progressiveissuesblog

Iran – CIA Coup

Updated 2024-08-26

2017-06-20    64 Years Later, CIA Finally Releases Details of Iranian Coup  Declassified documents released last week shed light on the Central Intelligence Agency’s central role in the 1953 coup that brought down Iranian Prime Minister Muhammad Mossadegh, fueling a surge of nationalism which culminated in the 1979 Iranian Revolution and poisoning U.S.-Iran relations into the 21st century.

The approximately 1,000 pages of documents also reveal for the first time the details of how the CIA attempted to call off the failing coup — only to be salvaged at the last minute by an insubordinate spy on the ground.

Known as Operation Ajax, the CIA plot was ultimately about oil. Western firms had for decades controlled the region’s oil wealth, whether Arabian-American Oil Company in Saudi Arabia, or the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in Iran. When the U.S. firm in Saudi Arabia bowed to pressure in late 1950 and agreed to share oil revenues evenly with Riyadh, the British concession in Iran came under intense pressure to follow suit. But London adamantly refused.

So in early 1951, amid great popular acclaim, Mossadegh nationalized Iran’s oil industry. A fuming United Kingdom began conspiring with U.S. intelligence services to overthrow Mossadegh and restore the monarchy under the shah. (Though some in the U.S. State Department, the newly released cables show, blamed British intransigence for the tensions and sought to work with Mossadegh.)   The coup attempt began on August 15 but was swiftly thwarted. Mossadegh made dozens of arrests. Gen. Fazlollah Zahedi, a top conspirator, went into hiding, and the shah fled the country.   The CIA, believing the coup to have failed, called it off. 

The next day, on August 19, 1953, with the aid of “rented” crowds widely believed to have been arranged with CIA assistance, the coup succeeded. Iran’s nationalist hero was jailed, the monarchy restored under the Western-friendly shah, and Anglo-Iranian oil — renamed British Petroleum — tried to get its fields back. (But didn’t really: Despite the coup, nationalist pushback against a return to foreign control of oil was too much, leaving BP and other majors to share Iran’s oil wealth with Tehran.)   https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/06/20/64-years-later-cia-finally-releases-details-of-iranian-coup-iran-tehran-oil/?

2013-09-01 Declassified Documents Reveal CIA Role In 1953 Iranian Coup     The Central Intelligence Agency was behind the overthrow of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953. It’s been an open secret for decades, but last week, The George Washington University’s National Security Archive released newly declassified documents proving it. https://www.npr.org/2013/09/01/217976304/declassified-documents-reveal-cia-role-in-1953-iranian-coup?

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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict

Palestine and Israel

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Specific Issues Index

from Creating Better World

Iran August 2024 Attack on Israel

Updated 2024-08-26

2024-08-26 Iran vows ‘definitive’ retaliation against Israel with chilling warning    Iran has declared its response to the killing of a top Hamas official by Israel will be “definitive”, amid rising concerns over potential increased conflict in the Middle East.

Tehran has pointed the finger at Israel for the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, the political chief of Hamas, who was in Tehran in early August for the inauguration of Iran’s new President Masoud Pezeshkian.    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/iran-vows-definitive-retaliation-against-israel-with-chilling-warning/ar-AA1prFwR?

2024-08-21 Iran built expectations about an attack on Israel. Now, its messaging is changing     Almost three weeks after the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran, the Iranian regime is trying to step down from its early claims it would carry out an attack on Israel in retaliation. The regime in Tehran has built up a lot of expectations regarding how it would attack Israel. Now it is trying to shift messaging.  

This “time and place of our choosing” rhetoric is also common in Hezbollah talking points. Hezbollah has also said it would retaliate for the killing of a key commander in late July in Beirut. However, like Iran, it has toned down the rhetoric. What Hezbollah says now is that it has a right to respond and it is keeping the account open.   https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/iran-built-expectations-about-an-attack-on-israel-now-its-messaging-is-changing/ar-AA1pbLDB?

2024-08-16 Muted response from UK and France after Israeli FM calls for retaliation to any Iran strike    Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz raised eyebrows on Friday when he said Israel would expect international partners such as the United Kingdom and France to join Israel in responding to a potential strike from Iran, “not only in defense, but also in attacking significant targets in Iran.”  

Both France and the UK, however, have downplayed such a prospect, with the UK emphasizing the need to break the “current destructive cycle of retaliatory violence” in the Middle East.    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/muted-response-from-uk-and-france-after-israeli-fm-calls-for-retaliation-to-any-iran-strike/ar-AA1oWtO5?

2024-08-15 Iran rejects Israel plea as ‘catastrophic’ World War III looms    Tensions are escalating in the Middle East as Iran remains unyielding, refusing to dismiss the prospect of striking back against Israel following allegations that Jerusalem is behind the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last month.

Iran’s refusal to ignore possible retaliation comes amid an already strained atmosphere; this follows after Israel was blamed by Tehran for the killing on Iranian territory, ratcheting up anxieties over potential conflict in a region already fraught with instability.    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/iran-rejects-israel-plea-as-catastrophic-world-war-iii-looms/ar-AA1oQoVc?

2024-08-14 What’s going on inside Iran as the world awaits retaliation against Israel?   As  the world waits for Iran’s next step abroad, the talk inside the Islamic Republic is not just of what a retaliatory strike against Israel would mean for the Middle East, but what it would mean for the country’s economy and freedoms.   

The country’s newly installed president, Masoud Pezeshkian, was elected on a reformist platform last month and is most likely mulling the potential domestic ramifications of a spiraling conflict for a nation already reeling from years of crushing sanctions, as well as  crackdowns on dissent after a wave of mass demonstrations in 2022 shook the foundations of the Islamic Republic.  

But some in Tehran told NBC News that Iran could keep Israel on its toes without a major retaliation.    “No attack needed,” Nima Hosseini, a government worker, said. “A response in kind and in due time is a better alternative. Of course keeping Israel on high alert via rhetoric and verbal threats can be a smart strategy this time around,” Hosseini, 50, said.   https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/what-s-going-on-inside-iran-as-the-world-awaits-retaliation-against-israel/ar-AA1oNR2P? 

2024-08-13 Middle East Braces as Iran & Hezbollah Vow Retaliation for Israeli Assassinations      Iran has rejected a call by France, Germany and the United Kingdom demanding it refrain from any retaliatory attacks over the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31. Tensions also remain high on Israel’s northern border as Lebanon-based Hezbollah vows to respond to the Israeli assassination of its senior military commander Fuad Shukr. On Friday, Israel continued its assassination campaign by killing a Hamas commander in the Lebanese city of Sidon. “It’s a very, very tense time here in Beirut, and in Lebanon more generally,” says Karim Makdisi, a professor of international politics at the American University of Beirut. He says the cycle of escalation across the region has a clear cause, which is Israel’s war on Gaza backed by the United States, and that ending the violence there will bring calm elsewhere. “Get a ceasefire, everything stops.”  Democracy Now! is an independent global news hourhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrzAkEUwils

2024-08-12 Israel expects ‘large scale’ Iranian attack  Israel is expecting a ‘large scale’ Iranian attack and Hezbollah has evacuated its Beirut headquarters in anticipation of an all-out war with Israel.  Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant told US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin that Iran was making preparations for a large-scale military attack on Israel during a phone call on Sunday, Axios News reporter Barack Ravid wrote on X.    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/israel-expects-large-scale-iranian-attack/ar-AA1oELDf?

2024-08-12 Keir Starmer warns Iran to ‘refrain from attacking Israel’ The Prime Minister tonight urged the Iranian president to refrain from attacking Israel, amid warnings from the US that the country could launch a significant attack on Israel within days.

Speaking to Masoud Pezeshkian, Sir Keir Starmer warned of ‘a serious risk of miscalculation’, Downing Street said.   A Number 10 spokeswoman said: ‘(The Prime Minister) called on Iran to refrain from attacking Israel, adding that war was not in anyone’s interests.’   Mr Pezeshkian, who has been in office for barely a month, is considered a reformist, but vowed to make Israel ‘regret’ an air strike on Tehran that killed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.   https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/keir-starmer-warns-iran-to-refrain-from-attacking-israel/ar-AA1oGoPr?

2024-08-09 Iran vs Israel vs Hezbollah: Who makes the first move to war? | Trita Parsi | The Big Picture S5E2    What is the price tag for convincing Iran to back down?

The US is desperately trying to keep a lid on the heightened tensions in the Middle East, following Israel’s assassination of Hamas chief Ismail Hanieyeh in Iran’s capital, and the airstrike on a Beirut suburb that killed senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr.

Benjamin Netanyahu seems determined to escalate tensions with Iran to the brink of war, largely to keep himself in power.

Iran, meanwhile, has made it very clear that war is the last thing it wants. But after Israel’s attack on its embassy in April that pushed it to launch hundreds of retaliatory drones as a deterrent against further attacks, Iran finds itself again in the spotlight.   What will it decide to do?

This week on The Big Picture Podcast, we sit down with political analyst Trita Parsi to talk about what each party really wants to achieve from a confrontation, and what it would take for Iran to save face without escalating into all out war.  Paris was the founder and former president of the Iranian-American National Council and is currently the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

The frightening reality is – even if no one really wants a war – we may be just one tiny miscalculation away from a point of no return. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w923G8Fe58

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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict

Palestine and Israel

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Specific Issues Index

from Creating Better World

International Solidarity Movement

Updated 2024-08-26

2024-07-15 Palestine Post: West Bank International Solidarity Movement Activists Return to Bay Area     On today’s show we get a report from four Bay Area activists who just returned from the West Bank doing protective presence work with the International Solidarity Movement, an attempt to deter Israel’s continued colonial land grabs in the area, where the zionist state has taken more Palestinian land in the past 9 months than in any similar time period since the early 1990s.

The International Solidarity Movement, or ISM, brings in volunteers from around the world to offer what they call a protective presence, that is, to spend time in endangered Palestinian areas, with a hope that the international presence could prevent zionist attacks.

The ISM is building up its protective presence now in the West Bank, and a group of Bay Area activists have just returned from doing that work in the West Bank areas of Massafer Yatta, and in the Jordan Valley.   That group joins us this morning, using pseudonyms or first names only, because being identified as ISM activists risks being prevented from continuing the work.

Our guests are Bella, Ossa, Nina and Maria.   Check out the International Solidarity Movement’s website: https://palsolidarity.org/    Follow ISM on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ismpalestine/  https://kpfa.org/episode/law-disorder-july-15-2024/

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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict

Palestine and Israel

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Specific Issues Index

from Creating Better World

Haniyeh, Ismail Hamas Hostage Negotiator

Updated 2024-08-25

2024-08-05 Bibi’s Mideast Solution: Unending War  The remote-control bomb that Israeli agents detonated in Tehran last week killed a lot more than Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh. It also killed any prospect for a cease-fire in the Gaza war for the foreseeable future, absent the cessation of U.S.-provided offensive weapons. At the same time, it also made the prospects of a wider war, directly involving Iran and possibly even the United States, more likely.

With Israel’s war on Gaza now extending into its 11th month, this is not something for which the Israeli public is clamoring—least of all a rain of missiles from Iran. But by choosing to kill Haniyeh in the Iranian capital where he was a guest at the inauguration of Iran’s new president, Israel all but invited Iranian retaliation and short-circuited the ability of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, on his first day in office, to pursue his promised course of at least some reconciliation with Western governments. By assassinating Haniyeh, Israel was also eliminating Hamas’s chief negotiator of a Gaza war cease-fire and hostage release.   https://prospect.org/world/2024-08-05-netanyahu-regional-war-gaza-hezbollah/

2024-08-03 Ismail Haniyeh killing: Netanyahu’s only goal is to set the region on fire    David Hearst, the editor-in-chief of Middle East Eye, discusses the extent to which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has advanced in creating the conditions for a regional war involving the US, Israel, Iran and the resistance movements.

Hearst reflects on Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s speech at the funeral of his deputy, Fuad Shukr, following the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh. He notes the significant change in tone after Nasrallah declared that the conflict has entered a new phase due to these assassinations, warning that Israel faces the prospect of war on five simultaneous fronts.

Hearst argues that US President Joe Biden has lost control over Netanyahu and has even less ability to prevent or mitigate a regional conflict. He asserts that Netanyahu is dragging the region into a war that Israel cannot halt or win.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsiuDTEiZOM

2024-08-02 Bibi’s Death Wish   In one 24-hour period, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved the killing of a top Hezbollah leader in an air strike on Beirut, and the assassination of the lead Hamas peace negotiator, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran. That’s one sure way of destroying the peace talks.

Of all the Hamas leadership, Haniyeh was reportedly the most in favor of making a deal with Israel that traded a hostage release for a cease-fire and staged regional settlement. Now, talk of a hostage deal is off the table, much less the regional entente that the Biden Administration has been promoting—humiliating President Biden yet again.

Since the assassination of Haniyeh took place at an Iranian guesthouse, the world now waits to see what sort of retaliation ensues. Last April, the Iranians rained down some 300 missiles on Israel, taking care to limit casualties. That attack was in retaliation for Israel’s last assassination, one that also violated diplomatic immunity—the strike on Iran’s Damascus consulate on April 1 that killed seven officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, including two senior commanders.

Hezbollah was not involved in that carefully limited Iranian retaliation. But this time, Israel is on the verge of a war with Hamas and Hezbollah at the same time. Netanyahu has managed to bring together sworn enemies of each other, Sunni Hamas and Shia Hezbollah. Unlike Hamas, Hezbollah is armed by Iran and capable of inflicting massive damage on Israel in a regional war.    https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2024-08-02-netanyahu-israel-war-hezbollah-iran/

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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict

Palestine and Israel

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Specific Issues Index

from Creating Better World

Hamas Defeated Israel

Updated 2024-08-25

2024-06-14 How Hamas Defeated Israel   Hamas has accomplished its objectives. Israel’s saturation bombing and starvation campaign launched after October 7th, which military analysts call the most brutal and systemic assault against a civilian population since World War II, shocked Muslims (and many other people) around the world. Under pressure from their subjects, the Saudis now say they will only consider a normalization deal that explicitly guarantees Palestinian statehood—something that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refuses to consider.

Biden, a self-declared Zionist and faithful supporter of the Jewish state throughout his career, now says he wants a two-state solution. He has also threatened to withhold arms, though using weasel words to justify redefining his “red line.” 61% of voters in the United States, to which Israel owes its creation and its closest military ally by far, now say the U.S. should stop supplying all weapons to Israel.

The long-ignored Palestinian issue is so “back on the table” that Democrats worry that they might lose the battleground state of Michigan and the presidency due to the state’s substantial Arab population.   Yet, the Hamas leader Yehiya Sinwar was right when he told his close associates recently: “We have the Israelis right where we want them.”

The Israelis have committed the cardinal error of warfare: underestimating the intelligence of your enemy. Of course Hamas’ leaders knew exactly what Israel would do in response to October 7th. They have studied Israel’s behavior repeatedly over decades: when attacked, Israel always responds with overpowering force, much of it directed against civilians. And they don’t care how it looks. “Hamas knew Israel would strike back hard. That was the point,” Rita Katz of the SITE Intelligence Group told The Washington Post. “To Hamas, Palestinian suffering is a critical component in bringing about the instability and global outrage it seeks to exploit.”

The IDF always tortures civilians and demolishes homes and other infrastructure at an extravagant scale. So, like a chess player, Hamas goaded its aggressive adversary into a fierce attack because it was willing to make sacrifices—Hamas fighters, Palestinian civilians, Gazan infrastructure—in order to obtain something even more valuable.

As we’ve seen recently in northern Gaza, Hamas remains a potent military force able to engage the IDF in street combat. But survival isn’t Hamas’ primary objective. Making Israel look evil is—and Israel has fallen into their trap.   https://rall.com/tag/911

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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict

Palestine and Israel

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Specific Issues Index

from Creating Better World

Green Party

Updated 2024-08-25

Green Party on Palestine-Israel    Our Green values oblige us to support popular movements for peace and demilitarization in Israel-Palestine, especially those that reach across the lines of conflict to engage both Palestinians and Israelis of good will.

We support the implementation of boycott and divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era, which includes pressuring our government to impose embargoes and sanctions against Israel; and we support maintaining these nonviolent punitive measures until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with the precepts of international law by    https://progressiveissuesblog.com/2024/08/16/green-party-on-palestine-israel/

2024-01-19 Green Party of New York, former presidential candidates Ralph Nader, Howie Hawkins call on Stefanik to resign    The Green Party of New York and about 125 upstate New Yorkers have signed onto a letter demanding Rep. Elise M. Stefanik resign from her seat representing the 21st Congressional District because of her support of Israel in the violence in Gaza.

The letter was authored by David Doonan, the former mayor of Greenwich, Washington County, and the web manager for the Green Party of the United States, with the help of Nader and constitutional lawyer Bruce Fein, according to Peter A. LaVenia Jr., co-chair of Green Party New York, who answered questions for Doonan.  

While most of the signatures appear to be average, nonprominent residents of upstate New York, if not necessarily Stefanik’s NY-21, one notable exception is Howie Hawkins, the former Green Party 2020 presidential candidate and New York gubernatorial candidate in 2010, 2014 and 2018.   https://www.yahoo.com/news/green-party-york-former-presidential-045900866.html

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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict

Palestine and Israel

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Specific Issues Index

from Creating Better World

GOP Israel Support

Updated 2024-08-25

2024-05-06 GOP Senators Threaten ICC: ‘Target Israel and We Will Target You’   Just over a week before the International Criminal Court issued a statement condemning threats against the institution, a dozen Republicans in the U.S. Senate sent a letter to the ICC’s prosecutor warning him against pursuing charges against Israeli officials over war crimes committed in the Gaza Strip.

The letter, dated April 24 and reported exclusively by Zeteo on Monday, explicitly threatens U.S. retaliation against the ICC if it issues arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or other top Israeli officials.

“Target Israel and we will target you,” reads the letter, which was led by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), a notorious war hawk, and signed by 11 others, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).  The letter specifically threatens to sanction ICC employees and associates and bar them and their families from entering the United States, which is not a party to the ICC.

“You have been warned,” states the letter, which invokes the American Service-Members’ Protection Act—a 2002 law informally known as “The Hague Invasion Act.”   As Zeteo explained, the law “authorizes the U.S. president ‘to use all means necessary and appropriate’ to bring about the release not just of U.S. persons but also allies who are imprisoned or detained by the ICC.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/republican-senators-icc-israel

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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict

Palestine and Israel

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Specific Issues Index

from Creating Better World

Gaza “Safe Zone”

Updated 2024-08-25

2024-08-13 Palestinians Describe ‘Hell’ in Gaza’s So-Called ‘Humanitarian Zone’     Palestinians living in the so-called “humanitarian zone” designated by Israel described extreme and worsening overcrowding on Tuesday, saying that as the Israel Defense Forces has repeatedly struck the area in recent months, displaced people living there have been left feeling they “could die any minute.”  

 “A tent that used to accommodate four to seven people now houses 15 to 17 people from two or more families,” a man named Karel Mohammed told the Times, and overcrowding has intensified in recent weeks as Israel forcibly displaced tens of thousands more Palestinians and ordered them to al-Mawasi.   People face “scorching heat” with very few trees to provide shade, and have access to only “primitive bathrooms,” according to Mohammed.

With Israel continuing to block large amounts of humanitarian aid—actions that United Nations experts last month said have pushed Gaza into famine—Mohammed said there is “no drinkable water, no healthy food” in al-Mawasi.   “The truth is that this area is anything but humanitarian,” said Mohammed. “Our life in these camps is like hell.”  https://www.commondreams.org/news/al-mawasi-2668956430

2024-07-17 Israel Has Attacked Gaza “Safe Zone” at Least 10 Times Since Rafah Invasion    Just over two months ago, Israel forced more than a million Palestinians who were taking shelter in southern Gaza to flee, once again, to an area it designated as a “humanitarian safe zone” — an area that the Israeli military has since attacked at least 10 times, new research finds.

According to London research group Forensic Architecture, the area in Al-Mawasi now sheltering thousands of Palestinians has been subject to Israeli attacks since May 6, when Israeli officials first delineated the “safe” zone.

The attacks started as early as two weeks after Israel forced Palestinians to flee to the area, a desert region with essentially no infrastructure, laying waste to tents and makeshift shelters set up to house people who Israel has displaced time and again in the past nine months.https://truthout.org/articles/israel-has-attacked-gaza-safe-zone-at-least-10-times-since-rafah-invasion/

2024-07-16 Israeli Forces Dropped 2,000-Pound Bombs on Gaza “Safe Zone,” Killing 90   Israeli forces dropped eight tons of bombs on an area Israel labeled as a “humanitarian safe zone” in Gaza on Saturday, wielding explosives built to maximize destruction on an area sheltering hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who have been forced to flee Israel’s genocidal campaign again and again.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the Israeli military dropped eight 2,000-pound bombs during its attack on Al-Mawasi on Saturday, striking civilian areas including a market, a soup kitchen and a water source. These bombs have the power to level entire neighborhoods or strike deeply into concrete bunkers, and humanitarian groups have said that using even one of these 2,000-pound (or smaller) bombs in civilian areas is a war crime.

The Israeli military killed 90 people and injured at least 300 others in the attack, according to Palestinian health officials. This is the deadliest of several attacks in recent days as Israel has escalated its bombings in central and southern Gaza — despite dubious reports by Israeli officials that they are supposedly entering a less deadly phase of their genocide.https://truthout.org/articles/israeli-forces-dropped-8-2000-pound-bombs-on-gaza-safe-zone-killing-90/

2024-07-14 Survivors Describe Horror as Israel Massacres 90 Palestinians in “Safe Zone”      When the Israeli army struck the coastal displacement camp in al-Mawasi, west of Khan Younis, there was no rubble. The Israeli-designated “safe zone” was little more than a sea of tents on the beach, so people were buried in the sand instead.  

At 10 a.m. on Saturday, while people were starting their day, the Israeli military targeted the area with successive airstrikes, leading to a massacre that, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, has, as of the time of writing, killed 90 people and injured over 300 others. Half of them are women and children, the health ministry says. https://truthout.org/articles/survivors-describe-horror-as-israel-massacres-90-palestinians-in-safe-zone/

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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict

Palestine and Israel

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Specific Issues Index

from Creating Better World

Gaza Environment

Updated 2024-08-25

2024-08-05 Palestine Post: Latest News & Analysis as well as the Greenhouse Gas Implications of Israel’s Violence in Gaza   We start our recurring Monday Palestine coverage discussing the latest news from the region with Phyllis Bennis, a Middle East analyst who directs the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies. Her book Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer was recently re-published in its 7th edition. Then, we explore the greenhouse gas emission implications of Israel’s attacks on Gaza, in conversation with two of the academic researchers who published a paper entitled “A Multitemporal Snapshot of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from the Israel-Gaza Conflict”. Our guests are Patrick Bigger and Benjamin Neimark. Patrick Bigger is the Research Director at the Climate and Community Project (CCP). His academic research focuses on the creation and regulation of new financial mechanisms by governments, financiers, and NGOs that try to reconcile capitalism’s environmental and economic contradictions. Benjamin Neimark is a human geographer, political ecologist, and professor at Queen Mary University of London, whose current research looks at the US military as a global climate actor and, more broadly, the environment footprints of the world’s militaries.   https://kpfa.org/program/law-and-disorder/page/2/

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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict

Palestine and Israel

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Specific Issues Index

from Creating Better World

Economy -Regional

Updated 2024-08-25

2023-11-23 Economic crises risk brew in shadow of Palestine-Israel conflict   The war has caused catastrophic damage to Gaza’s infrastructure and economy. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that over 1.5 million people in Gaza are now internally displaced, with around 778,000 seeking shelter in approximately 154 United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) facilities.

Further exacerbating this humanitarian crisis is a severe economic downturn. The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that the conflict has led to the loss of 182,000 jobs, impacting 61 percent of the labor market. Even before the conflict, Gaza’s unemployment rate was over 46 percent, one of the highest in the world.

The war’s impact extends into neighboring areas as well. In southern Lebanon, the olive trade, a key income source for many, has reached a standstill. The ongoing conflict and shelling have led farmers to abandon their harvests, resulting in the destruction of around 40,000 olive trees due to fires from Israeli Defense Forces’ shelling.  The Institute of International Finance has estimated that Lebanon’s GDP may decrease by one percent by year’s end and could plummet by 30 percent in 2024 if the conflict intensifies and spills over into the region.

Regarding the assessment of the Palestine-Israel conflict’s impact on Middle East economic stability, Yu believes the key factor is whether the war has expanded. If it has, it will have a significant impact, he said.   “If the conflict extends to involve countries like Iran, instability will arise on both sides of the Strait of Hormuz, leading to fluctuations in oil prices,” he explained. “While regional conflicts are improbable, should one erupt, it could spread from the Middle East to the global stage.”    “At present, this seems unlikely. Iran is exercising relative restraint, and the current situation remains within control,” Yu said.      https://news.cgtn.com/news/2023-11-23/Economic-crises-risk-brew-in-shadow-of-Palestine-Israel-conflict-1oY4VvCXhMQ/index.html

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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict

Palestine and Israel

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Specific Issues Index

from Creating Better World