Middle East conflict formation

Cole Keister on Unsplash Johan Galtung (1930-2024) February 20, 2024 IntroJohan Galtung published a comprehensive peace plan for the Middle East as early as 1971 – in the Journal of Peace Research (JPR). However, today SAGE Publications seems not ashamed to charge you £ 29 to download single articles. So here is a 2015 short summary of Johan’s insights and thoughts on the issue. While everybody is focused on disappointing Israeli election results and the liberals and progressives of this world are justifiably fearful of a future pregnant with “more of the same – or worse”, it may be useful to take a look at the solution-indicative policy proposal below, to muster an idea of what measures may eventually usher in a more desirable future. Whatever the current situation may yield; releasing the peoples of the region from the grips of structurally oppressive, culturally alienating and directly destructive violence for...

Action Committee For Call to Conscience About Gaza February 5, 2024 To be updated As mentioned earlier here on The Transnational, the “Emergency London Conference of Global Intellectuals of Conscience Concerning the Genocide in Gaza”, arranged by Turkey’s former PM and former foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu and Richard Falk, professor emeritus at Princeton University and TFF Associate since 1986 was held January 27-28, 2024. It was based on this Declaration created prior to the conference. The conclusions and planned actions from the London conference “Supporters of the Declaration of Conscience and Concerns to stop genocide in Gaza met in London on January 27, 2024. Participants came from more than 25 countries. The emergency conference was responding to the genocidal catastrophe in the Gaza Strip, and the recent interim order of the International Court of Justice. The Conference was convened by former Prime Minister of Turkey, Ahmet Davutoglu, and Queen Mary...

Photo by Janne Leimola on Unsplash This interview is one of the first outcomes of the January 27-28, 2024 “Emergency London Conference of Global Intellectuals of Conscience, arranged by Turkey’s former PM and former foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu and Richard Falk, professor emeritus at Princeton University and TFF Associate since 1986. The conference was based on the prior statement that TFF participated in and published here. We are grateful for you sharing both the statement and this important interview. The genocide in Gaza requires our utmost attention, and we must build critical human mass to get it stopped. Your help is vital. Please support TFF, which continues to deliver truthful, pro-peace public education based on decades of research by some of the world’s most experienced professionals. Press this read peace button. Thanks!

John Mearsheimer and Lex Friedman January 31, 2024 This goes a long way to explain just how close Israel and the US are to each other – and, in the Gaza genocide context, why the US supports Israel no matter what it does.

Marjorie Cohn* January 24, 2023 The Houthis say their attacks in the Red Sea will continue until there is a ceasefire in Gaza In response to Israel’s assault on the people of Gaza in early October, Yemen’s Houthi movement, Ansar Allah, began mounting attacks on commercial ships in and around the Red Sea. The Houthis said the attacks were aimed at Israeli-connected or Israel-bound ships and they would continue until there is a ceasefire in Gaza. Meanwhile, the pressure on this vital trade route is impacting the global economy as ships are being redirected to more expensive routes. On January 11, South Africa presented its case documenting Israel’s genocide in Gaza to the International Court of Justice. The following day, the U.S. and U.K. attacked 28 sites in Yemen. Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from a ballistic missile submarine killed five Yemenis and injured six. Four days later, the U.S. fired...

December 9, 2023 If you do not know of Chris Hedges, one of today’s finest reporters, read Wikipedia here. Consult his Chris Hedges Report on the Real News Network. And here is his Substack page and Hedges’ homepage. With this and the video below – one of the best and most touching lectures on the Gaza Genocide given on December 6, 2023 – you’ll understand that Hedges is an extraordinary media personality – of course, with no access to the Western militarist mainstream media anymore.

December 3, 2023 Here is a very eloquent explanation of three underlying, non-material factors that explain how the occupier has built a mental self-defence that makes everything look normal and fine. Note Levy’s three very substantial points. More about Gideon Levy “Is Gideon Levy the most hated man in Israel or just the most heroic?” from The Independent 2010 and here Wikipedia about him.

5a”},”elements”:{“link”:{“color”:{“text”:”#42945a”}}}}} –> CGTN – “The Point” with Liu Xin Go to the video too, and see the very positive comments there. People around the world are most receptive to thoughts on peace when they get a chance to listen to them – which they don’t anymore in the Western mainstream-militarist media. CGTN is one of the largest and most important global media. If you want to learn more and follow CGTN, you can go to the CGTN homepage here and to CGTN on Facebook here – 121 million followers. It was a delight to work with Liu Xin and her wonderful, kind and professional team in the studio in Beijing. Here is a little memory with her, my wife and TFF co-founder, Christina Spannar and myself. Please support TFF’s work for peace through research and public education. We are all-volunteer, people-financed and do not accept money from governments or corporations....

John Mearsheimer Unravels “Especially Dangerous” Israel-Gaza War November 10, 2023 An intellectually delightful conversation with Glenn Greenwald about the series of dilemmas the West and Israel have created for themselves. The interview was broadcast on October 31, 2023.

Gordon Hahn November 10, 2023 The world split is quickly evolving into something less like a split – if by ‘split’ one means a more or less evenly balanced division between two parts – and more like the isolation of one smaller part of the international community from a larger, significant or supermajority. Moreover, this isolation resembles self-solation, and the self-isolated party is the West. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Even before the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War, Washington and Brussels were touting success in isolating first Russia and then China from ‘community of democracies’ (even as Washington was itself abandoning what should properly be called not democratic government but republican government). Instead, the reverse is occurring. By means of arrogance and obstinance, the West, led by Washington, is finding itself increasingly isolated. The West’s isolation is largely an accidental self-isolation brought about by a series of radical policy choices...

[Prefatory Note: A slightly updated and modified interview on Gaza with Zeynep Busra Conkar, an Associate Producer of TRT World, published October 30, 2023, an important Turkish media platform. A link to a short audio excerpt: https://twitter.com/trtworld/status/1719078356577075573] TRT: Israel’s bloodlust shows international law is ‘a manipulated series of norms.’ Renowned International Law Professor Richard Falk says Western leadership becomes “self-righteous” to enforce international law “when it’s in their interest” while in other cases, they remain silent. TRT Introduction to Q & A follows. ”Many objective observers have noted that how Israel is using force against Gaza constitutes an ongoing case of genocide, which is itself considered the most serious of international crimes and deserves to be stopped by a consensus of inter-governmental action at the UN to stop this kind of extreme violent abuse of state power,” Falk said. As the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict enters its 24th day, claiming the...

Friends do not let friends commit crimes against humanity. Jeffrey Sachs November 10, 2023 Israel is running out of time to save itself—not from Hamas, which lacks the means to defeat Israel militarily, but from itself. Israel’s war crimes in Gaza, verging on the crime of genocide according to the Center for Constitutional Rights, threaten to destroy Israel’s civil, political, economic, and cultural relations with the rest of the world. There are growing calls in Israel for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resign immediately. A new Israeli government should seize the opportunity to turn carnage into lasting peace through diplomacy. Netanyahu is leading Israel into the same trap that the U.S. fell into after 9/11. Hamas’ goal in its heinous terrorist attack on 10/7 was to goad Israel into a long and bloody war, and to induce Israel to commit war crimes to bring on the world’s opprobrium. This is...