RSS
The Real Genocides the World Ignores
The UN’s International Court of Justice (ICJ). Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
JNS.org – “Genocide” is a word that should never be used lightly.
According to legal scholars Amichai Cohen and Yuval Shany, the definition of genocide is “well settled” and “commonly agreed.” There is a consensus that “genocide involves killing members of a national or ethnic group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group and inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the group’s physical destruction in whole or in part.”
Despite the baseless accusations against Israel at the International Court of Justice, this is not happening in Gaza. Nonetheless, the ICJ blood libel is an object lesson in how the international anti-Israel mob works. Slandering Israel and Jews is a time-honored method of diverting attention from the depredations of others. It also erases the victims of these crimes without so much as a crocodile tear.
Here are some examples of such depredations:
Darfur, Sudan: In 2007, then-U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell described the situation in Darfur as genocide. The U.N. estimates that by 2016, 300,000 people had been killed and there was credible evidence that the Sudanese government used chemical weapons against the local population. Since Feb. 2023, government-sponsored militias have killed an estimated 400,000 people through starvation and disease. Mass rape has also occurred. More than 2.5 million people have been internally displaced and over 200,000 have fled to Chad.
Rwanda: From April-July 1994, an estimated 800,000 people—one-tenth of the entire population—were killed and much of the remaining population displaced.
Bosnia: In 1992, more than 200,000 Muslim civilians were systematically murdered and two million became refugees at the hands of the Serbs. Rape was a systematic part of these atrocities.
Cambodia: From 1975-1979, 25% of the population died from starvation, overwork and execution under the Khmer Rouge.
East Timor: During a 24-year occupation by Indonesia that ended in 1999, more than 20% of the population was massacred and 80% of structures in the country were incinerated.
Guatemala: From 1978-1983, government forces carried out massacres and civilian executions of an estimated 200,000 people. There were at least 40,000 “disappearances.” The Maya population constituted 83% of the identified victims. The event is known as the Maya Genocide.
Armenia: From 1915-1916, between 664,000 and 1.2 million Armenians were killed by Turkey, either in mass executions and individual killings or from the brutality and deprivation of forced deportations.
Add to that the horrific death counts that may or may not meet the precise definition of genocide. Approximately 500,000 Syrians, mostly Sunni Muslims, have been killed by dictator Bashar Assad’s regime, including through the use of chemical weapons. More than 11 million Syrians have become either internal or external refugees.
Nearly 400,000 have been killed in Yemen. The International Rescue Committee estimates that 5.4 million Congolese have been killed in a war that continues today, with Christians being disproportionately targeted. As of 2023, 187,000-210,000 are estimated to have been killed in Iraq and 236,000 in Afghanistan.
China gets special mention.
The country’s 1958 “Great Leap Forward” destroyed the agricultural system, causing a famine in which 27 million people starved to death. This was not directed at a specific ethnic group, so it may not qualify as genocide; but in 2021, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called China’s treatment of its Turkic Muslim Uyghur population a genocide.
Findings by Genocide Watch bear him out:
Since 2017, between 800,000-2,000,000 million Uyghurs have been held in Xinjiang’s concentration prisons, commonly referred to as “reeducation camps.” Uyghurs are forced to participate in [Chinese Communist Party] indoctrination programs in which detainees are forced to abandon their Muslim faith and culture. The CCP forbids use of the Uyghur language and imposes Mandarin Chinese within these camps. Inside camps, CCP officials subject Uyghurs to physical beatings, sexual assault and gang rapes of women.
Despite all this, the international community prefers to focus on defaming Israel for daring to conduct a legitimate war of self-defense launched only after Hamas raped, tortured, mutilated and burned to death 1,200 Israelis and carried off 240 more as hostages.
One of the most powerful denunciations of this campaign of slander came from a country that actually committed a genocide: Germany.
German government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said in a statement last week, “In light of German history and the crimes against humanity of the Shoah, the German government is particularly committed to the [U.N.] Genocide Convention.” For this reason, he said, “We stand firmly against a political instrumentalization” of the Convention.
Acknowledging divergent views in the international community on Israel’s military operations, he nonetheless asserted, “The German government decisively and expressly rejects the accusation of genocide brought against Israel before the International Court of Justice. The accusation has no basis in fact.”
The post The Real Genocides the World Ignores first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
The post Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
The post Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
The post US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login