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Friday evening, the U.S. State Department released a statement: “Opposing International Criminal Court Attempts to Affirm Territorial Jurisdiction Over the Palestinian Situation.”

JOHN QUIGLEY, quigley.2@osu.edu
Professor emeritus of international law at Ohio State University, Quigley’s books include The Statehood of Palestine: International Law in the Middle East Conflict and The International Diplomacy of Israel’s Founders: Deception at the United Nations in the Quest for Palestine (both Cambridge University Press).

He said today: “The United States bucks the international consensus by claiming that Palestine is not a state. The U.S. opposition to an investigation into war crimes committed in Palestine hinders the International Criminal Court in preventing such crimes. The decision by the pre-trial chamber to allow an investigation to proceed will allow the Prosecutor to investigate crimes committed by both sides. One of the war crimes the Prosecutor seeks to investigate is the transfer of civilians to Israeli settlements in the Palestine territory that Israel occupies. That activity is defined as a crime in international law, because a belligerent occupant does not gain a right to move its own people into the territory it occupies. The actions of Israeli officials in regard to the settlements is almost universally regarded as a war crime. The International Criminal Court is the only international institution that has jurisdiction to investigate this crime. It has that jurisdiction because Palestine, as a state, is party to the Statute of the International Criminal Court. The fact that the United States does not consider Palestine to be a state does not keep the International Criminal Court from taking jurisdiction. An investigation will now be able to proceed.”

Also see recent accuracy.org news release: “Desmond Tutu: Biden Should End Israeli Nuclear Cover-up and Save Billions.”

The Biden administration is pressuring concessions from Iran regarding a renewed nuclear deal. Iran, which has no nuclear weapons, is under sanction by the U.S. government. Meanwhile, the administration is expected to sign secret letters that it will not acknowledge Israel’s nuclear arsenal, facilitating the continuation of billions of U.S. dollars to Israel.

On New Year’s Eve, The Guardian published a piece by Archbishop Desmond Tutu titled “Joe Biden Should End the U.S. Pretence over Israel’s ‘Secret’ Nuclear Weapons: The cover-up has to stop — and with it, the huge sums in aid for a country with oppressive policies towards Palestinians.”
Tutu, a Nobel peace laureate, is a former archbishop of Cape Town and, from 1996 to 2003, was chair of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

The piece states: “Every recent U.S. administration has performed a perverse ritual as it has come into office. All have agreed to undermine U.S. law by signing secret letters stipulating they will not acknowledge something everyone knows: that Israel has a nuclear weapons arsenal. …

“Israel in fact is a multiple nuclear weapons proliferator.” In addition to its own acquisition of nuclear weapons, “there is overwhelming evidence that it offered to sell the apartheid regime in South Africa nuclear weapons in the 1970s and even conducted a joint nuclear test. The U.S. government tried to cover up these facts. …

“Amendments by former Senators Stuart Symington and John Glenn to the Foreign Assistance Act ban U.S. economic and military assistance to nuclear proliferators and countries that acquire nuclear weapons. … Another U.S. statute, the Leahy law, prohibits US military aid to governments that systematically violate human rights.”

Instead of applying the rule of law, Tutu wrote, “there has been an oral agreement since President Richard Nixon to accept Israel’s ‘nuclear ambiguity’ — effectively to allow Israel the power that comes with nuclear weapons without the responsibility. And since President Bill Clinton, according to the New Yorker magazine, there have been these secret letters. …

“The incoming Biden administration should forthrightly acknowledge Israel as a leading state sponsor of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East and properly implement U.S. law. …

“South Africa learned that it could only have real peace and justice by having truth that would lead to reconciliation. But none of those will come unless truth is faced squarely — and there are few truths more critical to face than a nuclear weapons arsenal in the hands of an apartheid government.”

Available for interviews:

RONNIE KASRILS, rkasrils@gmail.com
Kasrils was Minister for Intelligence Services in South Africa from 2004 to 2008 and was a leading member of the African National Congress during the apartheid era. He wrote the piece “I Fought South African Apartheid. I See the Same Brutal Policies in Israel” for The Guardian.

GRANT F. SMITH,, gsmith@irmep.org, @IRmep
Smith is director of the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy. He recently wrote the piece “Biden Could Reverse Six Harmful Israel Policies… With the Only Power That Stops Israel’s Lobby.” He notes: “Publicly known cumulative U.S. foreign assistance (excluding intelligence support and other covert funding) to Israel is on track to reach $295 billion.”

The Guardian just published a piece by Archbishop Desmond Tutu titled “Joe Biden Should End the U.S. Pretence over Israel’s ‘Secret’ Nuclear Weapons: The cover-up has to stop — and with it, the huge sums in aid for a country with oppressive policies towards Palestinians.”

Tutu, a Nobel peace laureate, is a former archbishop of Cape Town and, from 1996 to 2003, was chair of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

The piece states: “Every recent U.S. administration has performed a perverse ritual as it has come into office. All have agreed to undermine U.S. law by signing secret letters stipulating they will not acknowledge something everyone knows: that Israel has a nuclear weapons arsenal.

Part of the reason for this is to stop people focusing on Israel’s capacity to turn dozens of cities to dust. This failure to face up to the threat posed by Israel’s horrific arsenal gives its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, a sense of power and impunity, allowing Israel to dictate terms to others.

“But one other effect of the U.S. administration’s ostrich approach is that it avoids invoking the U.S.’s own laws, which call for an end to taxpayer largesse for nuclear weapons proliferators. …

“Israel in fact is a multiple nuclear weapons proliferator. There is overwhelming evidence that it offered to sell the apartheid regime in South Africa nuclear weapons in the 1970s and even conducted a joint nuclear test. The U.S. government tried to cover up these facts. Additionally, [Israel] has never signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. …

“Amendments by former Senators Stuart Symington and John Glenn to the Foreign Assistance Act ban U.S. economic and military assistance to nuclear proliferators and countries that acquire nuclear weapons. While president, Jimmy Carter invoked such provisions against India and Pakistan.

“But no president has done so with regard to Israel. Quite the contrary. There has been an oral agreement since President Richard Nixon to accept Israel’s ‘nuclear ambiguity’ — effectively to allow Israel the power that comes with nuclear weapons without the responsibility. And since President Bill Clinton, according to the New Yorker magazine, there have been these secret letters. …

“The incoming Biden administration should forthrightly acknowledge Israel as a leading state sponsor of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East and properly implement U.S. law. …

“Israel’s per capita gross domestic product is comparable with that of Britain. Nevertheless, U.S. taxpayer funds to Israel exceed that to any other country. Adjusted for inflation, the publicly known amount over the years is now approaching $300bn. …

“South Africa learned that it could only have real peace and justice by having truth that would lead to reconciliation. But none of those will come unless truth is faced squarely — and there are few truths more critical to face than a nuclear weapons arsenal in the hands of an apartheid government.”

Available for interviews:

GRANT F. SMITH, gsmith@irmep.org, @IRmep
Smith is director of the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy. He was featured on an accuracy.org news release last month, “How Biden Could Advance Peace and Save Hundreds of Billions in Funds: Will Biden Finally Acknowledge Israel’s Nukes?“

Today, Trump tweeted that he “signed a proclamation recognizing Moroccan sovereignty over the Western Sahara” and that Israel and Morocco “have agreed to full diplomatic relations.”

STEPHEN ZUNES, zunes@usfca.edu, @SZunes
Zunes is co-author of Western Sahara: War, Nationalism, and Conflict Irresolution. He said today: “The United States has become essentially the only country to formally recognize Morocco’s illegal annexation of Western Sahara, the former Spanish colony forcibly seized by Moroccan forces in 1975. Trump’s proclamation is directly counter to a series of UN Security Council resolutions and a landmark World Court ruling calling for self-determination. As with his earlier recognition of Israeli conquests, Trump is effectively renouncing long standing international legal principles in favor of the right of conquest.

“The decision was apparently in return for Morocco’s decision to formally recognize Israel, a country which is also an occupying power. Trump has similarly broken precedent by recognizing Israel’s illegal annexation of Syria’s Golan Heights. Today’s recognition of the annexation of an entire country, which has been recognized as an independent state by no less than 80 countries, is a particularly dangerous precedent.

“Trump cites Morocco’s ‘autonomy plan’ as ‘serious, credible, and realistic’ and ‘the ONLY basis for a just and lasting solution’ even though it falls way short of the international legal definition of autonomy and in effect would simply continue the occupation.”

Zunes’ piece “The East Timor Model Offers a Way out for Western Sahara and Morocco” was just published by Foreign Policy. See Zunes’ writings on Western Sahara including his piece “Morocco continues occupation of Western Sahara, in defiance of UN.”

Shortly after Nelson Mandela was freed from prison in 1990, he addressed the UN General Assembly on June 22 of that year, stating: “We also take this opportunity to extend warm greetings to all others who fight for their liberation and their human rights, including the peoples of Palestine and Western Sahara. We commend their struggles to you, convinced that we are all moved by the fact that freedom is indivisible, convinced that the denial of the rights of one diminishes the freedom of others.” Video clip.

GRANT F. SMITH, gsmith@irmep.org, @IRmep,
Smith is director of the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy.

He notes that each recent incoming administration has refused to acknowledge the existence of Israel’s nuclear weapons arsenal, facilitating hundreds of billions of dollars going to Israel despite prohibitions against funding nuclear weapons proliferators. He argues that this feeds instability in the Mideast and the next administration can save enormous taxpayer funds and help bring peace by just acknowledging what everyone knows: Israel has nuclear weapons.

He states: “The ‘Guaranteeing Israel’s QME Act of 2020‘ submitted by Brad Schneider (D-IL) and supported by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), proposes amending the Arms Export Control Act by requiring the president to consult with the Israeli government before proceeding with sales such as the proposed United Arab Emirates purchase of F-35s. A president would then have to submit a report card to Congress on the degree to which Israel’s ‘Qualitative Military Edge’ might be impacted. …

“But it is ironic that the Schneider bill employs the Arms Export Control Act and presidential certifications as vehicles for inserting Israeli oversight into the U.S. decision chain. After Israel’s illegal 1960s diversion of U.S. weapons-grade uranium from the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) in Pennsylvania, Senators Stuart Symington and John Glenn passed mid-1970s amendments to the Foreign Assistance Act. They banned U.S. economic and military assistance, export credits and U.S. support to countries that deliver or receive, acquire, or transfer nuclear enrichment technology when such countries do not comply with International Atomic Energy Agency regulations and inspections.

“Since then, Israel has continued to be the Middle East’s leading state sponsor of nuclear proliferation due to its incessant top-to-bottom illicit trafficking in nuclear weapons-related materials, know-how and technology from the United States. Israel proliferated to regimes such as apartheid South Africa. Symington-Glenn now resides in the Arms Export Control Act and requires the president to notify Congress of any proposed U.S. foreign aid to a known rogue nuclear state. Rather than comply with the law, the last four presidents instead caved in to Israeli and its U.S. lobby’s pressure not to uphold that particular section of the AECA. Presidents Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump instead executed secret letters promising not to do so as reported by Adam Entous in The New Yorker. The National Archives refuses to release two of these letters. After we filed a successful lawsuit in 2011 to release damning U.S. government information about Israel’s nuclear weapons production facilities, President Barak Obama actually passed a 2012 gag order called WNP-136 forbidding any further releases. That has limited any informed debate about Israel, nonproliferation and related policies such as QME. Other legislation promoted by AIPAC now mandates that the U.S. withhold IAEA funding if the leading state sponsor of Middle East nuclear proliferation is ever ‘denied its right to participate in the Agency.’

“Publicly known cumulative U.S. foreign assistance (excluding intelligence support and other covert funding) to Israel is on track to reach $295 billion in 2020. That is three times the amount spent to rebuild Europe after WWII under the Marshall Plan. Some $253 billion (86 percent) has been delivered since Symington-Glenn became law, while $116 billion has been delivered after presidents Clinton through Trump signed secret letters promising to subvert the AECA. …

“For a long time, the U.S. has had little legitimacy in global nonproliferation circles largely because of Israel. Today ‘QME’ has become just another Israel lobby scam for extorting U.S. taxpayers. It requires that Americans fund billions in freebies to Israel for every U.S. sale of advanced weapons systems to wealthy autocratic regimes in the Middle East.”

Grant is the author of the books Big Israel: How Israel’s Lobby moves America and America’s Defense Line: The Justice Department’s Battle to Register the Israel Lobby as Agents of a Foreign Government.

CommonDreams reports: “‘An Inspiration to Progressive Forces’: Allies Stand in Solidarity With Jeremy Corbyn Following Labour Party Suspension.” The Electronic Intifadah reports: “UK ‘Labour anti-Semitism’ probe finds only two ‘unlawful acts.’”

MIKO PELED, mikopeled@gmail.com, @mikopeled
Peled is a human rights activist born in Jerusalem. He is author of The General’s Son, Journey of an Israeli in Palestine and Injustice: The Story of the Holy Land Foundation Five.

He said today: “Jeremy Corbyn was arguably one of the most popular leaders in the West and the most promising to those who care for progressive causes. This presented a problem for Israel because it is afraid of strong leaders who express support for the Palestinian people. It was clear that Israel would stop at nothing to prevent Corbyn from entering 10 Downing Street and indeed with its strategy of redefining and weaponizing anti-Semitism, it was able to bring down the UK Labour Party and have Jeremy Corbyn suspended on unfounded charges of anti-Semitism.”

President Donald Trump is holding a ceremony Tuesday at the White House for the recent deals between Israel and the small Gulf states of Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. See “Trump ‘peace’ deals for Israel, UAE and Bahrain are shams. They boost oppression, not amity” by Noura Erakat at NBCNews.com.

A coalition of over 50 groups are simultaneously holding a protest (from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. ET) and a news conference (at 1:30 p.m.) outside the White House at BLM Plaza.

HUWAIDA ARRAF, huwaida.arraf@gmail.com, @huwaidaarraf
RANIA QAWASMA, raniaqawasma@gmail.com, @raniaqawasma
Arraf is a Palestinian-American human rights attorney and Qawasma is a Palestinian-American architect. They are among the activists organizing the protests.

Arraf said today: “The U.S.-brokered agreements of the UAE and Bahrain to normalize relations with Israel are predicated on sidelining the most impacted population — the indigenous Palestinian people upon whose land and lives Israel has built its settler-colonial state. These cynical attempts to paint arms deals and cyber-spying contracts as efforts to promote peace, while Palestinians continue to suffer the indignities of violent occupation, racism and apartheid, should be widely condemned.

“Israel’s systemic and systematic violations of Palestinians’ most basic rights must be sanctioned, not rewarded, as the governments of the UAE and Bahrain have done and as the US continues to do by providing Israel with $3.8 billion per year of American taxpayer money.”

The coalition of groups, which include American Muslims for Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, the International Solidarity Movement and the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation, referred to the deals as “fake peace plans.” They also noted regarding the UAE agreement that “within a week of the deal’s announcement, a secret clause within the deal to sell tens of billions of dollars in weapons to the UAE was revealed. On September 11, 2020, it was announced that Bahrain — another repressive Gulf country involved in the brutal war in Yemen — will also sign a deal to normalize relations with Israel, also without any concessions for Palestinians. It is understood that Bahrain would not be able to make such an agreement without the tacit approval of Saudi Arabia, the leader of the war in Yemen.”

Background: See The Real News interview from 2018 with scholar As’ad AbuKhalil: “Saudi Arabia’s Unholy Alliance with Israel.”

RAMZY BAROUD, ramzybaroud at gmail.com, @RamzyBaroud
Baroud is editor of The Palestine Chronicle, which reports on a new congressional letter “spearheaded by New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and signed by Reps. Betty McCollum of Minnesota, Pramila Jayapal of Washington, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, along with Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont” warning: “Should the Israeli government move forward with the planned annexation with this administration’s acquiescence, we will work to ensure non-recognition as well as pursue conditions on the $3.8 billion in U.S. military funding to Israel, including human rights conditions.”

Other recent pieces include: “Palestine Chronicle Explains: What You Need to Know about Israel’s Annexation Plan.”

Baroud also wrote the piece “Palestine is Not Occupied, It is Colonized,” which states: “In some sense, the ‘Israeli occupation’ is no longer an occupation as per international standards and definitions. It is merely a phase of the Zionist colonization of historic Palestine, a process that began over a 100 years ago, and carries on to this day.”

He just wrote the piece “Why Israeli weapons should scare everyone,” which states: “Israeli officials are brimming over with pride. The country’s military exports are recovering very well, despite ‘intense international challenges and competition,'” as Israel has “managed to rake in $7.2 billion in so-called defence contracts last year alone.” The Chronicle also recently published the pieces “George Floyd and the Uprising: How Israel Contributes to the Militarization of American Police” and “Speaking against Settlement Expansion is just a Chore for the EU.”

Baroud also just wrote the piece “Tearing down the idols of colonialism: Why Tunisia, Africa must demand French apology.”

The Chronicle also reports on different forms of activism, including in the recent article “Pro-BDS Store Wins Major Legal Victory against Pro-Israel Advocates in the U.S.,” which states: “Advocates for the state of Israel have suffered a historic defeat in a decade-long legal battle to sue Olympia Food Co-op over its decision to boycott Israeli goods.

“The U.S. grocery store, which campaigns for ethical food consumption, was fully vindicated by a Washington appeals court on February 20 in a legal case that is likely to have positive ramifications for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign for Palestinian rights.”

RICHARD SILVERSTEIN, richards1052 at comcast.net, @richards1052
Silverstein writes on security and other issues at Tikun Olam and for numerous other outlets. He just wrote the piece “Israel Is Militarizing and Monetizing the COVID-19 Pandemic” for Jacobin, which states: “Coronavirus is ravaging the globe right now. It’s a perfect time for the Israeli state to figure out how to expand its already vast surveillance powers.”

Silverstein writes: “As the number of Israeli victims and the first death from coronavirus was announced, Netanyahu saw an opportunity to revive his political relevance. Actually, Netanyahu acted even before the first death, which was on March 20.

“Only a few days earlier, on March 16, he asked the Knesset intelligence committee to approve the use of a hitherto secret national database compiled by the Shin Bet and comprising private personal data on every Israeli citizen, both Jewish and Palestinian. In the aftermath of 9/11, Israel’s Knesset secretly assigned its domestic intelligence agency the task of creating the database, which was ostensibly meant as a counterterrorism measure.

“The data included puts Edward Snowden’s alarms about the NSA’s mass surveillance to shame. It not only contains the names, addresses, and phone numbers of every citizen; it also records every phone call made, and the recipient of these calls, including name and phone number. It uses geo-location to track where every citizen has traveled within the country, and it maintains records of all online activity, including internet searches.

“The top-secret project was couched by Netanyahu as a powerful tool to monitor victims of the epidemic and all who had social contact with them. Few Israelis, aside from privacy advocates and related NGOs, raised any alarms about the obvious violations of individual privacy and rights entailed in both the database itself, whose codename was ‘the Tool,’ and its use to compel suspected coronavirus victims to self-quarantine. They remained silent — even though health ministry officials urging them to approve use of the database suggested that the epidemic would force the state to ‘suspend personal freedoms.'”

The Hill reports: “Sanders won’t attend AIPAC conference, accuses it of providing platform for ‘bigotry.’”

DAVID SHEEN, [in Haifa] realdavidsheen at gmail.com, @davidsheen
Sheen has written extensively on Israel. He recently wrote an in-depth investigation for The Intercept about the assignation of Arab American activist Alex Odeh, whose office was bombed in California in 1985, and the whereabouts of his suspected killers, Baruch Ben Yosef and Keith Israel Fuchs, who are extremist racists: “Decades After a Palestinian American Activist Was Assassinated in California, Two Suspects in His Killing Are Living Openly in Israel.”

He added today: “An additional extraordinary thing is that the Trump ‘Peace’/Apartheid plan gives Jews the rights to pray on Haram al-Sharif, which is the very issue that Baruch Ben Yosef (one of the suspected assassins of Arab-American activist Alex Odeh) has been singularly focused on for the last 30 years. That’s how bonkers the plan is, it rewards the extremist demands of Alex Odeh’s alleged assassin.”

His other recent pieces include “Netanyahu has long run cover for Israel’s biggest racists,” “Israel’s homophobic education minister Rafi Peretz peddles a vile doctrine, racist to its core” and “Don’t let my reports on racism get deleted forever.”

Also see Sheen’s data-driven analysis of the upcoming Israeli election at: DavidSheen.com/elections.