Which countries have cut funding to UNRWA, and why?
The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), considered a lifeline for two million people in the besieged enclave, has suffered funding cuts after several of its staff were accused by Israel of involvement in the October 7 Hamas attack. The UN on Saturday said that it had terminated nine out of 12 staff over the allegations and vowed to hold its employees accountable, but expressed its shock at the swift funding cut by several Western countries amid a humanitarian disaster in Gaza, which has been devastated by nearly four months of Israel’s aerial and ground war. “It would be immensely irresponsible to sanction an Agency and an entire community it serves because of allegations of criminal acts against some individuals, especially at a time of war, displacement and political crises in the region,” Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA chief, said in a statement on Saturday. The UN and Palestinian officials have called for continued funding for the agency’s “crucial work” since the announcement of the claims on Friday. Here is what you need to know about the controversy. What is UNRWA and who funds it? The acronym stands for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. It was established in 1949 to cater to tens of thousands of Palestinians ethnically cleansed from their homes by Jewish militias from areas that currently form part of Israel. The UN agency operates in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, as well as in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria – the neighbouring countries where the Palestinian refugees took shelter after their violent expulsion known as the Nakba or catastrophe. According to its website, the UN agency supports the relief and human development of Palestinian refugees, working in a number of areas. Examples of these fields are primary and vocational education, primary healthcare, relief and social services, infrastructure and camp improvement, microfinance, and emergency response. The agency is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions apart from a limited subsidy from the UN, which is used exclusively for administrative costs, according to UNRWA. The work of UNRWA could not be carried out without sustained contributions from countries worldwide and the European Union, which represented 94.9 percent of all contributions in 2022, the agency says. In 2022, 44.3 percent of the agency’s total pledges, or $1.17bn, came from the EU member states, who contributed $520.3m, including funds allocated by the institution via the European Commission. The United States, Germany, the EU and Sweden were the largest individual donors in the year in question, contributing 61.4 percent of the agency’s overall funding in total. Chris Gunness, a former UNRWA spokesman, said the UN agency has weeks only before it runs out of money for its crucial aid work to save Palestinian lives in Gaza. More than 26,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its offensive on October 7. “My message to the Arab world, particularly to the Gulf, is where are you? Because they’re making billions each day on oil revenues. A tiny fraction of those oil revenues would see UNRWA’s financial problems disappear overnight. This unconscionable gap inflicted by these Western countries would be filled very quickly,” Gunness told Al Jazeera. “Some of the most desperate people in the Middle East are now facing starvation, they’re facing famine, and the Arab states need to step up to the plate.” What are Israel’s allegations against UNRWA staff? The UNRWA said on Friday that the Israeli authorities have provided the agency with information about the alleged involvement of several UNRWA employees in the October 7 attack. Lazzarini, the head of the UNRWA, said that he immediately terminated the contracts of these staff members and launched an investigation to establish the truth without delay. The US Department of State said it was extremely troubled by the allegations, which it said pertained to 12 UNRWA employees. The UN agency has long been under attack from Israel. On Saturday, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz called on Lazzarini to quit his post. “Mr Lazzarini please resign,” Katz wrote on social media platform X in response to the UNRWA chief’s warning over the consequences of funding cuts. Gunness, the former UNRWA spokesman, said there is a “coordinated political attack” on the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees. “The Israelis have said they cannot win the war on Gaza unless UNRWA is disbanded. So what clearer signal do you want?” he told Al Jazeera on Sunday. (Al Jazeera) How crucial is UNRWA and what did UN officials say? The UNRWA is the largest humanitarian actor in Gaza and some 3,000 of its core staff out of 13,000 in Gaza continue to report to work despite the war, according to the agency. UNRWA’s Lazzarini said two million people out of about 2.3 million population in Gaza depend on the agency’s humanitarian operation. “I am shocked such decisions are taken based on alleged behavior of a few individuals and as the war continues, needs are deepening & famine looms,” the UNRWA chief posted on X. “Palestinians in Gaza did not need this additional collective punishment. This stains all of us.” The UN official added that the agency runs shelters for over one million people and provides food and primary healthcare even at the height of the hostilities. Meanwhile, UN chief Antonio Guterres said that the tens of thousands of people who work for the UNRWA, many in some of the most dangerous situations, should not be penalised because of the recent allegations. “The dire needs of the desperate populations they serve must be met,” he said. UNRWA lifesaving assistance is about to end following countries decisions to cut their funding to the Agency. Our humanitarian operation, on which 2 million people depend as a lifeline in Gaza, is collapsing. I am shocked such decisions are taken based on alleged behavior of a… — Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) January 27, 2024 Which nations have cut funding for UNRWA? Which have not? The wave of suspensions of funding started with the US
‘War criminal’: Arab Americans rebuff Biden campaign outreach over Gaza
Arab Americans are angry. And they let United States President Joe Biden know it when they shunned his campaign manager as she visited Michigan to reach out to their communities this week. Many elected Arab-American officials, including municipal leaders and state legislators, declined to meet with Julie Chavez Rodriguez, arguing that as long as there are mass killings in Gaza, they will not discuss the elections. “It’s unfathomable at this point in time that we’re trying to talk about electoral politics with a genocide unfolding,” said Abdullah Hammoud, the mayor of Dearborn, a Detroit suburb. “This is not a time to talk about politics. This is a time for our humanity to be recognised, and for us to be sitting down with decision-makers and policymakers to talk about a change of course of what’s unfolding overseas. And it does not happen with campaign staff.” Arab-American local officials in Southeast Michigan told Al Jazeera that their constituents are furious and frustrated with Biden’s policies in Gaza – anger that could prove detrimental to the president’s reelection chances. Dearborn – home to large Palestinian, Lebanese, Yemeni and Iraqi communities – is known as the capital of Arab America. Hammoud noted that all four countries are being bombed by the US and its Israeli allies. The mayor added that Arab Americans and the broader community in Dearborn feel “betrayed” by Biden’s unwavering support for Israel. “I have residents who have had to dig their grandmothers up from under the rubble after Israeli fighter jets bombed their homes,” Hammoud told Al Jazeera. “We have residents who hail from Sheikh Jarrah in Jerusalem, which is being ethnically cleansed. What do I tell them? What is the message to them?” Abdullah Hammoud became Dearborn’s first Arab-American mayor in 2022 [Paul Sancya/AP] Michigan’s importance The meeting that was being organised between Arab-American leaders and Chavez Rodriguez was subsequently cancelled after pushback from the community, several officials told Al Jazeera. Arab Americans in Dearborn and other Michigan cities could play an outsized role in the US presidential elections, where the system is based on winning individual states. Michigan, home to more than 10 million people, is a key “swing state” – not guaranteed to vote Republican or Democrat – and it is often won by fine margins. In 2016, former President Donald Trump beat his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton in the Midwestern state by fewer than 11,000 votes. So the estimated hundreds of thousands of Arab Americans in Michigan could sway the outcome of the election. In recent election cycles, presidential candidates, particularly Democrats, started acknowledging the importance of the Arab vote: running ads in Arabic, meeting with community advocates and addressing Arab Americans’ specific concerns. In 2020, Biden released a platform for Arab-American communities, promising to recognise the equality of Palestinians and Israelis and protect civil rights at home. He also sent his wife Jill Biden and running mate Kamala Harris to Dearborn to reach out to the Arab community there. Despite grievances with his staunch support for Israel, Arab voters appeared to back Biden overwhelmingly. For example, in predominantly Arab polling locations in Dearborn, Biden won more than 80 percent of the votes, city data shows. That support helped him reclaim Michigan for the Democrats. But as we head to the 2024 elections in November, which will likely be a rematch between Biden and Trump, Biden’s popularity among Arab Americans is tanking. An Arab American Institute poll in October showed Arab American support for Biden plummeted to 17 percent after the war and some activists suspect that it may have sunken even further since then. While Arab-American advocates stress their communities are not driven by a single issue, they say the scale of the carnage in Gaza and Biden’s uncompromising role in it makes it difficult – if not impossible – to support the 81-year-old president again. “Arab Americans will not vote for Joe Biden, no matter what. That’s it. They’re done with Biden,” Sam Baydoun, a Wayne County commissioner who also declined to meet with Chavez Rodriguez, told Al Jazeera. “That’s the bottom line. Joe Biden is not going to be able to regain the trust of the Arab-American community.” Biden’s support for Israel Biden has provided unconditional political and financial support to Israel since it started its war on Gaza on October 7. The president is requesting more than $14bn in additional aid for the US ally and the White House is still working with Congress to secure the funds. Moreover, Palestinian rights advocates have accused him of contributing to the dehumanisation of Palestinians. In October, Biden described the thousands of civilian deaths in Gaza as “the price of waging war”. In a statement marking the 100th day of the conflict earlier this month, the US president focused on Israeli captives in Gaza, failing to mention Palestinians altogether. The Biden administration has also vetoed two United Nations Security Council resolutions calling for de-escalation in Gaza where more than 26,000 Palestinians have been killed. This week, the Biden administration also suspended funding for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) based on unconfirmed Israeli allegations that some UNRWA workers participated in Hamas’s October 7 attack against Israel. At the same time, Washington has categorically ruled out halting or conditioning aid to Israel, even after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu openly defied Biden in rejecting the two-state solution. Still, the Biden administration argues that it is pushing Israel to minimise civilian casualties and trying to increase the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza where the population is on the verge of famine according to rights groups. Abraham Aiyash, the majority leader of the Michigan House of Representatives, dismissed Washington’s claims that it is trying to help the people of Gaza. “‘Trying’ has led to nearly 30,000 dead, massive destruction of civilian infrastructure and a more emboldened far-right, fascist government in Israel. So if the United States is ‘trying’, I would be afraid of what it would look like if the US wasn’t trying,” Aiyash, who is
‘Stop killing us!’: Thousands march to protest against femicide in Kenya
Thousands of people have gathered to protest in cities and towns in Kenya against the recent slayings of more than a dozen women. The anti-femicide demonstration on Saturday was the largest event ever held in the country against sexual and gender-based violence. In the capital, Nairobi, protesters wore T-shirts printed with the names of women who became homicide victims this month. The crowd, composed mostly of women, brought traffic to a standstill. “Stop killing us!” the demonstrators shouted as they waved signs with messages such as “There is no justification to kill women.” The crowd in Nairobi was hostile to attempts by the parliamentary representative for women, Esther Passaris, to address them. Accusing Passaris of remaining silent during the latest wave of killings, protesters shouted her down with chants of “Where were you?” and “Go home!” “A country is judged by not how well it treats its rich people, but how well it takes care of the weak and vulnerable,” said Law Society of Kenya President Eric Theuri, who was among the demonstrators. Kenyan media outlets have reported the slayings of at least 14 women since the start of the year, according to Patricia Andago, a data journalist at media and research firm Odipo Dev who also took part in the march. Odipo Dev reported this week that news accounts showed at least 500 women were killed in acts of femicide from January 2016 to December 2023. Many more cases go unreported, Andago said. Two cases that gripped Kenya this month involved two women who were killed at Airbnb accommodations. The second victim was a university student who was dismembered and decapitated after she reportedly was kidnapped for ransom. Theuri said cases of gender-based violence take too long to be heard in Kenyan court, which he thinks emboldens perpetrators to commit crimes against women. “As we speak right now, we have a shortage of about 100 judges. We have a shortage of 200 magistrates and adjudicators, and so that means that the wheel of justice grinds slowly as a result of inadequate provisions of resources,” he said. Adblock test (Why?)
US, Iraq begin formal talks on winding down US-led military coalition
Currently, there are about 2,500 US troops still deployed in Iraq as part of the coalition formed in 2014 to help defeat ISIL. The United States and Iraq have held a first round of talks on the future of US and other foreign troops in the country, with Baghdad expecting discussions to lead to a timeline for reducing their presence. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani as well as top-ranking officials from both the Iraqi armed forces and the US-led coalition met in Baghdad on Saturday. The joint commission began “the commencement of the first round of bilateral dialogue between Iraq and the United States of America to end the Coalition in Iraq”, Al-Sudani’s office said in a statement. “Military experts will oversee ending the military mission of the Global Coalition against Daesh [ISIL], a decade after its initiation and after its successful achievement of its mission in partnership with Iraqi security and military forces,” it added. Currently, there are about 2,500 US troops still deployed in Iraq as part of the coalition that was formed in 2014 to help the Iraqi government defeat ISIL. The US says its aims to set up a committee to negotiate the terms of the mission’s end were first discussed last year. But as Israel’s war on Gaza ramps up, US forces in Iraq and Syria have faced frequent attacks by Iran-allied groups, resulting in US retaliatory attacks and Iraqi complaints of US “aggression” against its territory. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani at the first session of negotiations between Iraq and the US on the future of foreign troops in Iraq [Hadi Mizban/Pool via Reuters] Since ISIL lost its hold on Iraq, officials have called for the withdrawal of coalition forces, especially after a US air strike in January 2020 killed Iranian top commander Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis outside Baghdad airport. Iraqi officials have complained that the US attacks violate its sovereignty. On Thursday, Washington said it agreed with Baghdad on the launch of “expert working groups of military and defence professionals” as part of the joint commission. The three working groups would investigate “the level of threat posed by ISIS [ISIL], operational and environmental requirements, and strengthening the growing capabilities of the Iraqi security forces”, al-Sudani’s office said. US Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrin Singh also acknowledged that the US military footprint in the Arab country “will certainly be part of the conversations as it goes forward”. While the US has said the decision to discuss withdrawal from Iraq was decided upon before October 7, ISIL in Iraq took credit for the decision and said in a statement that it “proves that the Americans only understand the language of force” and promised to continue its attacks. Adblock test (Why?)
Will Israel obey the ruling of the UN’s top court?
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ordered Israel to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza. The United Nation’s top court has ordered Israel to take measures to prevent genocide in Gaza and allow in humanitarian aid. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued the ruling on Friday in a case filed by South Africa. Judges voted overwhelmingly in favour of six emergency measures that included asking Israel to punish those inciting genocide. So, how will this ruling impact Israel’s war on Gaza? And how might other countries pressure Israel to comply? Presenter: Nastasya Tay Guests: Nimer Sultany – Reader in public law at SOAS, the University of London; and editor-in-chief of The Palestine Yearbook of International Law Geoffrey Robertson – Human rights barrister and the founder of Doughty Street Chambers Chris Gunness – Former spokesperson for UNRWA and founder of the Myanmar Accountability Project Adblock test (Why?)
Why Lula has failed to address the Yanomami genocide
In December 2022, Brazilian media published photos of malnourished Yanomami children which shocked the nation. The Indigenous peoples of the Amazon had long lived off of hunting, farming, and gathering food and resources from the bountiful rainforest. But the encroachment on their lands by the Brazilian state, corporations, illegal loggers, and illegal miners has now doomed them to starvation and disease. Soon after taking office in January 2023, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva rushed to address the crisis. He visited the Yanomami community in the northern Roraima state and declared that a “genocide” was happening against the Indigenous people, blaming it on his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro. He vowed to take action and put an end to the suffering of the indigenous people. Today, a year after Lula made his promise, the Yanomami are yet to see a radical change in their lives. Despite the measures the Lula government undertook, expelling thousands of illegal miners, the crisis in Roraima state has persisted. Many illegal miners have returned and the Indigenous people continue to suffer from diseases and malnutrition. In an audio message to the press, Indigenous leader Dario Kopenawa from the Hutukara Yanomami Association (HAY) said, “We have seen many operations to root out the miners from Yanomami land and also on the humanitarian and sanitarian crisis. However, precariousness still lies in the Yanomami territory.” Indeed, the Lula government’s efforts have not improved the situation much because the roots of the crisis go much deeper than the disastrous policies of Bolsonaro’s presidency. Addressing it would necessitate radical action. A history of victimisation Like other countries in the Americas, Brazil was founded against the backdrop of a genocidal campaign led by the European settlers against the Indigenous population. Successive Brazilian rulers and governments have oppressed and dispossessed the Indigenous communities throughout the past two centuries. One of the worst episodes of violence in recent history took place during the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964 – 1985). Indigenous peoples were subjected to forced labour, torture and acts of extermination at the hands of the state which sought to take over their lands to build federal highways and exploit its resources. The dictatorship forces and big landowners introduced the smallpox virus into communities and distributed sugar laced with poison, killing many. Army aeroplanes dropped napalm on villages, devastating whole communities. Although these atrocities stopped after the end of the dictatorship, the marginalisation and dispossession of the Indigenous peoples of Brazil continued into the democratic era. During his first two terms in office in the 2000s, Lula, too, was known to pursue policies which harmed the rights of the Indigenous people of Brazil. Case in point: the Belo Monte Dam on the Xingu River in the Amazon. Lula played a key role in pushing through the project, which was completed under his successor, Dilma Rousseff, also a member of the Workers’ Party (PT). The dam flooded some 500 square kilometres (193sq miles), displacing more than 20,000 people, destroying the livelihoods of fisherfolk, devastating Indigenous communities and creating a deforestation hotspot in the Amazon rainforest. Lula’s environmental wreckage did not stop at Belo Monte. In 2009, he decided to grant land rights to squatters on Amazon land, basically legalising land grabs and giving an amnesty to people responsible for deforestation and encroachment on Indigenous territories. He also had friendly relations with the big agribusiness sector, another enemy of Indigenous rights. He gave the meat industry – known as a major driving force of deforestation – access to cheap loans, allowing it to expand meat production and export exponentially, growing its appetite for cleared land. Bolsonaro’s policies – although widely condemned by the PT – were merely an extension of the decades-old Brazilian state policy of complete disregard for Indigenous people’s rights and wellbeing. A crisis decades in the making Bolsonaro’s open disdain for the Indigenous communities encouraged further encroachment on their land. Illegal loggers and miners tied to organised crime flooded the Amazon, terrorising Indigenous communities, including the Yanomami. They killed Indigenous activists and rangers trying to protect the forest, prevented people from hunting and growing food, poisoned the water resources with mercury and other harmful substances, spread diseases such as COVID-19 and malaria and even prevented healthcare workers from reaching the communities. This devastated the Yanomami people, who hold one of the largest Indigenous territories in the country, with almost 10 million hectares. It is estimated that 28,000 Indigenous people reside there, so the following numbers paint a disturbing picture. Undernourishment, famine, pneumonia and mercury poisoning killed 570 Yanomami children between 2018 and early 2023. Just in 2022, at least 99 Yanomami children aged five and below died. In January 2023, the Health Ministry reported that almost 10 percent of registered malaria cases in the country were found in Yanomami communities, although they represent just 0.013 percent of the Brazilian population. While Bolsonaro’s actions undoubtedly made the situation much worse for the Yanomami and other Indigenous groups, he was by no means solely to blame for this disastrous state of affairs. The systematic disregard of Indigenous rights had long had deadly consequences for Indigenous communities. For example, within a year of the construction work on the Belo Monte Dam commencing, the number of seriously underweight Indigenous children jumped by 53 percent; within the first two years, the cases of intestinal parasites increased by 244 percent. Indeed, the present crisis with the Yanomami people also did not happen overnight. Lula has tried to manage it by cracking down on illegal mining, launching a special task force to tackle the issue. Many people suspected of criminal activities were arrested and their mining equipment and aeroplanes were destroyed or confiscated as seen. Emergency healthcare units were also dispatched to the Yanomami territories, as well as supplies of medicine and food. In May 2023, the Health Ministry announced that in the first four months of the public health emergency for Yanomami territories Lula had announced, 67 of the 122 registered deaths of Yanomami people were children and teenagers; most of them had succumbed to curable diseases, such as
Venezuela court disqualifies leading opposition presidential candidate
Maria Corina Machado had declared victory in the Venezuelan opposition’s presidential primary last October. Venezuela’s Supreme Justice Tribunal has upheld a ban which prevents presidential candidate Maria Corina Machado from holding office, upending the opposition’s plans for elections planned for later this year. Machado, a former lawmaker, won the opposition’s independently run presidential primary last October with more than 90 percent of the votes, potentially putting her in a prime position to challenge longtime socialist leader Nicolas Maduro at the elections. Her victory came despite the government announcing a 15-year ban on her running for office just days after she formally entered the race in June. After the court issued its ruling on Friday, Machado posted on social media that her campaign’s “fight to conquer democracy through free and fair elections” is not over. “Maduro and his criminal system chose the worst path for them: fraudulent elections. That’s not going to happen. Let no one doubt it, this is to the end,” the 56-year-old wrote on X. El régimen decidió acabar con el Acuerdo de Barbados. Lo que NO se acaba es nuestra lucha por la conquista de la democracia a través de elecciones libres y limpias. Maduro y su sistema criminal escogieron el peor camino para ellos: unas elecciones fraudulentas. Eso no va a… — María Corina Machado (@MariaCorinaYA) January 26, 2024 The court’s decision came hours after three of Machado’s allies were detained on accusations of conspiracy, amid growing tensions between Maduro’s government and the political opposition. Attorney General Tarek Saab accused Guillermo Lopez, Luis Camacaro and Juan Freites, who belong to Machado’s Vente Venezuela party, of forming part of a group of at least 11 people who he said tried to rob a military weapons arsenal last year before a planned assault on a pro-Maduro state governor. Saab said on state television that the three were “criminals”. In a post on X, the Vente Venezuela party said that Camacaro and Freites had also appeared in court in Caracas on Thursday without private legal representation or contact with their families permitted, calling it an “illegal and arbitrary” procedure. It did not mention Lopez. US-Venezuela relations The court said it also upheld findings that Machado supported US sanctions, had been involved in corruption, and had lost money for Venezuela’s foreign assets, including United States-based oil refiner Citgo and chemicals company Monomeros, which operates in Colombia. The US has conditioned a continuation of sanctions relief for Venezuela, granted in October on the back of an electoral deal signed in Barbados, on Maduro freeing political prisoners and “wrongfully detained” Americans. While the Maduro government released five prisoners, including prominent opposition members, it reiterated that those with disqualifications will not be able to run in the 2024 race. On Thursday, Maduro said the Barbados agreement was “mortally wounded” after government authorities claimed to have foiled numerous plots to assassinate him. Currently, the upheld ban on Machado could set relations back between the US and Venezuela. “The regime decided to finish off the agreement in Barbados. What it didn’t finish was our fight to see democracy win via free and fair elections,” Machado said in a message via X. Maduro, the protege of former President Hugo Chavez, has been in power since 2013. While he has not formally announced his re-election bid, he is widely expected to seek a third six-year term in 2024. A victory would put him on track to stay in office until 2030, far exceeding the 11 years that Chavez held power. Adblock test (Why?)
Cold, rainy weather making war-wracked Gaza ‘completely uninhabitable’
Relentless Israeli attacks against infrastructure in Gaza and cold weather are making the Palestinian enclave “completely uninhabitable”, the United Nations human rights office (OHCHR) has warned. “I fear that many more civilians will die,” Ajith Sunghay, the head of the OHCHR for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, said on Friday. “The continued attacks on specially protected facilities, such as hospitals, will kill civilians, and there will be a further, massive impact on access to health care, safety and security in general of Palestinians.” Sunghay said his office was also “very worried about the impact of the rainy, cold weather” which was “entirely predictable” at this time of the year. He said the weather “risks making an already unsanitary situation completely uninhabitable for the people. Most have no warm clothes or blankets”. Most Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been internally displaced by Israeli attacks, and many are crammed into overcrowded shelters where they are threatened by the worsening weather, diseases and an acute shortages of food, water and medicine. Sunghay said it would be “disastrous” if the bombardment or the street-to-street fight taking place in Khan Younis moved further south to Rafah, where some 1.3 million people are now massed in the town bordering Egypt in an attempt to evade the Israeli assault. Meanwhile, Georgios Petropoulos, the director of the UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs in Gaza, told Al Jazeera the months-long war has left 2.2 million people at risk of starvation in the Strip. “Everyone in Gaza needs aid now and the war must stop,” he said. Adblock test (Why?)
Has the war on Gaza hurt Israel’s economy?
Israel’s war on Gaza, now well into its fourth month, has taken a toll on its own economy with many industries pausing business even as a few continue to get new investments. Since October, Israel’s government has subsidised the salaries of reportedly 360,000 mobilised reservists deployed to Gaza – many of whom are high-tech industry workers in finance, artificial intelligence, pharmaceuticals and agriculture. In November, the Bank of Israel put the war’s “gross effects” on Israel at 198 billion shekels ($53bn) and pared back its estimates for economic growth to 2 percent per year for 2023 and 2024, down from 2.3 percent and 2.8 percent. In December, Israel’s Finance Ministry said that the war will likely cost Israel approximately $13.8bn this year if its high-intensity phase concludes during the first quarter of 2024. In the midst of that, experts are watching to see how business is doing on the ground. One of the industries that have continued to do well is the high-tech sector, its fastest-growing area for several years, which today accounts for close to 20 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) and 14 percent of jobs. Since the Israeli start-up scene exploded in the 1990s, Israel has established itself as the largest tech centre in the world, second only to Silicon Valley. More than 500 multinational corporations – from Google to Apple, IBM to Meta, and Microsoft to Intel Corp – operate in Israel. And while there are concerns if companies would continue investing in a nation at war, for the moment at least, there’s no evidence to say that’s a real threat. Show of support Israel’s economy is expected to shrink on account of the war [File: Amir Cohen/Reuters] Within one week of October 7, more than 220 venture capital firms, including Bain Capital Ventures, 8VC, Bessemer Venture Partners, and GGV Capital, signed a public statement to express solidarity with Israel and called on investors worldwide to continue to support its tech ecosystem. From December 17-20, dozens of senior executives from US-based venture capital, tech and private equity firms took part in the Israel Tech Mission, entailing meetings in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv between these executives and top Israeli government officials. Essentially, it was a high-profile delegation showing the Israeli tech sector support amid this war. Ron Miasnik is an investor for Bain Capital Ventures who co-organised the Israel Tech Mission with David Siegel, the CEO of Meetup.com. “We are longtime investors in the Israeli startup ecosystem, and have made it a priority to visit the region and meet with teams there to continue to support stability and economic prosperity in the area,” Miasnik told Al Jazeera. “In the long term, we believe in the resilience of the Israeli startup ecosystem and are committed to not only continuing but deepening our focus on the area,” he added. Hillel Fuld, a tech columnist and startup adviser based in Beit Shemesh, Israel, pointed out that in December, US chipmaker Intel Corp confirmed its plans to build a $25bn chipmaking factory in southern Israel – a development hailed by Netanyahu as the “largest investment ever” in Israeli history. With a $3.2bn grant from the Israeli government, Intel’s planned investment is a big boost to Israel’s tech sector amid this war. In the final quarter of last year, Israeli startups managed to raise $1.5bn and “out of those deals, high-risk ‘seed’ funding was $220m in 31 rounds”, Fuld said. Palo Alto Networks, a Santa Clara, California-headquartered multinational cybersecurity company founded by American-Israeli entrepreneur Nir Zuk, has a history of acquisitions in Israel. On October 29, it acquired Dig Security for roughly $300m, then it acquired Talon Cyber Security for $615m. But the picture is slightly mixed, said Benjamin Bental, a principal researcher and economics policy programme chair at the Jerusalem-based Taub Center for Social Policy Studies. “When one looks at the number of players, one sees a decline. When one looks at the sums invested, one sees basically stability, meaning that those who stay invest more,” he said. Israeli officials face the challenge of needing to restore confidence and a sense of security – which will not prove easy – to boost investments. “Beyond a clear military and political outcome both in the Gaza Strip and along the Lebanese border, and a repatriation of the hostages, this requires a clear and goal-oriented economic policy. It is not yet clear how this will eventually be addressed,” Bental told Al Jazeera. Tens of thousands of people have been displaced in the last few weeks on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border as Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters have fired missiles at each other. Tourism nosedives Number of tourists in Israel has shrunk since the start of the war [File: Ammar Awad/Reuters] Perhaps the sector of the Israeli economy that has suffered the most amid this war is tourism which accounted for 2.6 percent of GDP before the pandemic in 2019, before falling to 1.1 percent in 2021. Both foreign and domestic tourism in Israel have flatlined since the start of the war. Across Israel, restaurants and stores remain empty. Soon after Hamas’s incursion into southern Israel and the eruption of the war on Gaza, a long list of airlines cancelled or suspended the majority of their flights to Tel Aviv, and many tourists cancelled their plans to visit Israel. Nonetheless, some major airlines such as Lufthansa and some of its subsidiaries, including Swiss International Air Lines and Austrian Airlines, resumed their flights to Israel earlier this month. Prior to Operation Al Aqsa Flood, visitors to Israel numbered above 300,000 each month. In November, that figure reportedly sank to 39,000. “War is not only tragic, it’s also expensive. The impact on tourism, for example, is a very real one and there is no ignoring it,” Fuld told Al Jazeera. Hard-hit construction industry Construction has come to a standstill since the start of the war [File: Ronen Zvulun/Reuters] Construction, accounting for 14 percent of Israel’s GDP, has taken a huge hit since
ICJ ruling in Gaza genocide case renews calls to end Israel arms transfers
Rights advocates and legal experts have welcomed the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) decision ordering Israel to take “all measures within its power” to prevent acts that could amount to genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. While it stopped short of explicitly demanding a ceasefire, the top court of the United Nations on Friday acknowledged there is a plausible risk of genocide in the bombarded Palestinian enclave and refused to dismiss the case brought by South Africa. “It’s a huge defeat for Israel — one of the biggest defeats … in the past 75 years,” said Raed Jarrar, advocacy director at Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), a think tank in Washington, DC. But the ruling “goes beyond Israel” alone, Jarrar told Al Jazeera, as it highlights countries’ legal and political obligations to take action to prevent the alleged genocide unfolding in Gaza. The ICJ’s decision in The Hague also spurred renewed calls to suspend weapons transfers to the Israeli government, which advocates say amount to complicity and violate international law. That includes arms shipments from the United States, Israel’s foremost backer. “It’s a watershed moment where the United States government is put on notice that they cannot continue their blank-cheque policies with Israel,” Jarrar said. “The US can’t and should not continue its arms transfers with Israel now.” Not a ‘goodwill gesture’ The US provides at least $3.8bn in military aid to Israel annually. For years, rights advocates and a growing number of US lawmakers have called on Washington to condition that assistance on Israel’s human rights record and international law. However, US President Joe Biden has rejected those efforts while bolstering assistance to the Israeli government. After Israel began the Gaza war on October 7, following an attack by Hamas that killed more than 1,100 people in southern Israel, the Biden administration sent a request to Congress to approve a $14bn foreign aid package for Israel, the bulk of which would be military assistance. The US government also twice bypassed Congress to provide thousands of artillery shells to the country as it continued to bombard Gaza. Israeli attacks have killed more than 26,000 Palestinians to date and decimated the coastal territory. Yet, despite reports and investigations that showed US weapons were used in Israeli bombings that killed Palestinian civilians in Gaza, attempts to pressure Washington to end the transfers or determine whether the arms are being deployed in rights abuses have failed. “We have been telling the Biden administration that this is not just a goodwill gesture” to end the transfer of weapons to Israel, said DAWN’s Jarrar, explaining that Washington has obligations under international and US law. “This is something that they have to think about very seriously because the United States as a government is implicated in these war crimes, and US officials are also implicated,” Jarrar said. “They have to take today’s order [from the ICJ] very seriously.” International treaties Rights groups have called on all UN member-states to suspend their transfers of weapons that “can be used to commit violations of international humanitarian and human rights law” in Gaza. Among other countries, Canada and the United Kingdom faced growing pressure on Friday following the ICJ’s decision. Both nations are state parties to the Arms Trade Treaty, a UN pact that seeks to regulate the flow of weapons globally and prevent them from being used in violations of international law and human rights. It prohibits parties from greenlighting arms transfers “if [they have] knowledge at the time of authorization that the arms or items would be used in the commission of genocide, crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, attacks directed against civilian objects or civilians protected as such, or other war crimes”. The UK has licensed more than 474 million pounds ($602m) worth of military exports to Israel since 2015, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW), and it “provides approximately 15% of the components in the F-35 stealth bomber aircraft currently being used in Gaza”. Pressed on UK arms exports to Israel in November, Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said the country’s “defence exports to Israel are relatively small — just 42 million pounds [$53m] last year”. The weapons also “go through a very strict criteria before anything is exported”, Shapps said, according to a parliamentary transcript. But on Friday, Yasmine Ahmed, the UK director at HRW, said the ICJ’s provisional order should push the UK government to “halt arms exports to Israel with immediate effect”. “There is NO question,” she wrote on social media. “The Court found a plausible risk of genocide & the UK has an obligation to prevent genocide & not be complicit.” There is NO question. In light of the provisional measures judgment @CIJ_ICJ, the 🇬🇧 must halt arms exports to Israel with immediate effect @David_Cameron @KemiBadenoch The Court found a plausible risk of genocide & the UK has an obligation to prevent genocide & not be complicit — Yasmine Ahmed (@YasmineAhmed001) January 26, 2024 That obligation stems from the UN’s 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide — commonly known as the Genocide Convention. The US, the UK and Canada are among 153 countries that are parties to the treaty. It confirms “that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish”. South Africa invoked this “obligation to prevent genocide” when it brought its case to the ICJ, and the court on Friday recognised that it had standing under the Genocide Convention. The treaty also states that “complicity in genocide” is punishable. “If you’re supplying arms to a country where you know the arms may be used for criminal purposes, then you may become complicit in those crimes,” said Geoffrey Nice, a UK lawyer who led the prosecution of Slobodan Milosevic at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. “And it’s very hard not to become complicit after a certain stage of