Black Alliance for Peace Welcomes Amnesty International’s Report on Genocide in Gaza

Black Alliance for Peace Welcomes Amnesty International’s Report on Genocide in Gaza

For Immediate Release

Media Contact

press@blackallianceforpeace.com

(202) 643-1136

December 5, 2024 — The Amnesty International report unambiguously recognizing the barbaric assault on the occupied and oppressed people of Palestine and Gaza specifically as a genocide is a welcome departure from many of the tentative and unprincipled allusions to genocide without calling it genocide issued by a number of other human rights organizations and United Nations bodies, including the International Criminal Court.

According to Ajamu Baraka, director of the Black Alliance for Peace’s forthcoming “North-South Project for People(s)-Centered Human Rights, “The deliberate, systematic degradation and dehumanization of Palestinians resulting in the physical destruction of tens of thousands of Palestinians, the majority of whom are women and children have all occurred right before the eyes of the world. As we watched the wholesale obliteration of their cities, refugee camps, hospitals, civilian infrastructure, cultural and religious sites, food storage facilities and schools, the starvation policy, blockage of medical supplies, murdering doctors and medical workers, torture chambers where prisoners are raped and tortured to death, the Western world not only turned away from the horrific suffering of Palestinians but rationalized and cheered it on. That is why we say that the racist crimes of the fascists in Israel are also the crimes of the “collective West,” who fled to protect the fundamental human rights of the Palestinian people,” 

The Amnesty International report states that the government of Israel “imposed conditions of life in Gaza that created a deadly mixture of malnutrition, hunger and diseases, and exposed Palestinians to a slow, calculated death.” These actions by the Israeli regime correspond precisely with three of the definitions of genocide reflected in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide; “a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”

However, something significant about the Amnesty report is that it concludes that the actions by the Israeli authorities did not merely “appear to be genocidal” or “be perceived to be corresponding to genocide,” but declares definitively that there was “genocidal intent.”

“Palestinians are human and have human rights, but the vaulted “responsibility to protect” asserted by the liberal Western human rights industry and Western states was not executed to protect Palestinians. Why? The Black Alliance will say what the report and others will not say. The genocide being carried out by Israel and the United States is supported because the Palestinians have been racialized as non-white, and, therefore, “killable.” This crime is the crime of the century and makes all who did not actively oppose it, rationalized it, or voted for it, morally complicit” says Mr. Baraka.

The Black Alliance for Peace “North-South Project for People(s)-Centered Human Rights will launch on December 10, 2024. 

Banner photo: Woman standing amidst rubble (courtesy Mustafa Hassona/Anadolu via Getty Images)

The Meaning of October 7th: An Oppressed People Will Always Find a Way to Resist Oppression

The Meaning of October 7th: An Oppressed People Will Always Find a Way to Resist Oppression.

Black Alliance for Peace will never abandon the Rights of Palestinian People to Resist Zionist Colonialism “By Any Means Necessary” 

“Peace is not the absence of conflict, but rather the achievement by popular struggle of … the defeat of global systems of oppression that include colonialism, imperialism, patriarchy, and white supremacy.” (BAP Principle of Unity)

Today, October 7, 2024, the world commemorates – some in horror, others in celebration – a full year of a genocidal war, prosecuted in real time in occupied Palestine. In spite of the commonly accepted lie that the Al Aqsa Flood on October 7 was the beginning, this “war” actually began on November 29, 1947, with the passing of the UN resolution that led to the creation of the Israeli settler colonial state. For the next seventy-six years, with the backing of Western governments the state of Israel would lead a war of conquest, ethnically cleansing and massacring hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, displacing and maiming millions, and establishing an apartheid state. Therefore, the Black Alliance for Peace views the Al-Aqsa Flood as a legitimate resistance operation by the besieged Palestinians – the only party with an internationally recognized right of resistance. We support Palestinian resistance against the violent military domination by white supremacist imperialism and colonialism that began, first in the form of British colonialism, and continues in the form of zionism.

In response to the prison breakout of October 7, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IDF) unleashed a horrific wave of state terror with indiscriminate bombing, targeting of civilian infrastructure, rape, torture and starvation with an obvious and specific target – the non-combatant civilian population. The result – a second Nakba – another catastrophe for the Palestinian people, with tens of thousands slaughtered with impunity. This systematic state terrorism has now engulfed Lebanon, with Israel replicating its depraved, anti-human tactics from Gaza. It began with an attempt to terrorize the resistance group Hezbollah including the killing of the group’s revered leader and anti-colonial fighter, Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah. This terrorism has continued with the indiscriminate massacre of civilians in an attempt to force the Lebanese people into submission. 

Over the last year, the International Criminal Court (ICC) and International Court of Justice (ICJ) along with all the other Western-run international bodies that claim to defend human rights have proven themselves complicit, acting as mere puppets of U.S. imperialism. As global protests erupt in fury, Israel continues its slaughter, understanding clearly that the U.S. settler-state and the white West will continue to provide it protection.  

What the last year has reconfirmed for BAP is that the violence we have witnessed is part of a global system of white supremacism dependent on unrestrained state terror in order to continue the extraction of value from still colonized and oppressed non-European peoples, working classes and nations.  The militarization of police, from the Israeli Occupation Force in Gaza to the deadly exchange programs in domestic colonized communities, is the extension of fascist settler colonialism. If we understand the U.S. as a settler project, then its global expansion can only result in one thing – replicating systems of dominance and repression everywhere. Here, we must also recognize that the attacks on Gaza and Lebanon mirror the looming assault on Haiti. Both represent the deep-rooted racist violence that has always been at the core of the Pan-European colonial/capitalist white supremacist patriarchy since this system of oppression emerged in 1492.

Speaking out against this system of global white supremacy, whether here or abroad, is met with criminalization. From resisting austerity and Cop Cities in the U.S., to the prosecution of the “Uhuru 3” as agents of Russia, to curtailing speech and protest in hopes of dismantling the ‘student intifada’ across campuses, to the Palestinians and Lebanese fighting occupation, the message is clear: dissent is dangerous. But we must stand firm in truth. The real terrorists are those upholding the illegal zionist settler-colonial apartheid regime. The Black Alliance for Peace condemns Israel's decades-long barbarism and fully supports the Palestinian people’s right to resist occupation. Decolonization and self-determination are not simply demands – they are central to the realization of human rights. And since there is no real justice for Palestinians in Western-controlled international laws, we stand by their right to fight for their humanity. Collective resistance is a central principle of the People(s)-Centered Human Rights framework that guides BAP’s approach to the human rights issue. 

Fifty years into the future, the zionist massacre of Palestinians and invasion of Lebanon will be widely recognized for the war crimes that they are. But in the same way that it takes little courage today to oppose the segregation of the 1950s, the time to stand up against genocide and colonialism is right now - today. And we do not have the luxury of waiting for history to vindicate the Palestinians’ just struggle; we must act to help end the zionists’ ever-expanding genocidal war now, once and for all.

 Our struggles are intertwined: we are bound by the shared reality of living under white supremacist, settler-colonial states. When one of us suffers, we all do. And together, we will resist. Long live the resistance. Glory to the martyrs. Palestine will be free – and so will the world once our peoples unite to defeat the U.S./EU/NATO Axis Domination. 

Resist the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination

Defeat the war in the U.S. being waged against the resisters

Smash the Duopoly

No Compromise! No Retreat!

Banner photo: Palestinian young men hold a Palestinian in celebration around a destroyed tank of Israeli forces in Gaza City: (courtesy - Hani Alshaer – Anadolu Agency)

The ICSGP Calls for Full Funding of UNRWA, Lifting of Blockade of Aid to Gaza and an End to Military Support for Israel

**** For Immediate Release ****

International Coalition to Stop Genocide in Palestine Calls for Full Funding of UNRWA, Immediate Lifting of Blockade of Aid to Gaza and an End to Military Support for Israel

All individuals and states that are complicit in genocidal acts in Palestine must be held accountable.

CONTACT:

• Fuad Abu Saif, UAWC - Union of Agricultural Work Committees (Palestine), fuad@uawc-pal.org, +972599375445 (English, Arabic)

• Rosa Elva Zúñiga López, CEAAL - Latin American and Caribbean Council for Popular Education (Mexico), rosyz_secretariageneral@ceaal.org, +523339043788, (Spanish, Portuguese)

On January 26, 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) released its ruling in the case of South Africa v. Israel in which the court found there was sufficient evidence to support South Africa’s allegations of genocide against the Palestinian people (see our previous press release for more details) and rejected Israel’s claim to be acting in “self-defense.” The World Court ordered the state of Israel to “take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of” acts of genocide, including deaths, harm to mental and physical health and conditions that threaten the well-being of the Palestinian people, in effect, an order for a ceasefire. The ICJ also ordered the state of Israel to immediately provide humanitarian aid to people in Gaza.

The response by the state of Israel and its Western allies to the ICJ decision has not only been to deny that genocide is occurring but to double down on their genocidal acts. Israel has ramped up its attacks with an ongoing brutal military assault on civilians in the previously-designated “safe zones” of Khan Younis and Rafah, in the South of Gaza. It also falsely accused the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) of support for terrorism, following which the United States and Germany, along with Australia, Austria, Canada, Estonia, Finland, France, Iceland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Romania, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom withdrew their financial support from the agency, which is struggling to serve as a lifeline for Gazans, the majority of whom are without homes, food, clean water, health care and other basic necessities. Meanwhile, the Biden administration is continuing its efforts to push through a USD $14.3 billion dollar military package to aid the Israel Occupation Forces in its genocidal operation, which has already killed over 27,000 civilians including approximately 12,000 children.

In light of the ICJ order and finding of a plausible risk of genocide, major international human rights organizations, practitioners of international law and experts on genocide have pointed out that the defunding of the UNRWA itself constitutes a genocidal act. The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention calls the defunding of UNRWA a “serious escalation” of the crisis in Gaza representing “a shift by several countries from potential complicity in genocide to direct involvement in engineered famine.” In its January 31 Statement on Recent Threats to UNRWA and the Shift between Potential Complicity and Direct Involvement in the Crime of Genocide against Palestinians by Several Nations, the Lemkin Institute asserts: “this action is tantamount to increased participation in the on-going genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and constitutes both a violation of the ICJ’s recent ruling and of the participating nations’ responsibilities under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (‘the Genocide Convention’).” It further states: “During a period of famine, to implement either permanent cancellation or a pause of funding potentially puts states that have previously committed funds in violation of the Genocide Convention.” This argument has been echoed by over 800 U.S. and European government officials in their recent “Transatlantic Civil Servants’ Statement on Gaza.”

States that are complicit in genocide can be sued through the Genocide Convention at the ICJ. Several state funders of UNRWA have opted to maintain their funding, despite U.S. and Israeli pressure to stop, including Belgium, Ireland, Denmark, Spain, and Norway. On Wednesday, Israel apparently retaliated against Belgium for its stance, by bombing and destroying Belgium’s federal government development agency (Enabel) building in Gaza.

Also on Wednesday, the United Nations Security Council debated the ICJ decision, but no steps were taken to sanction or otherwise pressure the state of Israel to stop its genocidal activities. Both at the Security Council meeting and at a separate press conference held in Pretoria by South African Foreign Minister Dr. GNM Pandor the same day, the South African government called on the nations of the world to submit declarations of intervention to the ICJ. Said Dr. Pandor: “South Africa welcomes the support expressed by several countries and we encourage States that are so inclined to approach the Court to intervene in the proceedings so as to send a strong message to the international community that the situation in the Gaza Strip is indefensible.”

The ICSGP urges social movements around the world to back South Africa’s request by applying maximum pressure to friendly governments to formally intervene on behalf of South Africa in their case against Israel, and to adamantly condemn governments that are actively participating in the genocide in Gaza by witholding funds from UNRWA, and demand the funds be reinstated immediately. The ICSGP commends Nicaragua for being the first nation to take formal steps to intervene on behalf of the South African ICJ case; and furthermore, for taking the bold step of putting countries that are complicit under the Genocide Convention on notice that they will be subject to legal action if they fail to desist. The ICSGP also urges social movements to continue to use the tactics of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions by pressuring governments and corporations that are sending money and/or weapons to Israel to immediately cease those genocidal activities.

“The recent offensive against UNRWA is a calculated continuation of a long-term strategy to dismantle this crucial agency. Initiated in 2014 by the Trump administration under Israeli government influence, this campaign not only sought to defame but also strategically cripple UNRWA through financial strangulation,” said Fuad Abu Saif, director of the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (Palestine). He added, “These efforts are blatantly aimed at eradicating the Palestinian refugee issue and stripping Palestinians of their right to return. The hasty decisions by several Western nations to halt UNRWA funding on the grounds of mere suspicion is deeply disturbing and underscores the extent of Israeli coercion on these governments.”

Rosa Elva Zúñiga López, General Secretary of the Latin American and Caribbean Council for Popular Education (CEAAL) and representative of the World Social Assembly of Struggles and Resistances of the World Social Forum, states: 

The Palestinian people are living through the most heinous violence, which no human being should ever have to endure. Their occupiers have destroyed their lands, their history, and their common goods. We are extremely concerned about the decision by the United States and its allies to halt their funding of UNRWA, which makes them complicit in the genocide of a people fighting for their dignity. It is necessary and urgent to create as much pressure as possible for all humanitarian aid to be able to enter these lands. By cutting off UNRWA funds they affirm that they are orchestrating the annihilation of an entire group of people, and humanity cannot permit this. We need to be in the streets to demand a ceasefire, the opening of the borders and the Palestinian right to self-determination.

As we receive news of the Israeli Occupying Forces attacking aid trucks that enter the Gaza Strip, the ICGSP stresses the urgency of action to end the starvation and annihilation of Palestinians.

The ICGSP reiterates its demands that in compliance with international law:

●      The state of Israel must cease ALL genocidal acts, including inflicting starvation as a weapon of war, against Palestinians.

●      The UNRWA must be fully funded.

●      Humanitarian aid must be provided safely to all Gazans without delay.

●      All states, institutions and individuals that are complicit with genocide must cease their economic, political and military support for the state of Israel and be held accountable in courts of law.

*********************************************

Banner photo: Residents of Syria’s besieged Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp collecting aid, courtesy Sayed / AFP

NYT: Black Pastors Pressure Biden to Call for a Cease-Fire in Gaza

Black Pastors Pressure Biden to Call for a Cease-Fire in Gaza

Black congregants’ dismay at President Biden’s posture on the war could imperil his re-election bid.

By Maya King - Reporting from Atlanta and Columbia, S.C.

Jan. 28, 2024

As the Israel-Hamas war enters its fourth month, a coalition of Black faith leaders is pressuring the Biden administration to push for a cease-fire — a campaign spurred in part by their parishioners, who are increasingly distressed by the suffering of Palestinians and critical of the president’s response to it.

More than 1,000 Black pastors representing hundreds of thousands of congregants nationwide have issued the demand. In sit-down meetings with White House officials, and through open letters and advertisements, ministers have made a moral case for President Biden and his administration to press Israel to stop its offensive operations in Gaza, which have killed thousands of civilians. They are also calling for the release of hostages held by Hamas and an end to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank.

…Full article con’t

Black Alliance for Peace Condemns Slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza

Black anti-war activists call on members of the Congressional Black Caucus and the leadership of the Poor People’s Campaign to publicly condemn Israeli violence

MAY 15, 2018—While a delegation from the Trump administration and leaders from various parts of the world gathered in Jerusalem to witness the illegal and immoral move of the United States embassy from Tel Aviv to the beleaguered and contested city, Israeli soldiers slaughtered unarmed Palestinians in Gaza. The latest count reports more than 50 dead and 2,700 wounded.

The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) demands the United States condemn Israeli state violence and the use of U.S.-supplied weapons to murder unarmed Palestinians, a violation of U.S. law. Guidelines for the sale and transfer of military equipment stipulates U.S.-supplied arms cannot be used to violate human rights.

However, BAP is clear responsibility for the barbarity the world is witnessing does not only rest with the Israeli colonial state. The systematic violence of ethnic cleansing, house demolitions, exile, assassinations, land thefts, bombings, and the denial of water and other vital services that provide basic dignity could not have occurred without ongoing support from the United States, as well as both major political parties in the United States, the corporate press and every major institution of U.S. society, including many churches.

Support for Israeli settler-colonialism has been the stated policy of both dominant U.S. political parties, along with a firm commitment to ensure the Israeli government has the military means to not only sustain the occupation but impose its military will on its neighbors in the region. The two-state solution was always a subterfuge to delay the eradication of illegal Israeli settlements, while military containment policies represented most dramatically in the apartheid walls that crisscross Palestinian territories on the so-called West Bank actually created new realities on the ground, making a two-state solution impossible.

In accordance with the principles and values reflected in the platform of the Poor People’s Campaign and the stated support for that campaign by members of the Congressional Black Caucus, BAP is calling on both to condemn the attacks and join BAP in calling for an intervention by the international community.

We believe this public stance is important because the recent decisions to sabotage the Iran agreement and give Israel a green light to escalate military aggressions in the sovereign state of Syria, coupled with the brutal violence unleashed against unarmed protesters in Gaza, provide unassailable evidence both the United States and Israel have opted to operate outside the rule of law as rogue criminal states.

Therefore, BAP calls on the international community to use all means at its disposal to force the United States and Israel to comport themselves in line with acceptable international norms. It is quite obvious to us that absent pressure from the international community in the form of arms embargos, economic sanctions and universal moral condemnation, both states will continue to be global threats to peace and international outlaws in relation to human rights.

Media contact: Ajamu Baraka, info@blackallianceforpeace.com

Photo credit: REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

Black Alliance for Peace Condemns the Murder of Unarmed Palestinians by Israeli Security Forces

APRIL 2, 2018—A reported 30,000 Palestinians peacefully marched in Gaza on March 30 as they made their historic demand for a right to return to their ancestral lands when they were met by Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) snipers who opened fire, killing 17 people and wounding about 1,500. The Great Return March was the beginning of a six-week long protest that was due to end May 15, the 70th anniversary of the Nakba (catastrophe) marking the day 750,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes by the new state of Israel in 1947.

The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) condemns this and all violence carried out against the Palestinian people by the Israeli government. BAP demands an end to the occupation and the continued theft of land and resources by the Israeli government. BAP calls on the U.S. government to cease financial and military support for Israel, which makes every U.S. resident complicit in an ongoing war crime. BAP condemns the corporate media that characterized the assault as a "clash"—where one side had the power of a militarized state and the other side had nothing but unarmed men, women and children.

The Israeli government continues its brazen disregard for life and even bragged about the killing in a now-deleted message posted on Twitter, proclaiming they "know where every bullet landed." Israel has no reason to fear retribution. As a client state of the United States, it acts with complete impunity. Every gun, bullet, bomb and tank in Israel is paid for by our government. The United States uses its seat on the United Nations Security Council to protect Israel and to defend it against the international law it violates on a daily basis.

The killings in Gaza occurred as people across the United States continued to demand justice for Stephon Clark, the Sacramento, California, man killed by police in that city. He is one of over 1,000 people in the United States who die at the hands of police every year. Police departments across the country are trained by the Israelis, who are expert at subjugating and terrorizing their colonized population.

The people are righteously angry about gun violence. The March for Our Lives must be a march for every life, for people victimized by armed individuals, for people killed by police departments, and for people all over the world killed by the U.S. military and its client states. BAP condemns the increased militarization of police departments in this country, which continues the violent occupation of communities of color and makes the deaths of people like Stephon Clark an inevitability.

The connections between Palestine and occupied Turtle Island are clear. BAP demands justice in the United States and in Israel and calls upon peace loving people everywhere to oppose state violence against oppressed people.

We appeal to members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) to denounce the Gaza killings and join in efforts to end the unbroken military assistance provided to Israel and the use of U.S. tax revenues to subsidize this apartheid state. We invite members of the public to call the CBC today: (202) 226-9776

Free Palestine! End the occupation!

Black Lives Matter!

Media contact:

Ajamu Baraka

blackallianceforpeace@gmail.com

Photo credit: Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images