AFTER weeks of banning pro-Palestinian demonstrations, French trade unions led the second approved protest in Paris on Sunday 22nd October to denounce the increasing atrocities of Israel.
Indiscriminate Israeli bombardment of civilian areas has reached a tragic new peak and the continuation of the illegal siege is a tragic new low in modern Western imperialism.
Top officials from around the world, including the United Nations, are increasingly condemning Israel for what they agree are clear violations of international humanitarian law.
French President Emmanuel Macron incurred widespread condemnation after suggesting that the same Western coalition which purported to fight Daesh now be used to fight against Hamas.
One demonstrator in Paris on Sunday said: ‘Why isn’t Israel just honest? If they want all the land of the Palestinians, then say so, if they want peace, then stop attacking civilians and innocent people.
‘Everyone needs to be honest about what they want.
‘And the people of every religion are, obviously, against these crimes and atrocities waged by Israel.
‘We demand that all Arabs and all Muslims move on behalf of Palestine.’
The rally came on the same day as President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Israel where he, shockingly, proposed using the Western coalition which alleged to fight Daesh to now fight against Hamas.
Macron is often called the most pro Zionist French president ever; he tried to ban the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign, and incorrectly criminalised anti Zionism as anti-semitism.
But the idea of a war on a democratically elected party caused widespread and immediate backlash against the idea that French troops would accept going to fight against Hamas,
The idea of such a coalition is totally unacceptable. Macron is using the language of a true war monger.
He has no right to speak in the name of the French people, who refuse to add his threat of war to the tragedies of the Palestinian people.
Pro Palestinian rallies continue to be banned around the nation undermining France’s perpetual boasting of being ardent defenders of the freedom of speech and assembly.
The nation’s media are increasingly reporting that public opinion is starting to shift against Israel because of their obvious war crimes, even among the political class.
There may come a point where a very unpopular president may have to pull back from his longtime stance of unconditional support for Israel.
- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced that he cancelled a planned visit to the occupied territories as a result of the latest Israeli aggression on Gaza, calling the Palestinian resistance group Hamas ‘liberators, not terrorists’.
Speaking at the Justice and Development (AK) Party’s parliamentary group meeting in Ankara on Wednesday, Erdogan said that before October 7, when the conflict erupted, he had planned to visit the occupied territories but then cancelled his plans.
‘Relations could have been different but that will no longer happen, unfortunately,’ Erdogan said, blasting the Israeli regime for taking advantage of Turkey’s ‘good intentions’.
Erdogan condemned Israel’s brutal actions and said almost half of those killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza are children, adding that ‘you will not find any other state whose army behaves with such inhumanit.’.
The Turkish president added that Hamas is not a terrorist organisation. ‘It is a liberation group, a ‘‘mujahideen’’ waging a battle to protect its lands and people,’ he said, using an Arabic word denoting those who fight for their faith.
Erdogan also slammed Western powers for supporting Israel’s bombing of Gaza and called for an immediate ceasefire, the unhindered entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, and for Muslim countries to work together to stop the violence.
He accused the West of hypocrisy for failing to respond to what he called Israel’s ‘intentional massacre’ in Gaza with the same decisiveness as it did to Russia’s military operation in Ukraine.
‘The perpetrators of the massacre and the destruction taking place in Gaza are those providing unlimited support for Israel,’ Erdogan said.
‘Israel’s attacks on Gaza, for both itself and those supporting them, amount to murder and mental illness,’ he added.
Erdogan has called the Palestinian movement, Hamas, a liberation group that is fighting to protect its soil and its citizens.
‘It is clear that security cannot be ensured by bombing hospitals, schools, mosques, and churches,’ Erdogan said in a statement last week after Israeli bombardment of a hospital in Gaza, which sparked protests in Turkey and around the world.
In late May 2010, diplomatic relations between Ankara and Tel Aviv significantly deteriorated when Israeli commandoes boarded, deploying from helicopters, in the humanitarian Mavi-Marmara flotilla, and killed ten Turkish citizens.
While the two states restored ties in 2016, Turkey again dismissed Israeli envoys in 2018 over Israel’s deadly crackdown on peaceful Palestinian protesters at Gaza’s fence with Israel.
- China has condemned the killing of civilians, amid the Israeli onslaught in Gaza and rapped Israel’s actions for being ‘beyond the scope self-defence’.
According to reports by Chinese media on Tuesday, in a phone conversation, Foreign Minister Wang Yi urged his Israeli counterpart Eli Cohen to observe international law and protect civilians and condemned violence and attacks on civilians.
‘All countries have the right to self-defence, but they should abide by international humanitarian law and protect the safety of civilians,’ he added.
Tel Aviv and its Western allies label the ongoing war on Gaza that killed thousands of children and women as an act of self-defence in response to Operation Al-Aqsa Storm launched by Hamas earlier this month.
China will do its utmost when it comes to contributing to Palestinian-Israeli reconciliation, Wang said.
He also called on Israel to take effective measures to protect the safety of Chinese citizens and institutions in the Middle East.
Wang stressed that Beijing will firmly support any resolution as long as it is conducive to peace.
In a separate phone call with Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki, Wang said he ‘deeply sympathises’ with the people of Gaza.
Wang also said China calls for the convening of a ‘more authoritative, wide-ranging and effective international peace conference’ soon.
He stressed that the UN Security Council ‘should effectively shoulder its responsibility’, and ‘countries outside the region, especially major powers, should be objective and impartial’.
That comes as the US has sent munitions and military equipment to Israel and deployed aircraft carriers to the Mediterranean Sea in a show of support for Tel Aviv.
Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime’s decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.
Since the start of the Israeli aggression, more than 5,000 Palestinians have been killed, most of them women and children. Some 15,000 others were injured.
Tel Aviv has also blocked water, food, and electricity to Gaza, plunging the coastal strip into a humanitarian crisis.
The Al-Aqsa Storm operation conducted by the Palestinian resistance killed at least 1,500 Israeli forces and settlers and injured more than 4,800 others.
