolve Tensions

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For almost a decade Ethiopia has been working on the construction of the largest dam in Africa, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). Construction has progressed to the point where Ethiopian authorities are preparing to start filling the dam’s giant reservoir, sparking fears of possible water shortages in Sudan and Egypt.

On Monday, June 8, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced that Ethiopia is ready to proceed with a partial filling of the reservoir. “The dam is a project that will pull Ethiopia out of poverty,” Ahmed told lawmakers. “Ethiopia wants to develop together with others, not hurt the interests of other countries.”

However, the opinion was not shared in Egypt, a country that relies heavily on water from the Nile river, downstream from the GERD. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi released a statement on Tuesday, June 9, accusing Ethiopia of “a new tactic of stalling and shirking responsibility” and accused the country of stalling negotiations in order to start filling the reservoir.

Washington deal

“It is a hugely important and sensitive issue,” said Mirette Mabrouk, director of the Middle East Institute’s Egypt Studies program. “It’s a matter of life and death for a lot of people, certainly for more than a million Egyptians.”

The escalation of the war of words between Egyptian and Ethiopian leadership comes after Sudan and Egypt held separate meetings on February 24 where the United States, an observer in the negotiations, presented what is now called “the Washington deal.”

The United States Treasury department released a statement saying the US “believes that the work completed over the last four months has resulted in an agreement that addresses all issues in a balanced and equitable manner, taking into account the interests of the three countries,” urging Ethiopia not to commence the filling of the reservoir “without an agreement.”

Tuesday’s meeting

On Tuesday June 9, Sudan’s Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok got Egypt and Ethiopia back to the negotiating table, joined by EU, US, and South African observers. The meeting resulted in Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan agreeing to commit to daily meetings in order to ease tensions.

Ministers from the three countries spoke for five hours as Ethiopia claims sovereignty over the Nile water on its territory, while Egypt accuses Ethiopia of violating an agreement signed at the start of construction.

Ethiopia now claims the United States is overstepping its role as a mediating observer by presenting a deal to Ethiopia that was already signed by Egypt, a strategic ally of the US in the region. Sudan appears to accept much of the US proposal, which Ethiopia, in turn, objects to.

Differing opinions

Sudan and Egypt both want a “comprehensive agreement” before Ethiopian authorities start filling the reservoir, as they fear doing so would cause droughts in an already hot and dry year.

Sudan prefers the “Washington deal”, but Ethiopia rejects it because it did not take part in the February negotiations. Ethiopia also disputes the deal’s characterization that negotiations on guidelines and rules for filling the reservoir have been resolved.

For the foreseeable future, Sudanese, Egyptian and Ethiopian negotiators will now hold daily talks, with the exception of Fridays and Sundays, in order to defuse tensions where Ethiopia feels increasingly backed into a corner by powerful foreign actors aligned with Egypt. Sudan and Egypt, meanwhile, fear that the filling of the giant dam’s reservoir could worsen an already poor year for local agriculture and worsen the chance of famine and droughts in the region.

Russia, China, EU Tell US to Pull Back from Iran Arms Embargo Threats

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Russia and China have echoed the European Union’s sentiments, reiterating that the US is in no position to use the Iran nuclear deal as a platform for imposing a permanent weapons embargo on Iran. In a May 27 letter, to the UN Security Council, and  U.N. chief Antonio Guterres made public today, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov criticized the US position as “ridiculous and irresponsible.” 

“This is absolutely unacceptable and serves only to recall the famous English proverb about having one’s cake and eating it,” Lavrov wrote.  

Last week, US Ambassador to the UN Kelly Craft said a draft resolution would soon be introduced to the Security Council calling for a permanent arms embargo on Iran, as it has violated the conditions of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Despite no longer being part of the accord, Craft and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have both intimated that reintroducing UN-backed weapons sanctions, under the basis of the JCPOA agreement, is currently a top US priority.  

Top Chinese and European Union diplomats have also questioned the Trump administration’s call for a snapback to pre-JCPOA sanctions. All permanent Security Council members — Russia, China, the US, France and UK — have a right to veto resolutions. 

“The United States, no longer a participant to the JCPOA (nuclear deal) after walking away from it, has no right to demand the Security Council invoke a snapback,” Wang told the Security Council and Guterres in a letter on June 7. 

On June 9, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell Frontelles agreed, stating, “the United States has withdrawn from the JCPOA, and now they cannot claim that they are still part of the JCPOA in order to deal with this issue from the JCPOA agreement.”  

“They withdraw. It’s clear. They withdraw,” he stressed. 

The US unilaterally pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) accord

between the U.S., Britain, Germany, France, China, Russia and Iran in 2018. Under the 2015 plan Iran promised to limit sensitive nuclear activities, in return for an easing of sanctions. However the agreement began to unravel when Trump pulled out of the deal under his “maximum pressure” campaign, and re-imposed stringent US economic sanctions. 

Under the JCPOA, which is enshrined in a UN resolution, if Iran violates the terms of the accord, sanctions, including an arms embargo, can be reinstated. Iran has violated the terms of the nuclear deal since the US pulled out, but Lavrov, Wang, and Borrell argue that the US has waived its rights to push for renewed sanctions since pulling out of the accord.  

“A party which disowns or does not fulfil its own obligations cannot be recognized as retaining the rights which it claims to derive from the relationship,” Lavrov explained, invoking 1971 International Court of Justice precedent. 

Read also: Iran to Execute Spy Who Gave Soleimani’s Location to US

 

 

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