Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Dr Binoy Kampmark
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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 campuses…
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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 land…
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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, as…
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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 reports…
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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 expressed…
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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 issue…
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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 this…
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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 performances…
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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 for…
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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 28.…
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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 those…
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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 how…
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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 be…
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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 this…
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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, the…
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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 as…
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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 could…
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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 in…
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Apologists for rape: The Sde Teiman protests
In 2007, writer Tal Nitsan isolated instances where Israeli male combatants systematically used sexual violence against Palestinian women in the war of 1948. In essentially marking off such conduct from more contemporary practices, she relied on media accounts, archival sources, the reports of human rights organisations and the testimony of…
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The Distasteful Nonsense of Olympism
Ekecheiria, also known as the “Olympic Truce,” is a quaint notion dating to Ancient Greece, when three kings prone to warring against each other – Iphitos of Elis, Cleosthenes of Pisa and Lycurgus of Sparta – concluded a treaty permitting the safe passage of all athletes and spectators from the…
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Tactical paranoia: Peter Dutton’s Palestinian problem
The philosophy of the dunce, and the politics of the demagogue, often keep company. And Peter Dutton has both of these unenviable traits in spades. The Australian opposition leader, smelling weakness in his opponent, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, has again gravitated to something he is most comfortable with: terrifying the…
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Bloody eschatology: Israel and the next big war
The push towards an all-out war in the Middle East is moving out of its sleepwalking phase to that of conscious eschatological reckoning. A blood-filled, fiery Armageddon will reveal the forces of virtue, linking the Christian evangelicals of the United States with the right-wing Jewish nationalists in Israel. That appalling…
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Tim Walz for US Veep: Barely noticed and barely noticeable
While the Kamala Harris coronation for Democratic presidential nomination continues along its safely shielded path, her sacred status among party members growing with each day, the decision to select Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota as her Vice President (“Veep”) running mate had all the hallmarks of unbearable caution. Caution for…
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The political pretence of the US Democrats and the Palestinians
The fact that a Democrat US president currently occupies the White House has done little to ruffle the bloody and gore-filled equation in the Middle East, notably regarding the fate of the Palestinians. The ongoing ruthless Israeli offensive against the unfortunates in Gaza is certainly a worry for some Democratic…