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SvennoJ on 23 May 2024
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USA:

Kenya presser: Biden avoids question on Israel ‘using starvation’ as war tool

US President Joe Biden completely dodged a question about the International Criminal Court arrest warrants for Israeli leaders over the war on Gaza. It was the very first question by one of the American reporters who asked, “Is Israel using starvation as a weapon of war?”

The president tried to avoid it, so the reporter asked it again. He didn’t answer that part of the question. What he did say was the White House believes the ICC doesn’t have jurisdiction, and Hamas doesn’t have “any equivalence” to Israel’s leaders.

The president ruffled through his notes like he wasn’t prepared for this kind of question. He didn’t respond about Israel using starvation as a weapon of war, and I think that is going to be focused on by the American media.


UCLA should have immediately removed protesters: Chancellor

Gene Block is one of three university administrators who have testified at a hearing of the Education Committee in the Republican-controlled US House of Representatives on the protests against Israel’s war in Gaza that have unfolded on American campuses over the past two months.

“With the benefit of hindsight, we should have been prepared to immediately remove the encampment if and when the safety of our community was put at risk,” Block told the committee.

The University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) was the site of an April 30 attack by Israel supporters against a pro-Palestinian protest encampment that resulted in some of the most violent scenes of the recent protests.

The university on Wednesday removed the head of its campus police for his handling of the protests, which included police inaction during the attack and arrests by state and local police of 210 people the next night.

“The recent images from UCLA are appalling. What is more appalling is that it was completely preventable,” said Ilhan Omar, a Democratic congresswoman on the committee.

“You, the UCLA leadership and law enforcement stood by for hours as the mob of agitators gathered near the encampment with the clear intention to cause violence,” she continued.

Block disputed the assertion.


US Treasury Secretary concerned about Israel’s threats to cut off Palestinian banks

Janet Yellen says she is concerned by a threat by the Israeli finance minister to cut off Palestinian banks from their Israeli correspondent banks, a move that would close a critical lifeline for the Palestinian economy.

Yellen told a news conference ahead of a G7 finance ministers meeting beginning on Friday that the US and its partners “need to do everything possible to increase humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in Gaza, to curtail violence in the West Bank, and to stabilise the West Bank’s economy.”

She said she would bring up the issue at the meeting of the Group of Seven industrial democracies in the lakeside resort town of Stresa in northern Italy.

“I expect other countries to express concern about the impact of such a decision on the West Bank economy. I think this would have a very adverse effect also on Israel,” Yellen noted.

Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has said he will not renew a waiver that expires on July 1 which allows Israeli banks to process shekel payments for services and salaries tied to the Palestinian Authority.

More than 100 rights groups call on Biden to support ICC

The civil and human rights groups have signed a letter to the US president urging him to support the independence of the International Criminal Court and ignore calls from some US lawmakers to sanction the court.

The calls came after the court’s prosecutor applied for arrest warrants against Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as three Hamas leaders.

“Acting on these calls would do grave harm to the interests of all victims globally and to the U.S. government’s ability to champion human rights and the cause of justice, which are stated priorities of your administration,” the letter reads.