Australia backs UN vote on ‘permanent sovereignty’ for Palestinians By Matthew Knott November 14, 2024 https://www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...reignty-for-palestinians-20241114-p5kqs4.html Australia has backed a United Nations resolution recognising Palestinians’ “permanent sovereignty” over resources in the occupied Palestinian territories in Gaza and the West Bank in a significant shift from its previous stance. The federal government broke with the United States and Israel in two UN votes on Thursday, the latest in a series of votes that have angered local pro-Israel groups in Australia. Australia joined with 155 countries to support a UN committee vote on a draft resolution recognising the “permanent sovereignty of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and of the Arab population in the occupied Syrian Golan over their natural resources, including land, water and energy resources”. Australia had previously voted no on the issue since 2003, according to the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council. Seven nations - including the United States, Israel and Canada - voted no while 11 abstained. Australia also supported a resolution blaming Israel for a historic oil slick that affected Lebanon during the countries’ 2006 war. US political adviser to the UN Nicholas Koval said the US “remains disappointed that this body has again taken up this unbalanced resolution that is unfairly critical of Israel, demonstrating a clear and persistent institutional bias directed against one member state”. “One-sided resolutions will not help advance peace,” Koval said. “Not when they ignore the facts on the ground.” A vote on the resolutions will now go to the UN General Assembly. Alex Ryvchin, the co-chair of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, said Australia’s change in voting behaviour showed a “widening gulf between the US and Australian positions regarding Israel and the Palestinians” that would be “noticed in Washington”. Nasser Mashni, President of the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, said the vote welcomed the vote as a “significant step towards upholding the fundamental rights of Palestinians under international law. “By supporting this resolution, Australia has taken a meaningful stand against the systemic deprivation that has threatened the livelihoods of Palestinians under decades of illegal Israeli occupation.” A spokesperson for Foreign Minister Penny Wong said the vote reflected international concern for Israel’s actions, including its “ongoing settlement activity, land dispossession, demolitions and settler violence against Palestinians”. “We have been clear that such acts undermine stability and prospects for a two-state solution,” the spokesperson said. “This resolution importantly recalls UN security council resolutions that reaffirm the importance of a two-state solution that has had bipartisan support.” Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council executive director Colin Rubenstein said it was “simply bizarre” that Australia would vote in favour of the motions. “Such resolutions are designed to be a permanent irritant between the parties and prevent them from moving towards a negotiated peaceful future,” he said. Australia abstained in a vote on a September UN resolution calling on Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza within a year, saying the nation’s diplomats had tried and failed to redraft the motion to make it less contentious. The Albanese government angered Israel with its previous two high-profile UN votes on the Israel-Palestine issue by backing a December resolution calling for a ceasefire in the war on Gaza and a May resolution expanding Palestinians’ right to participate at the UN.
Israeli armoured vehicles in the northern Gaza Strip, 6 October 2024. Photograph: Abir Sultan/EPA Israel’s true objective in northern Gaza? Removing Palestinians – and annexing the territory Ben Reiff https://www.theguardian.com/comment...orthern-gaza-palestinians-annexation-settlers Wed 13 November 2024 Settlers have been dreaming of a return to Gaza for nearly 20 years – and Trump’s presidency may only embolden them Last week, Brig Gen Itzik Cohen, a senior IDF officer, quietly admitted what the international community has long been reluctant to acknowledge: that Israel is carrying out ethnic cleansing in northern Gaza, and deceiving the world about its true objectives in the besieged territory. He made the admission during a closed briefing to Israeli journalists last Tuesday regarding the army’s activities in the north of the strip. Israel’s forces, he boasted, were getting closer to the “complete evacuation” of Jabaliya, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya – Gaza’s three northernmost cities, which have been under intense Israeli bombardment since early October. “There is no intention of allowing the residents of the northern Gaza Strip to return to their homes,” Cohen continued, before adding that his “clear orders” were to “create a cleansed space”. The army hastened to distance itself from Cohen’s comments after they garnered the attention of the international media: what may have sounded like war crimes, a spokesperson clarified, was merely a remark taken out of context. Yet what we see playing out on the ground in northern Gaza is exactly as Cohen described it: tens of thousands of civilians forced out of homes, shelters and hospitals, day after day, by airstrikes, artillery fire, quadcopter drones or armed battalions arriving at their door – who make sure to demolish or burn whatever is left behind. Remaining residents are being starved; some are forced to survive on salt and water alone. With no food entering the besieged areas for more than a month, global food security experts have warned of a “strong likelihood that famine is imminent”. Israel claims its current operation in northern Gaza – resembling an even more brutal version of the now infamous “generals’ plan” – was launched to quell Hamas’s attempts to re-establish a foothold in the area. The army is certainly encountering small pockets of Hamas fighters, and sustaining losses in the process. Yet senior defence officials told Israel’s Haaretz newspaper soon after the campaign began that the political echelon was pushing for a different goal altogether: annexation. A second high-profile admission last week, by Israel’s outgoing defence minister, appeared to confirm this. Yoav Gallant, who had been unceremoniously fired two days earlier by Benjamin Netanyahu, made use of his final hours in office to have a frank discussion with some of the families of Israeli hostages still held in Gaza. In comments that received less international media attention than those of Cohen, Gallant reportedly stated that there was no military justification for continuing the war or keeping Israeli forces inside the strip. “There’s nothing left in Gaza to do,” he told the families. “The major [objectives] have been achieved. I fear we are staying there just because there is a desire to stay there.” That desire, it seems, is getting stronger by the day among a growing segment of the Israeli right who see this as a moment of redemption. With northern Gaza cleansed of its Palestinian inhabitants, Israeli settlers – including the hidden architects of the generals’ plan – will be able to do what they have been dreaming about since Israel’s “disengagement” from the occupied territory in 2005, and baying for since the very first days of the current war: re-establish Jewish settlements in the territory. Indeed, they already have the plans drawn up. Palestinians fleeing Israeli attacks in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip, 12 November 2024. Photograph: APAImages/Rex/Shutterstock This, of course, is not official Israeli policy – at least not yet. But last week’s statements by Cohen and Gallant certainly provide strong indications that it is where we’re heading. Another indication came in the form of the two additional far-right ministers invited to join Israel’s security cabinet at the start of this week: Orit Strook, the minister of settlements and national missions, and Yitzhak Wasserlauf, the minister for the development of the periphery, the Negev and the Galilee. If you were looking for the Knesset members best positioned to advise on the settlement of Gaza, these would be your go-to candidates. And, as Israel continues its preparations to make this a reality, the final piece of the puzzle may have just fallen into place. The return to the White House of Donald Trump, whose previous tenure was marked by the renunciation of longstanding US and international consensus positions on Israel-Palestine, puts American support for Israeli annexation of northern Gaza firmly on the table. Whether it’s in the context of a revamped “deal of the century” or a less grandiose agreement whereby Netanyahu gets what he wants in exchange for “winding down” hostilities in the south of the strip, a permanent Israeli seizure of at least part of the territory appears dangerously imminent. Meanwhile, Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s far-right finance minister, announced that he has his sights set on an even bigger prize: sovereignty over the West Bank within the forthcoming year. Under the shadow of war, he has already made significant strides towards this goal, building on the settler movement’s successes of years gone by. Who’s to say Trump won’t oblige him? For more than a year, international pressure has failed to put the brakes on Israel’s crazed onslaught on Gaza, which many experts have termed a genocide. International courts are unable to keep pace with the carnage on the ground, while a series of empty threats from Washington has further emboldened Israel’s far-right government and its base, who will be feeling invincible after Trump’s victory. The president-elect, erratic as he is, may yet be swayed in a different direction by his Saudi confidants, or the outgoing Biden administration could take a decisive parting swing at Israel in its final weeks. But with the probability of both scenarios appearing remote, it is up to the rest of the international community to bring real pressure to bear against Israel in the form of arms embargos and comprehensive sanctions. For more than 43,000 Palestinians killed so far by Israel’s assault on Gaza, which may be a significant undercount, it’s already too late – but countless more lives depend on it.
Trump's pick of Huckabee and Witkoff a clue to Middle East policy 2 hours ago Joe Inwood BBC News Reporting from Jerusalem Reuters Donald Trump said Mike Huckabee would "work tirelessly to bring about peace in the Middle East” ................. American politics, infested with delusional religious idiots.
With the new Trump administration in place... the policy will go well beyond merely removing the Palestinians from northern Gaza. The new policy will be to remove the Palestinians from all of Gaza and the West Bank. Remember Huckabee has supported this removal in numerous past statements. Coupled with his belief that "Palestinians don't exist" -- they are merely a made up name for a group of vagabonds who have no rights to any land. In hindsight the Biden administration's efforts for a three-stage ceasefire process leading to peace and a two state solution does not look so bad, eh?
......Miriam Adelson has stated the "top issue in the Jewish community is the survival of the Jewish people." Rabbi Shmuley Boteach described her as "arguably the proudest Jew I have met."[7] A strong supporter of Israel, she has said that her heart is in that country and that she got "stuck" in America after meeting her husband.[12] She is credited with influencing his political views on Israel, who was "inspired by [her] Zionism, and from there began a public and philanthropic campaign unique in our generation".[26] Adelson is a financial supporter of the Zionist Organization of America, the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum and memorial in Jerusalem, and various U.S. groups that fundraise for the Israeli military.[27] In response to the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, Adelson published an Op-Ed in Forbes Israel, entitled "Dead to Us". Referring to a wave of pro-Palestinian protests occurring across various western cities and countries, Adelson stated that "Those ghastly gatherings of radical Muslim and Black Lives Matter activists, ultra-progressives and career agitators were nothing short of street parties. These people are not our critics. They are our enemies, the ideological enablers in the West of those who would go to any length to eradicate us from the Middle East. And, as such, they should be dead to us".[28] Support for Donald Trump After 2016, she was known for her support for Donald Trump.[29] She and her husband were the largest donors of Trump throughout his presidency; they provided the largest donation to his 2016 campaign, his presidential inauguration, his defense fund against the Mueller investigation into Russian interference and the 2020 campaign.[30] She has written that Trump "should enjoy sweeping support" among U.S. Jews and Israelis, and that Trump deserves a "Book of Trump" in the Bible due to his support for Israel.[31][32][29] She pushed for the pardon of Aviem Sella who spied against America.[33] Adelson wrote that Trump represents "kinship, friendship, courage, the triumph of truth" and that "Israelis and proud Jews owe Donald Trump our gratitude."[34] Trump met with Adelson in February 2024, and she will support Trump in the 2024 United States presidential election.[35][36][37] In May 2024, Politico reported that Adelson will contribute $90 million to a Super PAC supporting Trump. At this time the Biden’s campaign account had $84 million cash, and Trump's had $49 million (not accounting for PAC dollars).[38] Miriam Adelson sought support from candidate Trump for Israel's annexation of the West Bank, pledging more than $100 million to Trump’s campaign in exchange for U.S. recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over the region.[39][40][41] WIKI