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International Criminal Court: Palestinians hope to gain leverage on Israel

Karin Laub, Mohammed Daraghmeh
AP
Wed, 01 Apr 2015 03:54 UTC
Abbas
© www.arabnews.com
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas
The Palestinians formally joined the International Criminal Court on Wednesday, as part of a broader effort to put international pressure on Israel and exact a higher price for its occupation of lands sought for a Palestinian state.
Beyond seeking war crimes charges against Israel at the court, the Palestinians want the U.N. Security Council to set a deadline for an Israeli troop withdrawal and hope for new momentum of a Palestinian-led international movement of boycott, divestment and sanctions.
The atmosphere seems ripe for international intervention after recently re-elected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu startled the world with a pledge to voters, since withdrawn, that he would not allow a Palestinian state to be established.

But a legal and diplomatic showdown isn't inevitable as aides say Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas isn't interested in an all-out confrontation with Israel. War crimes charges against Israel could be years away and Washington likely will soften any Security Council resolution on Palestinian statehood.

Here is a look at what's expected:

Comment: Did Palestine attempt to raise the stakes with this move? A preliminary examination into alleged Israeli crimes is already underway and will determine the grounds to proceed with a full investigation, should the court deem it has jurisdiction. A 40-member Palestinian committee has spent the past three months looking at two areas where they believe Israel violated international law: military operations during last year's war in Gaza and Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The ICC focuses on the worst violations of international law: genocide and war crimes against humanity, and soon to be added "crimes of aggression." While the Palestinians seem to have a "no brainer" case, what we do know is the situation won't be settled any time soon. And, here's the sucky part: Israel is a non-member of the ICC and is apparently under no obligation to comply.

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Bad Guys

The geopolitics in the war to divide Yemen

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
Strategic Culture Foundation
Tue, 31 Mar 2015 22:47 UTC
Image

Comment: This is the following article from The geopolitics of Saudi aggression and the invasion of Yemen.


"Battle lines are being drawn in Yemen, the Arab world's poorest country and the Middle East's latest candidate for state failure. If, as looks increasingly probable, open warfare breaks out soon, it will only be made worse by the contest for regional supremacy between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Both powers have proven eager to arm groups they believe they can control, despite the legacy this destructive rivalry has already wrought in Syria and Iraq", the magazine Foreign Policy claimed on March 6.
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USA

Obama suddenly remembers that Sisi didn't take power through coup d'etat, sends $1.3 billion in weapons to help Egypt crush Yemen


RT
Tue, 31 Mar 2015 22:00 UTC
Image
© Reuters/Mohamed Abd El Ghany

President Obama has lifted his arms embargo on Egypt, authorizing the deliveries of US weapons valued at over $1.3 billion, suspended after the 2013 military coup. Egyptian forces have been fighting Islamic militants in Yemen and Libya.

Among the weapons systems released are twelve F-16 aircraft, 20 "Harpoon" anti-ship missiles, and 125 upgrade kits for US-made M1A1 Abrams tanks in Egyptian service. The "executive hold" on weapons deliveries was imposed after the military overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood government of President Mohamed Morsi in October 2013. Egypt is the second-largest recipient of US military aid in the world.


Comment: Yup, defense contractors want money.


Comment: Proxy war; it's the American democratic way.

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Eye 2

McCain suggests Israel "go rogue" and attack Iran to blow up U.S.-Iran negotiations

Zaid Jilani
AlterNet
Sun, 29 Mar 2015 21:50 UTC
Image
As Iran talks appear to be coming to a close with a successful agreement that would both lead to the lifting of international sanctions and restrictions that would prevent the country from obtaining nuclear weapons, most in the international community are relieved.

Yet Republicans have teamed up with their counterparts in the Israeli political system to do everything they can to obstruct a deal - with tactics such as drafting new sanctions legislation and warning the Iranian leadership that the nuclear agreement will not outlast President Obama.

But this past week Senator John McCain (R-AZ) ratcheted up this sabotage to a new level. During a floor speech he gave on March 24th, the senator suggested that Israel "go rogue" and that if they don't they may not survive the next 22 months of the Obama presidency:

McCAIN: The Israelis will need to chart their own path of resistance. On the Iranian nuclear deal, they may have to go rogue. Let's hope their warnings have not been mere bluffs. Israel survived its first 19 years without meaningful U.S. patronage. For now, all it has to do is get through the next 22, admittedly long, months.

Watch it:




Recall that McCain is head of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a former Republican presidential candidate. His call for a foreign state to openly obstruct U.S. policy and in the process initiate a catastrophic regional war is perhaps unprecedented for someone of his senior position.
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Pistol

'Leftist' terrorist group DHKP-C attempts to assassinate member who planned to reveal group's ties to shadowy Ergenekon group


Today's Zaman
Mon, 05 Nov 2012 17:48 UTC
A terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) member has confessed to police to having shot Asuman akça, a former member of the far-left
Image

A member of the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C) displays the weapon he will use to overthrow the Turkish government. In theory.
, just as she was planning to reveal the group's ties to the Ergenekon terrorist organization.

Akça was shot in the head in her Istanbul home on Oct. 24. She is currently undergoing medical treatment, and doctors say she is in critical condition. S.A. was captured by İstanbul police on Oct. 28 on suspicion of being connected to the attack. The man declined to reveal the purpose of the attack at first, but he recently told the police that he was ordered to assassinate Akça as she had plans to make public the ties between the DHKP/C and Ergenekon.

Ergenekon is a shadowy network nested within the state bureaucracy which is believed to be behind a large number of assassinations and other activities which the group hoped would eventually lead to the overthrow of the government.

Akça, who was responsible for the coordination of the DHKP/C's activities in İstanbul, was arrested in 2008 on the grounds that she was preparing to assassinate Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. A prosecutor demanded that she be sentenced to up to 55 years in prison, but the court hearing the case against her failed to reach a verdict despite the fact that more than four years have passed since Akça's arrest, and Akça was released pending trial in March as part of a judicial reform package.

Comment: Ergenekon is essentially the NATO 'deep state' equivalent of Operation Gladio in Turkey.

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War Whore

U.S.-backed attack on Yemen reminiscent of 1930s aggression and descent into barbarism

Finian Cunningham
Strategic Culture Foundation
Tue, 31 Mar 2015 21:24 UTC
Image
© AFP/ MOHAMMED HUWAIS
Yemenis gather near the rubble of houses close to Sanaa Airport, March 31, 2015, after they were destroyed in an air strike by Saudi-led coalition warplanes
Both the Arab League and the United Nations have fully transformed themselves into the ill-fated League of Nations that more than 70 years ago disgraced itself into oblivion when it failed to condemn foreign aggressions that eventually led to the cataclysm of World War Two.

As delegates gathered in Egypt's resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh for the Arab League last weekend, nearly half of its member states were at the same time openly engaged in an aerial blitz on one of the League's weakest countries - Yemen.

Far from issuing any misgiving, or appeal for restraint, the League fully endorsed the onslaught on Yemen and even went on to call for a new «unified military force» to repeat the action in other countries where a «security risk» is deemed. This is a cart blanche for further foreign military interventions bypassing the United Nations Security Council. In other words, it is open season for lawless aggression.

With a population of only 24 million and half of them living in poverty, Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the Arab region. It is also one of the founding members of the Arab League, which was formed in 1945 at the end of the Second World War.

Since last week, scores of Yemeni civilians, including children, have been killed in a massive bombing campaign led by Saudi Arabia and co-ordinated by the United States. The bombing coalition of 10 countries include Egypt, North Sudan, Morocco and the Persian Gulf Arab states of Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain. More than 200 fighter jets from those countries have been reported carrying out air strikes on the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, as well as on the southern port city of Aden and surrounding countryside.
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Safe

Iceland to take back the power to create money

Raúl Ilargi Meijer
The Automatic Earth
Tue, 31 Mar 2015 20:58 UTC
Who knew that the revolution would start with those radical Icelanders? It does, though. One Frosti Sigurjonsson, a lawmaker from the ruling Progress Party, issued a report today that suggests taking the power to create money away from commercial banks, and hand it to the central bank and, ultimately, Parliament.

Can't see commercial banks in the western world be too happy with this. They must be contemplating wiping the island nation off the map. If accepted in the Iceland parliament , the plan would change the game in a very radical way. It would be successful too, because there is no bigger scourge on our economies than commercial banks creating money and then securitizing and selling off the loans they just created the money (credit) with.

Comment: Good on Iceland to pave the way to monetary reform.

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Bad Guys

The geopolitics of Saudi aggression and the invasion of Yemen

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
Strategic Culture Foundation
Mon, 30 Mar 2015 19:08 UTC
yemen

No aggression here, just business as usual.
The United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia became very uneasy when the Yemenese or Yemenite movement of the Houthi or Ansarallah (meaning the supporters of God in Arabic) gained control of Yemen's capital, Sanaa/Sana, in September 2014. The US-supported Yemenite President Abd-Rabbuh Manṣour Al-Hadi was humiliatingly forced to share power with the Houthis and the coalition of northern Yemenese tribes that had helped them enter Sana. Al-Hadi declared that negotiations for a Yemeni national unity government would take place and his allies the US and Saudi Arabia tried to use a new national dialogue and mediated talks to co-opt and pacify the Houthis.

The truth has been turned on its head about the war in Yemen. The war and ousting of President Abd-Rabbuh Manṣour Al-Hadi in Yemen are not the results of «Houthi coup» in Yemen. It is the opposite. Al-Hadi was ousted, because with Saudi and US support he tried to backtrack on the power sharing agreements he had made and return Yemen to authoritarian rule. The ousting of President Al-Hadi by the Houthis and their political allies was an unexpected reaction to the takeover Al-Hadi was planning with Washington and the House of Saudi.

The Houthis and their allies represent a diverse cross-section of Yemeni society and the majority of Yemenites. The Houthi movement's domestic alliance against Al-Hadi includes Shiite Muslims and Sunni Muslims alike. The US and House of Saud never thought that they Houthis would assert themselves by removing Al-Hadi from power, but this reaction had been a decade in the making. With the House of Saud, Al-Hadi had been involved in the persecution of the Houthis and the manipulation of tribal politics in Yemen even before he became president. When he became Yemeni president he dragged his feet and was working against the implementation of the arrangements that had been arranged through consensus and negotiations in Yemen's National Dialogue, which convened after Ali Abdullah Saleh was forced to hand over his powers in 2011.

Comment: Read part II here. See also: Hypocrisy hyperbole: Russian 'aggression' in Ukraine vs. Saudi 'defense' in Yemen

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Attention

License to kill

Dmitry Orlov
ClubOrlov
Tue, 31 Mar 2015 17:23 UTC
License to Kill
© Jakub Rozalski
The story is the same every time: some nation, due to a confluence of lucky circumstances, becomes powerful—much more powerful than the rest—and, for a time, is dominant. But the lucky circumstances, which often amount to no more than a few advantageous quirks of geology, be it Welsh coal or West Texas oil, in due course come to an end. In the meantime, the erstwhile superpower becomes corrupted by its own power.

As the endgame approaches, those still nominally in charge of the collapsing empire resort to all sorts of desperate measures—all except one: they will refuse to ever consider the fact that their imperial superpower is at an end, and that they should change their ways accordingly. George Orwell once offered an excellent explanation for this phenomenon: as the imperial end-game approaches, it becomes a matter of imperial self-preservation to breed a special-purpose ruling class—one that is incapable of understanding that the end-game is approaching. Because, you see, if they had an inkling of what's going on, they wouldn't take their jobs seriously enough to keep the game going for as long as possible.

The approaching imperial collapse can be seen in the ever worsening results the empire gets for its imperial efforts. After World War II, the US was able to do a respectable job helping to rebuild Germany, along with the rest of western Europe. Japan also did rather well under US tutelage, as did South Korea after the end of fighting on the Korean peninsula. With Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, all of which were badly damaged by the US, the results were significantly worse: Vietnam was an outright defeat, Cambodia lived through a period of genocide, while amazingly resilient Laos—the most heavily bombed country on the planet—recovered on its own.
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USA

Regime change in Yemen - How the U.S. created the "South Arabia" separatist movement


Sputnik
Fri, 27 Mar 2015 17:17 UTC
Image
© AP Photo/ Yassir Hassan
As Saudi Arabia and its allies have begun the bombing campaign against Yemen, in the south, a separatist movement calling for a "State of South Arabia" is emerging. Fostered by the US, it will leave the Houthis with two hostile states at their borders and locked access to the sea, if it succeeds.

Welcome to phase two of US regime change operations. After Yemen's 2011 revolution failed and Houthi militias overthrew President Hadi, forces trained and sponsored by the US government are being activated as a separatist movement.

The Southern People's Committees (SPC), founded around 2007 although USAID has been conducting political workshops as part of a $695,000 project and actively grooming leadership in Yemen since 2005. (Also in 2007, weekly protests began, organized by women's organizations, fostered by the workshops.) The SPC were similar to many color revolution movements such as Serbia's Otpor in that they did not have a central leadership, but rather an autonomous cell-based organization. In addition, they were very capable in the use of social media technologies, text messaging and the circumventing the government's internet censorship to organize protests.

Meanwhile, the Yemen Center for Human Rights Studies, which received $193,000 from the EU and US-funded Foundation for the Future in 2009, conducted a poll in January 2010, which found that 70 percent of southern Yemenis favored secession.
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