Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Dr Binoy Kampmark
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Aiding those we help to kill: US ‘humanitarianism’ in Gaza
The spectacle, if it did not say it all, said much of it. Military aircraft dropping humanitarian aid to a starving population in Gaza — the UN warns that 576,000 are “one step from famine” — with parachuted pallets veering off course, and some falling into the sea. Military...
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Conscious and unconscionable: The starving of Gaza
The starvation regime continues unabated as Israel continues its campaign in the Gaza Strip. One of the six provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) entailed taking “immediate and effective measures” to protect the Palestinian populace in the Gaza Strip from the risk of genocide by...
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When courts intervene: halting the transfer of vital military equipment to Israel
Legal challenges regarding the Israel-Palestine War in Gaza are starting to fill lawyers’ briefcases and courtroom proceedings. South Africa got matters underway with its December application before the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide in its campaign against the Palestinians. While determining whether genocide has taken place,...
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Absence of evidence: Israel’s case against UNRWA
Statistics are often given lanky legs that take their user far. But how they are used, and how they are received, is striking. The current figure of 27,500 dead is a blighting, grotesque fact. But as they are Palestinians, the issue is less significant to certain parties than, say,...
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When times were better: Australia’s ties with Israel’s defence industry
Times were supposedly better in 2022. That is, if you were a lawmaker in the Australian state of Victoria, a busy Israeli arms manufacturer, or cash counting corporate middleman keen to make a stash along the way between the two. That view is premised on the notion that what...
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The US courts, Gaza and genocide expose the dangers of complicity
Holding the foreign policy of a country accountable in court, notably when it comes to criminal matters, can be insuperably challenging. Judges traditionally shun making decisions on policy, even though they unofficially do so all the time. The Centre for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a New York-based civil liberties group,...
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The drone killings at Tower 22 should be an incentive to leave such US outposts
The BBC’s characteristically mild-mannered note said it all: What is Tower 22? More to the point, what are US forces doing in Jordan? (To be more precise, a dusty patch on the Syria-Jordan border.) These questions were posed in the aftermath of yet another drone attack against a US...
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Freezing aid to Gaza: Israel’s international war against the UNRWA
Imperilled, tormented Palestinians in Gaza had little time to celebrate the January 26 order of the International Court of Justice. In a case brought by South Africa intended to facilitate a ceasefire and ease the suffering of the Gaza populace, Israel received the unwanted news that it had to,...
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The ICJ’s provisional orders: The Genocide Convention applies to Gaza
On 26 January, legal experts, policy wonks, activists and the plain curious waited for the order of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) while sitting in The Hague. The topic was that gravest of crimes, considered most reprehensible in the canon of international law: genocide. The main participants were...
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It’s all about me: Netanyahu rejects Palestinian statehood
Israel has been given enormous licence to control the security narrative in the Middle East for decades. This is not to say it is always in control of it – the attacks of 7 October by Hamas show that such control is rickety and bound, at stages, to come...
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Cancelling a journalist was a cowardly act by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
What a cowardly act it was. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), a national broadcaster supposedly dedicated to fearless reporting, was cowed by the intemperate bellyaching of a lobby group concerned about coverage of the Israel-Gaza war. An investigation by The Age newspaper demonstrated that the dismissal of broadcaster Antoinette...
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Bypassing the UK parliament; the royal prerogative; and bombing Yemen
There is something distinctly revolting and authoritarian about the royal prerogative. It reeks of clandestine assumption, unwarranted self-confidence and, most of all, a blithe indifference to accountability before elected representatives. That prerogative, in other words, is the last reminder of divine right, the fiction that a ruler can have...
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Israel’s argument at The Hague was that it is incapable of genocide
Israel’s relationship with the United Nations, international institutions and international law has at times bristled with suspicion and blatant hostility. In a famous cabinet meeting in 1955, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion famously knocked back the suggestion that the 1947 UN Partition Plan for Palestine had been instrumental in creating...
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Futile and dangerous: Bombing Yemen in the name of shipping
What a show. As US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, was promoting a message of calm restraint and firm control in limiting the toxic fallout of Israel’s horrific campaign in Gaza, a decision was made by his government, the United Kingdom and a few other reticent collaborators to strike...
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Israel’s butcher’s bill is growing as never-ending conflict beckons
The Governor of the Bank of Israel is worried. Amir Yaron is keeping an eye on the ballooning costs of his country’s war against the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. The government of Benjamin Netanyahu promised initially to increase the defence budget by NIS 20 billion ($5.48bn)...
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Censoring Israeli violence: Western media outlets capitulate
The cathedral of censorship is a vast, airy one. In its embrace, texts are abridged, images removed, ideas scrubbed. Historical inconveniences are filed and rendered inaccessible. The only sermons tolerated will be those satisfying and serving the dictates of power. The power Israel disproportionately wields here, notably across a number...
