Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Dr Binoy Kampmark
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Detained without Charge: 11 Yemenis leave Guantanamo
On 6 January, the Pentagon announced that it had “resettled” 11 Yemeni men to Oman after detaining them over two decades without charge at the US naval facility of Guantanamo Bay. Notice of this repatriation was given on 15 September, 2023 to Congress by Secretary of Defence Austin. Their...
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Frail egos and sandpit colonialism: Australia, the US and invading Iraq
Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard is in the news again. The release of Australian cabinet documents from 2004 – a supposed treat for historians of Australian history each new year – has been given a typically modest, calm and boringly anodyne treatment in media outlets. One topic featured should...
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Far from ignorant: The European Union, arms exports and Israel
While international law can, at times, seem an ephemeral creature, vulnerable to manipulation, neglect and outright dismissal, its strictures can surprise. The evolving body of law stripping back the immunity of heads of state for gross human rights abuses, and the potential complicity of third parties and powers in...
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Jimmy Carter, Israel and the apartheid question
The late centenarian, Jimmy Carter, occupied a difficult position in the line of imperial magistrates we know as US presidents. Coming to power in the aftermath of murderous US adventurism in Indochina and the debauching of the presidency by Richard Nixon (“when the president does it, it means that...
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Suing Antony Blinken: The US State Department, Israel and the Leahy Law
On 17 December, a number of Palestinians filed a federal lawsuit pursuant to the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) against the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, alleging human rights violations by Israel in Gaza and the West Bank. Their contention: that the US State Department has failed to implement...
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Catching Pegasus: Mercenary Spyware and the Liability of the NSO Group
The NSO Group, Israel’s darling of malware infection and surveillance for the global security market, was the brainchild of three engineers drawn from that busiest of cyber outfits in the Israeli Defense Forces known as Unit 8200. Niv Carmi, Shalev Hulio and Omri Lavie, have certainly made an impression...
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The straw man of ‘anti-Semitism’ is used to ban anti-Israel protests in Australia
A spate of incidents in Australia recently delighted Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, who has shown himself to be merrily divisive in attacking protestors acting in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza over their horrific suffering since October last year. “If you allow these lunatics to continue their protests at university...
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Bombing Syria is never likely to do anything except feed the chaos
The justifications are always the same. We are moving into territory for security reasons. We are creating a temporary buffer zone from which tactical advantage can be gained against potential dangers. We have heard and seen this all too often. Over time, these buffers become strategic fixtures, de facto...
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Finding the unmentionable: Amnesty International, Israel and Genocide
It was bound to happen. With continuing operations in Gaza and increasingly violent acts against Palestinians in the occupied territories, human rights organisations are making progressively severe assessments of Israel’s warring cause. While the world awaits the findings of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on whether Israel’s campaign,...
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The sectarian risk: Turkiye’s Syrian mission
Turkiye’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan must be delighted about what is unfolding in Syria, though it is a feeling bound to be tempered by swiftly changing circumstances. Iran’s Shia proxies have been weakened by relentless Israeli targeting and bombing. Russia’s eyes and resources are turned towards war in Ukraine. With...
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Gallic Stubbornness: France, Netanyahu and the ICC Arrest Warrants
The comity of nations, at least when it comes to international humanitarian law, took a rather curious turn with the announcement by France that it would regard Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s immunity as unimpeachable even before an arrest warrant approved by the International Criminal Court. This view was...
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Arrest warrants from the Hague: The ICC, Netanyahu and Gallant
The slow, often grinding machinery of international law has just received a push along with the issuing of three arrest warrants by the International Criminal Court. They are for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s former defence minister, Yoav Gallant, and, rather incongruously, Hamas figure Mohammed Deif. The last...
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Natural Resources and Palestinian Sovereignty: Israel’s Further Isolation
Two more United Nations committee resolutions. Both concerning the conduct of Israel past and current. While disease, hunger and death continue to stalk the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank remains under the thick thumb of occupation, deliberations in foreign fora continue to take place about how to address...
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Blinken, atrocious in a dangerous world
It is hard to credit one of the least impressive secretary of states the United States has ever produced with any merit other than being a plasterwork that, from time to time, moved with caution on the world stage for fear of cracking. On the stage, Antony Blinken’s brittle...
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Harris was Trumped by the price of eggs and milk
It takes some skill to make Donald Trump look good, but two leading Democrats have succeeded in doing so: Hillary Clinton did it in 2016 and Kamala Harris has repeated the exercise in 2024. The conceit of both of their presidential campaigns, and attacking a staggeringly grotesque moral character...
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South Africa’s memorial to the ICJ: More evidence on Israel’s genocide
The timing, as with so much in the ongoing wars in Gaza and Lebanon, was most appropriate. The Israeli Knesset had signalled its intent on crippling and banishing the sole agency of humanitarian worth for Palestinian welfare by passing laws criminalising its operations by 92 to 10 on October...
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Crippling UNRWA: The Knesset’s Collective Punishment of Palestinians
The man has a cheek. Having lectured Iranians and Lebanese about what (and who) is good for them in terms of rulers and rule (we already know what he thinks of the Palestinians), Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been keeping busy on further depriving access and assistance to...
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Political labelling: The EU’s legal stance on goods from Israel’s illegal settlements
Never let it be said that the European Union (EU), whose officials self-advertise as staunch defenders of international law, is unwilling to bend the rules. Take, for instance, the recent revelations in The Intercept about legal advice sent to EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell on 22 July on...
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Widening the War: The US Sends Troops to Israel
The dangers should be plastered on every wall in every office occupied by a military and political advisor. Israel’s attempt to reshape the Middle East, far from giving it enduring security, will merely serve to make it more vulnerable and unstable than ever. In that mix and mess will...
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Nuclear fever: Warmongering on Iran
The recent string of exaggerated military successes – or, at least, as they are understood to be – places Israel in a situation it has been previously used to: prowess in war. Such prowess promises much: redrawing boundaries; overthrowing governments; destroying the capabilities of adversaries and enemies. Nothing in...
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Israel’s war on the United Nations
The UN is an easy body to dislike. At times, it seems to be effusion without substance, a body with no backbone. It was conceived in a fit of post-war idealism, when egos were humbled and hatred was stemmed briefly. Built on the ruins of the Second World War,...
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Licence to muzzle dissent: Taking offence at flag wavers for Hezbollah
It was done for the Viet Cong in numerous countries during the US involvement in Vietnam. It was done for the African National Congress (ANC) during the apartheid era. It was done for the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Across the United States, Europe and Australasia, all three organisations, demonised...
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The UK’s suspension of a few arms export licences to Israel is craven tokenism
The UK government of Sir Keir Starmer, despite remaining glued to a foreign policy friendly and accommodating to Israel, has found the strain a bit much of late. While galloping to victory in the July General Election, leaving the British Labour Party with a heaving majority, a certain ill-temper...
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Beware the derogators as the Geneva Conventions turn 75
The four Geneva Conventions were adopted on 12 August, 1949, laying the basis of a normative standard in international humanitarian law. As Balthasar Staehelin, personal envoy of the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to China, stated at an anniversary event at the Swiss Embassy...
