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Warning “famine is setting in,” International Court of Justice orders “unhindered provision” of humanitarian aid to Gaza
Jordan Shilton, WSWS, Mar 29 2024

The International Court of Justice issued a ruling Thursday ordering Israel to provide urgently needed humanitarian aid to Gaza’s desperate 2.3 million inhabitants. The ruling, which starkly declares that “famine is setting in” for the Palestinians, amounts to a damning indictment of Israel’s far-right Netanyahu government and its imperialist backers in Washington and Europe. The ICJ first ordered Israel to adopt interim measures in January after South Africa brought a complaint alleging the commission of genocide in Gaza. South Africa’s presentation to the court was a devastating exposure of the genocide, demonstrating with reference to statements by senior Israeli government officials, and the brutality of military operations in Gaza, the Zionist regime’s intent to eliminate the Palestinians. Israel was ordered, among other things, to increase aid deliveries and do more to reduce civilian casualties within a month. Thursday’s ruling declared:

The catastrophic living conditions of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have deteriorated further, in particular in view of the prolonged and widespread deprivation of food and other basic necessities to which the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been subjected. Palestinians in Gaza are no longer facing only a risk of famine, as noted in the order of 26 January 2024, but that famine is setting in.

The ICJ also warned Israel to ensure that the IOF “does not commit acts” in violation of the Genocide Convention, “including by preventing, through any action, the delivery of urgently needed humanitarian assistance.” Given the undeniable fact that Israel has systematically blocked aid deliveries into Gaza, and massacred Palestinians trying to access food from the few shipments that have made it through, the Court’s statement implicitly accuses Israel of committing genocidal actions.

Earlier Thursday, UNRWA noted that “the clock is ticking fast towards famine” and complained about the inability of its aid shipments to reach northern Gaza. Responding to the court ruling, South Africa’s Presidency issued a statement declaring:

The fact that Palestinian deaths are not solely caused by bombardment and ground attacks, but also by disease and starvation, indicates a need to protect the group’s right to exist. The most effective way to uphold this right is through prevention. The court’s actions include specific responsibilities to prevent genocide.

At least 27 children have died due to malnutrition, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. A five-year-old boy became the latest reported victim Thursday at Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza, where medical staff report a steady stream of malnourished patients. Describing a malnourished infant in his care, a nurse at the facility told Al Jazeera:

You can tell that her age doesn’t match her weight. She’s two months old and yet she’s only two kilos and a bit. We got used to receiving such cases in large numbers every day. They often result in death.

Israel is not only denying food, water, electricity and medical supplies to the Palestinians, but also continuing to deliberately target hospitals across the enclave. The World Health Organisation reported Thursday that just 10 out of 36 hospitals are partially functioning. The latest hospital to cease operating was the al-Amal hospital in Khan Younis, which IDF soldiers surrounded on Tuesday before ordering everyone to leave. The al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, the largest in Gaza, has been under a 10-day siege by the IDF, which has killed at least 200 people during the bloody operation. Among the latest casualties was the journalist Muhammad Abu Sakhil, who was targeted by the IDF. Conditions at those hospitals still functioning are miserable. According to Al Jazeera, al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir el-Ballah has 800 patients but only 160 beds.

The hellish nightmare facing Gaza’s population is the result of the unreserved support given by US imperialism and its European allies to Israel’s genocide. The US, Germany, Britain and France have supplied the bombs and military equipment with which the IDF has transformed Gaza into a killing zone. Amid an eruption of global outrage over the genocide, these same governments have viciously cracked down on all opposition to Israel’s war crimes, smearing protesters as “antisemites” and criminalising demonstrations outright.

The imperialist powers’ complicity in the genocide has been underscored once again by Monday’s adoption of a “non-binding” UNSCR calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, and the events that followed. Bluntly admitting that Washington’s decision to abstain in the vote so that the resolution could pass was nothing more than a public relations stunt to assuage popular anger, NSC spox Adm (Retd) John Kirby stated that the resolution would have “no impact at all” on Israel’s military operations. This fact has even been acknowledged by Netanyahu, who initially showed his displeasure at Washington’s abstention by canceling a meeting of Israeli officials with the Biden administration to plot the invasion of Rafah. On Thursday, Netanyahu’s office confirmed it had reversed course and that the meeting was now being rescheduled.

Israel has continued to bombard Rafah following the UNSCR without interruption. Citing a local resident, Reuters reported that four houses were struck during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday. On Thursday, at least 12 Palestinians were killed when another house was hit. MSF international president Christos Christou told AFP:

We haven’t seen any change after this resolution on the ground. We haven’t seen any impact in…people’s lives there every day.

Meanwhile, Israel’s channel 12 reported late Wednesday that preparations for assaulting Rafah continue unabated. The army is planning to “deal with tunnels, attack command rooms, and houses where Hamas leaders are hiding.” Taking note of Defence Minister Yoav Gallant’s visit to Washington, where he engaged in two days of talks with Biden administration officials, Channel 12 continued:

Defense Minister Galant is coordinating the military operation in Rafah with his counterparts in Washington.

The report noted that Netanyahu has ordered the purchase of 40k tents from China ostensibly as part of “dealing with the civilian population residing in Rafah.” To describe this as a drop in the bucket under conditions in which over 1.5 million people are crammed into the enclave’s southernmost city would be generous. During a visit of US congress-people to Israel Thursday, President Isaac Herzog praised the “unbreakable bond” between the US and Israel. declaring:

We share the same objective of eliminating terror.

The impending assault on Rafah, backed to the hilt by the imperialist powers, threatens to take Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians to a new and even bloodier level. Washington supports intensifying the mass slaughter because it views Israel’s “final solution” of the Palestinian question as a key part of its preparations for a region-wide war targeting Iran. Washington hopes through such a conflict to consolidate its dominance over the energy-rich and strategically important Middle East. The immediate danger of an expansion of the conflict was underlined Thursday when the IDF announced a “surprise” exercise including all of its units in the north to prepare for a potential war in Lebanon. A further deepening of the calamity facing Gaza’s population can be prevented only by the independent political mobilisation of the international working class.

The mass protests against the genocide involving millions of people that swept the globe over recent months demonstrates the widespread hostility to genocide and imperialist war. But these events have also demonstrated the bankruptcy of the protests’ self-declared leaderships. The claim that a ceasefire and an end to the onslaught could be accomplished by applying pressure to the imperialist powers and appealing to the UN has been thoroughly exposed. The urgent task for workers and young people outraged by the Gaza genocide is to unify their struggle with the powerful eruption of workers’ struggles in every major country over deteriorating working and living conditions in order to build an international anti-war movement led by the working class. This movement must base itself on a socialist and internationalist programme to put an end to capitalism, the source of imperialist war and genocide.

Accelerated US protectionism rooted in preparations for war
Nick Beams, WSWS, Mar 2024

Almost every day there is an escalation of US protectionist measures, perhaps more accurately characterised as economic warfare, not just against China, designated as a “strategic competitor,” but also against American allies. New technologies, associated with the development of green energy as well as artificial intelligence, which will play a key role in shaping the economic future, are front and centre. But older industries such as steel and shipbuilding are also involved. This week US treasury secretary Janet Yellen issued a warning to China not to flood the world with cheap clean energy products that would distort global markets. Delivered on the eve of a visit to China, Yellen said she planned to make so-called Chinese dumping a “key issue” in discussions there.

Yellen’s comments, issued with the claim that China’s actions were detrimental to American workers, underscored the total irrationality of the world capitalist system in which every major power seeks to advance its profit interests against its rivals, no matter what the consequences. Under conditions where the world is facing an ever-deepening crisis resulting from global warming, rationality and reason would suggest that the capacity of China to produce green energy products at a lower cost would be welcomed. Not so, in a system where everything is subordinated to the demands of corporations for increased profit and the national interests of the imperialist powers. Yellen declared that China’s “overcapacity” in the supply of clean energy products such as solar panels, electric vehicles, the lithium-ion batteries, that is ability to produce these products in greater quantity and at a lower cost than US corporations, “distorts global prices and productions and hurts American workers.”

Her invocation of the interests of American workers is bogus. It is directed towards the trade union bureaucracy and its reactionary nationalist campaign to subordinate the working class to the central concern of the Biden administration, the protection of US corporate profit and the geostrategic interests of the imperialist state. The US measures on clean energy are not just directed against China. The Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, which involves huge tax breaks and subsidies to US corporations which develop green energy projects, has been widely criticised by its European allies as protectionist. The legislation is based on exactly what the US accuses China of doing, that is, providing state subsidies to corporations to aid their struggle to win greater market share.

And more than that, the protectionism is intimately bound up with the escalation of war, which is at the very centre of US foreign policy. The ongoing and ever-extending bans on the export of high-tech computer chips and other technologies to China is aimed at trying to thwart its economic development, which the US regards as the greatest threat to its economic development. The immediate connection of these measures to war preparations is exemplified in the fact that the bans are being invoked on the grounds of “national security.” In February Biden directed the commerce department to begin an investigation into whether Chinese “connected” vehicles, including electric cars, posed a security risk to the US because they were akin to a “smart phone on wheels.” Announcing the investigation he said:

China’s policies could flood our markets with its vehicles, posing risks to our national security. I’m not going to let that happen on my watch.

The protectionist measures go beyond high-tech industries. Earlier this month, Biden declared his opposition to the proposed $14.9b purchase of US Steel by the Japanese firm Nippon Steel, organised last December, saying it was “vital” the company remained “domestically owned and operated.” The deal is under investigation by the Committee for Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS) which examines foreign investment deals for national security threats. It had been expected that CFIUS would clear the deal but with Biden’s intervention that has been called into question. According to Emily Kilcrease, a CFIUS expert at the Center for a New American Security, Biden’s statement opposing the deal meant:

CFIUS is potentially in the uncomfortable position of having to reverse engineer their risk assessment to fit a politically determined outcome.

Biden’s intervention came in response to pressure from the United Steelworkers union bureaucracy. It has been active on another front as well and, together with other unions, has called on the president to open an investigation into alleged unfair economic practices by China in ship building. The unions are reported to have lodged a petition with the US Trade Representative under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act, the legislation used by former president Trump in launching trade war measures against China in 2018. A comment published in the Financial Times earlier this month by Michael Strain, a leading figure in the right-wing free market American Enterprise Institute, focused attention on the Nippon Steel takeover and the departure from what used to be the policy of key sections of the US ruling class. Strain was not opposed to the US war drive against China. His concern is that Biden’s actions are weakening its position. He wrote:

An American president opposing investment by a staunch ally in a US manufacturing company is a sign that protectionism has run amok. Japan is an increasingly important Pacific ally as the US’s relationship with China becomes more adversarial. Biden should be using economic policy to strengthen this partnership, not to weaken it by treating a Japanese company as a security threat.

Citing the statement by Trump that he would block the Nippon deal instantaneously should he become president, Strain said this was an example of the “Biden-Trump consensus against sound economic policy.” If what was regarded as “sound policy” in the past has gone by the board, as it clearly has, there must be deeper reasons beyond the proclivities and personalities of Trump and Biden and their efforts to drum up electoral support with the bogus claim they are “protecting” American workers. The driving forces of the protectionism, invoked on the basis of “national security,” are rooted in the protracted decline of US capitalism that has now reached a critical turning point. Increasingly, the US ruling class sees no way out of its historic crisis other than the turn to the one area in which it remains dominant—the use of military might. For class-conscious workers, the crucial and immediate issue is to warn their co-workers that the nationalist program of the trade unions is aimed at tying the working class the catastrophe of world war, with potential nuclear consequences threatening civilisation itself, and develop the fight for a socialist program as the only viable way forward.

Germany’s children to be schooled for war once again
Philipp Frisch, WSWS, Mar 29 2024

The war mania of Germany’s coalition government has not spared schools. Education Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger (Liberal Democrat, FDP) is planning to systematically school the younger generation for war. She is determined to implement the “new era,” meaning the militarisation of society as a whole, and in the education sector as well. Stark-Watzinger told the Funke media group newspapers that it was necessary to prepare society for crises. “Civil defence,” which ranged “from a pandemic to natural disasters to war,” belonged “in schools,” she said. The so-called new era in German politics had “changed a lot,” and the aim must be to “strengthen our resilience” and “make young people strong for the future.” The education minister makes no secret of the fact that this is not really about natural disasters or pandemics, which the government has long since given up combating. “The Russian war of aggression against Ukraine and the associated turning point” must “naturally be a topic in lessons.” This also included normalising the presence of the military in schools. A “relaxed relationship with the Bundeswehr” was necessary. To this end, “young officers should come into schools” to explain to pupils “what the Bundeswehr does for our security.” As a reservist, she even was prepared “in principle” to take up arms herself.

Politicians, the media and educational organisations have reacted to this militaristic agitation with a mixture of open enthusiasm and attempts to play down the significance of Stark-Watzinger’s comments. The warmongering and spiteful tirade published by Alan Posener in Die Zeit under the title “Bundeswehr into schools? Yes, please!” declared:

It’s not a sign of militarism if you can spell ‘howitzer’ or calculate how long the Ukrainian army can hold out if it needs 1m artillery shells next year, but the EU only produces 300k.

The German Teachers’ Association does not think the government’s plans go far enough. Association president Stefan Düll said:

This declaration of intent from the education minister is not enough. Now the Ukraine war and the pan-European, even global threat situation must be taught in politics lessons. The war is creating a new awareness of military threats, which must also be taught in schools.

In an interview with the tabloid Bild, he took a stand against an “atmosphere of peace, joy and pancakes.” The chairman of the Bavarian Association of Secondary School Teachers, Ulrich Babl, told Bayrischer Rundfunk:

Putin’s war of aggression against Ukraine has mercilessly demonstrated that military conflicts also directly affect our society and therefore the lives of pupils.

However, spreading panic unnecessarily and “giving pupils gas masks and making them do exercises” was nonsense. Such comments are no less dangerous than openly calling for lessons in war. Instead of trivialising the dangers, it is necessary to issue a clear warning about what is really going on: the government’s plans pose an enormous threat to the population. Since Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) announced his “new era” following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which NATO had deliberately provoked with its aggressive expansion to the east, and thus put long-held armament plans into practice, the ruling class has been advancing on its pro-war course at breathtaking speed. Not a day goes by without calls for more weapons for the slaughter in Eastern Europe and new plans for more direct involvement in the war.

Last week, Economics Minister and Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck (Greens) called for Germany to prepare for a “land war” in Europe. A few weeks ago, Defence Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) called for a return to compulsory military service based on the Scandinavian model in order to make Germany “fit for war.” If the Scandinavian model were extrapolated to the German population, millions would be forced to go to war. In January, Pistorius declared that he expected a war against Russia in “a period of five to eight years.” Who would fight in this war?—the generation attending school today. After helping to systematically expend Ukrainian youth on the front line, and supporting the slaughter in Gaza, the government coalition is now turning its attention to youth in Germany. They are to serve as cannon fodder in the race to redivide the world, to fight and die—from Ukraine to the Hindu Kush and Southeast Asia to the “land war” in Europe. The foundations for this madness are to be laid through militaristic education at school.

The murky traditions of this militaristic initiative are well known, not least to pupils themselves in Germany. In history lessons, they still learn how militarism and the fight against opponents of war contaminated the entire society of the German Reich. The education of blind obedience to the Kaiser and the military pervades the accounts of pupils at the time. Today’s schoolchildren also learn how even the youngest members of the Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls were deprived of their youth for Hitler’s plans of conquest and annihilation. The return of German militarism is not limited to schools. Back in 2013, in its strategy paper “New Power, New Responsibility,” the government-affiliated German Institute for International and Security Affairs announced:

German foreign policy will continue to utilise the entire range of foreign policy instruments, from diplomacy to development and cultural policy to the use of military force. We must establish a ‘landscape of thought’ that not only enables and cultivates political creativity, but is also capable of developing political options quickly and in an operationalisable form.

Shortly afterwards, Humboldt Professor Jörg Baberowski declared that Hitler was “not vicious.” His colleague Herfried Münkler described the idea that Germany bore the main responsibility for the outbreak of WW1 as a “legend.” Last month, Stark-Watzinger already called for the ban on military research at universities (the so-called “civilian clause”) to be removed. In this way, universities are to be put back at the service of foreign and war policy. These circles want the terrible disasters of the last century to be forgotten. But the working class will not allow young people to be consumed in war again. For this it needs a party that has learnt from history and formulates a perspective to stop the warmongers. The Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (Socialist Equality Party, SGP) is standing in the European elections to build a mass movement of workers and young people against war, against the expending of schoolchildren as cannon fodder at the front and in favour of a socialist society. The cause of the wars of plunder and conquest—the capitalist system—must be eliminated. This is what the SGP and its sister parties are fighting for worldwide.

Artists, museum workers protest New York City institutions’ silence over Gaza genocide
David Walsh, WSWS, Mar 29 2024

”From Occupation to Liberation” quilt

Protests by artists and museum workers continue against the Israeli barbarism in Gaza, carried out with the Biden administration’s full complicity, and the silence of leading arts institutions. The death toll mounts and famine looms for the Palestinian population, alarming and horrifying millions across the globe. Meanwhile, official government spokesmen, in Tel Aviv, Washington, Berlin and elsewhere, hands dripping with blood, hypocritically decry “antisemitism” and “apologies for terrorism.” Last Sunday, some 350 artists and cultural workers took part in an action outside the main entrance of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MMA) in NYC. According to the online publication Art Newspaper:

They unfurled a 30-by-50-foot collective quilt, entitled “From Occupation to Liberation,” featuring sewn, painted and printed designs by more than 60 artists expressing solidarity with Palestinians. The pro-Palestine quilt’s panels, most of which feature the red, green and black of the country’s flag, vary widely in style and tone.

Sara Erenthal, whose square of the quilt features two crying figures raising their hands in need, told the Art Newspaper:

The images that keep sticking in my mind are of parents holding their children, siblings holding each other, people protecting their loved ones and begging for help. As a Jewish person, it’s important that I lend my voice to this cause.

”A Cry for Help,” Sara Erenthal

ArtNews pointed out:

The vast quilt calling for Palestinian liberation also “honored the poet Refaat Alareer, who was killed in an airstrike in Gaza this past December.

The artist-led advocacy group Hope in the Art World explained in a statement:

We ally ourselves in the global movement for a ceasefire and Palestinian liberation and the acknowledgment that the history of Palestinian subjugation is upheld by occupation and US military funding. We furthermore object to the argument of conflating the call for a ceasefire to be a baseless accusation of antisemitism. We organized the protest at the MMA entrance to make several clear demands: that the publicly funded museum (1) cut ties with board members who profit from the ongoing Israeli bombardment and settler-colonial occupation of Palestine, (2) support an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza and (3) aid in the preservation of Palestinian cultural heritage sites being destroyed and desecrated by Israel.

Protesters handed out a mock brochure calling on museum visitors to “Dump the Fine Art of Imperialism.” They chanted “Free Palestine” and “Art for Liberation, Not for Colonization.” In its statement, Hope in the Art World inveighs against “an institution whose board members and endowments are heavily invested in the war on Gaza and directly profit from the occupation of Palestine.” On Mar 11, 158 staff, fellows and volunteers at the Metropolitan, calling themselves Met Workers For Palestine, delivered an open letter to Chief Executive Officer Max Hollein urging the institution to take a public stand against the genocide. The letter observes:

Since the Hamas raid of Oct 7, Israel has imposed massive destruction in Gaza. In addition to the tens of thousands of civilians killed by the IOF, most buildings in Gaza have been destroyed, including precious cultural heritage sites and arts institutions. More than 100 mosques have been leveled, including Gaza’s oldest, the Great Omari Mosque. The third oldest church in the world, the Church of St Porphyrios, was bombed, as was the Hamman al-Sammara, an ancient bathhouse in the historic Jewish Quarter. Museums have also been attacked, including the Rafah Museum, the Rashad El Shawa Cultural Center, and the Al Qarara Cultural Museum which held pieces dating to the Bronze Age. Over 200 Palestinian cultural heritage sites have been destroyed. MMA condemned Russia’s attack on Ukraine, the destruction of Kuindzhi Art Museum in Mariupol and President Donald Trump’s threats in 2020 to destroy Iranian cultural heritage sites. We ask that MMA take that stand again now. We urge MMA to take steps to better attribute and showcase our collection of Palestinian artworks and to protect the voices of staff who express horror at the massive loss of life and who lament the destruction of Gaza’s cultural heritage.

Staff members at the Brooklyn Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in New York have issued similar statements. More than 250 workers at the former institution issued a letter in November that read in part:

Israel has continued its merciless attacks on Gaza, even while knowing Israeli hostages are held there, bombing hospitals, a refugee camp, holy sites, and blocking exit routes to effectively trap Palestinians in Gaza. Meanwhile, in the US, cultural institutions have largely uplifted a narrative of recent events that erases or downplays Palestinian loss, discredits the Palestinian fight for self-determination, and dehumanizes Palestinians. This outlook contradicts the stated values of our institution and those that we personally hold as art workers, writers, and artists. We refuse to make this issue more complicated than it is: the unrelenting killing of Palestinians must stop with a ceasefire and the occupation of Palestinian land must end.

The Museum of Modern Art workers released an open letter in February which asserted:

It is imperative our collective statement clearly outlines that Zionism is neither synonymous with nor representative of Judaism, therefore a critique of the violence enacted in the name of Zionist rhetoric is in no way a suggestion of antisemitism. As museum and cultural workers, we condemn the heightened cases of both Islamophobia and antisemitism that have resulted as direct collateral of Israel’s crimes in Gaza.