Mid-day at The Hague on Friday, January 26, the decision of the 18 judges will be read out at the International Court of Justice (World Court) in the case brought against Israel by South Africa, to stop Israel’s violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, from Israel’s atrocities in Gaza. Dr. Naledi Pandor, Minister of International Relations and Cooperation of South Africa, will lead her country’s delegation to the Court for the reading.
The initiative by South Africa is the moral conscience for humanity, acting to stop what the whole world has been watching every day with horror: perpetration of mass death and destruction in Gaza. In the last 24 hours, 210 people were killed, with the total confirmed death toll reaching 24,700; close to 64,000 wounded, and severe, unlivable conditions for everyone. Israeli fire hit a United Nations training center of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), killing 12 persons, at the latest count, and leaving dozens injured.
What did the United States say about this? It is “incredibly concerning,” said State Department Deputy Spokesman Vedant Patel, speaking for the U.S., which backs Israel with weapons, funds, and cover at the UN. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a raving denunciation of the UN, when castigating Qatar and anyone else trying to draw Israel back from committing bloodshed. A recording, leaked yesterday, demonstrates Netanyahu saying: “Qatar, from my point of view, is no different in essence than the United Nations …. and the Red Cross….”
This evil is not only in review at the world’s highest court, but is rejected by millions of people now demonstrating on the streets. From Argentina to Poland this week, and at dozens of places in between, hundreds of thousands of people are protesting from country to country, for a spectrum of differing specific demands, but all with the same, common enemy: the political-financial-complex, centered in London-Wall Street-Washington and Global NATO at large, which crowd is acting to rule the world, no matter what. But, “there is a limit to the tyrant’s power,” and that time has come.
The scale of the demonstrations in the West this week is spectacular. In Argentina yesterday, close to a million people turned out, with at least 600,000 in front of the Congress in Buenos Aires and thousands in about every provincial capital, all demanding a stop to the economy-crushing DNU (Necessary and Urgent Decree) and Omnibus law of President Javier Milei. In Germany, after the break-out “Week of Action” Jan. 8-15, the tractorcades and rallies by farmers and allies continue this week at action sites in all 16 states. There is a focus tomorrow in Berlin, and Sunday, Jan. 28, in Munich. The demands include removal of the impossible price hike for farm-use diesel and other expenses, as well as the so-called environmentalist restrictions on farm inputs, whose effect is to shut down farming.
Today is Day Two of the six-day rail workers strike action in Germany. Their demands include a living wage and upkeep on the rail system. Farmers in France and Italy are staging multiple actions, against high input costs, the killer green restrictions, lack of water infrastructure, and more. In Poland, farmers stopped traffic on 160 roadways to protest the dumping of grain from Ukraine.
These demonstrations are part of the dynamic of the mass protests for weeks, that also include those focussing on a ceasefire in Gaza, and for negotiations to end the warfare in Ukraine. The common enemy of farmers and everyone else is the exact same nexus of entities and powers pushing war and economic destruction.
The EIR dossier, “The Military-Financial Complex Is Bloated on Blood Money,” lists the transnational financial firms dominating the top military-industrial companies: BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street, Goldman Sachs, and others. Look at the top global food cartels, and you see the very same controlling firms. They dominate ADM, WH Holdings/Smithfield, Mosaic (fertilizer), and the others.
In Germany, the Director General for Economic Policy (chief economist) for the Economy Ministry Elga Bartsch is from BlackRock. Today, Economy Minister Robert Habeck, in Mainz for business meetings, afterwards had what’s called a dialogue with farmers protesting there, to tell them politely how to knuckle under to government [BlackRock] orders on how they must farm, or shut down. The response of the farmers? Dialogue, yes; agreement, no.
More hilarious, in Brussels today, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen politely staged the opening of the EU Commission “Strategic Dialogue on the Future of Agriculture,” with food cartel companies (run by the agro-financial-complex), and “stakeholders” in the food chain, such as the World Wildlife Fund, for the Green Deal. She called for building “consensus” over the next few months of dialogue. Farmers have shown their response in advance, with tractorcades this week into Brussels, to stop the takedown of farming.
Why did this has-been woman and the EU Commission start this circus now, at a time when thousands of farmers and tractors are on the streets? Besides being lost inside their own heads, it is clear: If they wait until after the June European Parliament elections, they will be trounced.
There is a limit to the tyrant’s power. The International Peace Coalition will be deliberating at its weekly meeting Friday, Jan. 26, at the same time as the decision comes out from the World Court. Join in with IPC. This is the time for all to activate for a new world system of justice, economic development, and peace and security for all. 100,000 tractors are more powerful than 100,000 tanks.
